Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for raising this important issue in the House, and focusing on child care. It is a critical issue for many Canadians across the country.
We know that child care is important. In fact, we understand that many families in this country lack affordable, high-quality, regulated child care and we know that this forces many families into making hard choices. Some parents are forced to stay at home because they simply cannot afford to pay for child care. Others are working more than one job to make ends meet.
Too many families have to make difficult choices because of the lack of quality, affordable child care. Some parents have to give up their careers because they cannot afford to pay for child care, while others have to work more than one job to make ends meet.
No one should have to make these tough choices, and our government is committed to making sure that Canadians have to make them less and less.
Our government recognizes that quality child care and early learning support during early years is critical to a child's social, emotional, and cognitive development, and participation in society later on. This is why in our first budget a year ago, in 2016, our government proposed to invest $500 million immediately to early learning and child care, including $100 million specifically targeted to indigenous early learning and child care, which will be led, designed, and delivered by indigenous communities.
However, that was just a start. This year, in budget 2017, we proposed and invested an additional $7 billion over 10 years to support and create more high-quality, flexible, inclusive, and affordable child care right across the country, and we are making it happen. In fact, on June 12, the federal government, along with provincial and territorial partners, and the ministers responsible for early learning and child care across the country, announced a multilateral early learning child care framework, and that has been put into place. This new framework sets the foundation for governments to work towards the long-shared goal of making sure that children, no matter where they are across Canada, can experience an enriching environment of quality learning and early child care.
We have done more than that, though. Since then, three provinces and one territory have entered into three bilateral agreements. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to work with the remaining provincial and territorial partners, with a total of $1.2 billion to be allocated, addressing each jurisdiction's unique early learning and child care needs based on the systems that are present in different regions and provinces across this country. We will develop an action plan, together with the provinces and territories, to track progress and ensure that low and middle-income families increasingly have more access to affordable child care. The framework will complement the development of a separate indigenous early learning and child care framework between our government and indigenous partners, which will reflect the unique cultural needs of Métis nation, Inuit, and first nation children right across the country.
We are also investing another $95 million to close the data gap to make sure we have accurate assessments. That is not just in terms of what we are doing across the country to make sure we set new standards and achieve those new standards, but we will be tracking that progress through the life of the agreements we have signed.
We are also investing $100 million into early learning and child care innovation, so that we can find new ways to support children as they move through the early years, to make sure it is not just child minding but child care and learning development that take place. We are working closely with provinces and territories right across this country to make sure that Canadians and children in this country get the support they need, and we will continue to work with the parties opposite to make sure we get those programs delivered.