Madam Speaker, I am very happy to rise today as I do not feel I received a satisfactory answer from the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development when I asked my question originally.
Not only does a child care deal not kick in for about five years, according to the government's own plans, it is completely separate from the issue of inflation. Yes, child care costs are high, but it is not why the cost of gas, home heating, groceries, diapers and pretty much everything else is going up faster than it probably should be. In fact, I would expect that the rising prices across the entire economy will probably get worse as government spending continues to increase.
Quite frankly, child care providers will have additional costs put on them if inflation continues to increase. They have to buy groceries for the children. They have to heat their facilities. There are many additional expenditures that will go onto those child care providers, and I am very curious how they will make ends meet.
Lowering child care costs is incredibly important for families that have children in need of care, but let us face some very important facts that this is a very small percentage of the population. It will not help people who have no children or families that have older children. It will not help seniors. It will not help the family with the stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad. It will not help a family that works shift work whose children need overnight care.
So many families are being left behind by those answers, and I really do want to hear what the government is doing with the very real issue that is inflation. Families are coming to me and sharing their concerns about making ends meet this month.
While it is wonderful to hear that some plans are in place to help some families, this does not help the senior down the street who is really struggling with the fact that groceries have gone up in price exponentially in the last little while. It does not help the families that are struggling today. Therefore, I really want to hear an answer from the government on how it plans to address this very real concern around inflation.