Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present.
First, petitioners say that child care is often not accessible or affordable for Canadian families and is often of uncertain quality. Child care creates jobs, makes Canada more competitive, helps achieve women's equality, builds local economies and is recognized as a human right.
The petitioners call on the House 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 that is 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 acknowledge Quebec's right to develop social programs with adequate compensation from the federal government.