Well, old mothers, too. Mr. Speaker, the member from Toronto asks, what about old mothers? Well, there were old mothers as well, but it is usually younger mothers pulling infants and children in the wagons.
So it is a facility that is used and not abused.
The member for Brandon—Souris also talked about those who are homebound and forced to stay in their homes or communities and how they access the libraries.
We need to thank the member for Brandon—Souris for bringing this bill forward to be debated, and to go to committee and to be looked at. It is going to be a positive thing when we get to know a little more about the savings from having this rate. We know the history of it. I think that when we look back to 1939, when we were a young country trying to develop local communities, we recognized the need then to work together to help each other succeed by accessing more resources for our local libraries, and that is where this came up.
I have already talked about what this means to local libraries. I think all members would agree with me in wishing that those who are watching today could see the amount of correspondence that we receive on this issue. Libraries are very good at mobilizing their users, and I applaud them for that. It helps us to represent them when we know the significance of legislation such as the bill we are debating today.
I want to go over some of the points that have been raised already. There are over 2,000 libraries throughout this country that use the book rate. One million Canadians benefit from this service annually. It is an important part of the service that the libraries offer to the public. It is important for the moms and other people who frequent the libraries. Let me also say that academically, this is also a very important bill because this is going to ensure that rural libraries that may be part of a local school can access resources for the school. Academically this gives a hand up to people in rural ridings.
My riding, as I mentioned earlier, is a rural riding with many small communities, villages, hamlets, and towns. They are already feeling the pinch. I can recall when utility rates took a little bit of a spike in Alberta. I received a letter from one library that said the library was run by volunteers, that it had a limited budget and its utility bills had gone up by $600. I recall receiving that letter three or four years ago which asked, “How can we keep our library open? What are the things that we can do to keep the library open?”
It is very important that we look at bills like this one and recognize that we are not guaranteed universality all the time, or access to some of these resources, but for our rural ridings, it is an integral part of the community.
I thank the member for Brandon—Souris for persevering, for sticking to it and bringing the bill forward. I wish him all the success as the bill goes to committee, we hope, where we will have the opportunity to study it some more.