Mr. Speaker, I have one petition with many signatures on it to do with child care. The petitioners indicate that child care is often not accessible or affordable for Canadian families and is often of uncertain quality for young children. They indicate 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 are calling on the House of Commons to legislate the right to universal access to child care and 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.
The federal government must establish funding criteria and reporting mechanisms that ensure accountability for how the provinces and territories use federal funding to ensure quality, accessibility, universality and accountability, and that acknowledges Quebec's right to develop social programs with adequate compensation from the federal government.