Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Newton—North Delta for her passionate defence of programs that would address chronic and rising youth unemployment and increasing poverty in this country.
I am still flabbergasted by my Conservative colleague across the way who tried to compare the $2 or $3 a day that the Conservative government wants to provide to families to the $1,600 a month it costs the average family in Toronto to pay for child care. The Conservatives are telling Canadians that they are giving them $2 or $3 a day and that they can raise the other $1,400 or $1,500 a month by themselves. This is an appalling and irresponsible attitude toward families. This means that families simply go without child care. There is no other way to put it.
Does my colleague from Newton—North Delta think the Conservatives even understand the pressures that working families are under, if they can say that for $2 or $3 a day they have taken care of child care when thousands of families in this country cannot afford child care because of the Conservative government's negligence?