Mr. Speaker, sometimes, what really frustrates me on issues like this is that we have the occupiers in the NDP and the tea partiers in the Conservatives, without the capacity of actually working together on some of these issues.
The minister referred to early learning and child care. I remember being in the House when he used to call it a national babysitting program. The reality is that early learning and child care are important social investments that create more competitive economies in places like the Nordic countries, for example. He may dismiss these wild-eyed activists, like Margie McCain or Dr. Fraser Mustard, but the reality is that the quantifiable data demonstrates that investments in early learning and child care not only create more social equity but create a more competitive economy.
It is fine to demonize, marginalize, and stigmatize that type of research, but there are just as many economic advantages to those kinds of progressive investments as there are social advantages.