Mr. Speaker, in the second petition, the petitioners indicate that child care is not accessible or affordable for Canadian families and is often of uncertain quality for young children. They state that child care creates jobs, makes Canada more competitive, helps achieve women's equality, builds local economies and is a recognized human right.
The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to legislate the right to universal access to child care and to provide multi-year funding to provincial and territorial governments to build a national system of affordable, high quality, public and not-for-profit early childhood education and care accessible to all children. They say that the federal government must establish spending criteria and reporting mechanisms that ensure accountability to how the provinces and territories use federal funding to ensure quality, accessibility, universality and accountability and that acknowledge Quebec's right to develop social programs with adequate compensation from the federal government.