Tony Martin

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Chair, has there been an analysis done on the clawback? That is a question I received from those living in poverty. How many people are working in an attempt to keep the supplement but not earning enough to qualify for welfare top up? How many disabled are unable to work and getting the supplement clawback?

How many people caring for a disabled child under the age of six are being clawed back? How many people caring for a baby under the age of one year are being clawed back? How many people living in a homeless shelter who are unable to find affordable housing are being clawed back? How many people are paying more than half their income on rent and how many of them are relying on food banks in order to feed their children? How many of them are losing the supplement?

I will leave the questions for the members opposite to decide who should answer. Is some of the money that is going out the door now for SCPI to be firmed up, so that there is some core funding for the people delivering on some of those challenging and important services?

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I would like to say a couple of things on the child care file and then I have a couple of questions. One is on the clawback of the national child tax benefit supplement. Hopefully, if I still have time, I will have a question on housing.

My one critique of the government's roll out of the new child care funding is that so far it does not look like a national program. It is still very much a patchwork of agreements. Money hopefully will flow if the budget is passed, but there is no real framework that one could look at and say it is a national program. It is not like health care.

The government got off on the right foot with Manitoba and Saskatchewan in terms of their commitment to doing certain things. I was hoping that it would continue to follow that pattern as it went on to the other provinces and get them to buy into the same kind of promise of not for profit and community based child care. I think that will be best for families and children.

How is this a national program? If it is not, how does the minister propose to get there?

We have heard a number of comments from the Conservatives over the last number of months. First, suffice it to say we are not talking nanny state or babysitting here. That is simplistic at best to put that out.

We also need to recognize, and I think the minister would not disagree, that the work stay at home parents do and the contribution they make should be and needs to be valued. We need to find ways to do that. However, we should not hive one off at the expense of another. We need to address the issue and look at financial breaks for them, especially for those in need. It is wrong to pit them over and against a quality child care system. That is disingenuous to do that.

As well, I want to do a quick critique of the argument that there should be some kind of a tax benefit scheme for stay at home parents and the cost to the country to do that. I think the minister referenced that a bit.

Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky wrote a piece that I thought was rather informative. They said that the idea of paying stay at home parents at the centre of the Conservative child care policy did not make any financial sense. The $2,000 tax deduction, about $600 to $800 per child, for a typical family ignores the reality that paying parents to stay at home is much more expensive. That is another way of putting what the Conservatives want to do.

If a large number take up the offer to stay at home, the social cost will be astronomical. We would have to pay them at least the rate of maternity and parental benefits, currently 55% of their regular pay, up to $413 per week.Those benefits, which now cover the first year of a child's life, now cost about $2.7 billion a year. That is just the beginning year. If we multiply that by six to cover all preschool years, it would cost us more than $16 billion a year. I think we heard the number $10 billion a while ago to do this. I agree with them on that. That is probably what we are talking about at the end of the day if we are going to have a national program and hit 1% of GDP invested in this.

Economists have said, Charlie Coffey in particular, that for every dollar invested, there is a two dollar return down the line in a good quality national child care program. We are talking about $16 billion a year and we are not sure what the return on that would be, although there would be a return.

As I said a few minutes ago, I have no questions and no qualms with evaluating the contribution of stay at home parents and the excellent work they do bringing up their children; however, there is a cost.

Maternity and parental benefits cover only about 60% of all parents with newborns. It would cost $27 billion per year plus the billions of dollars in lost production to cover all families, in addition to the cost of lost income of those families and the cost of the government's current and future lost tax revenues.

According to these economists, this would cost the economy about $83 billion per year. If we were to add all that up, the cost of the Conservative proposal would be over $100 billion a year. That is what we are talking about. That is the Tory proposal. If we go with what the Tories have suggested, that is what we are talking about here.

The new national child care program that we are envisioning is one that will benefit stay at home parents. It will offer them respite. Parents who want to plug in at different times convenient to their schedule will be able to do that. A readily accessible child care program in a community will benefit every family in that community and is only limited by one's imagination.

Let me talk about the economics of child care spoken to very eloquently by Charles Coffey, vice president of the Royal Bank of Canada and just recently David Dodge, Governor of the Bank of Canada. For every dollar spent on child care there is a $2 economic benefit through increased tax revenues and decreased social, education and health costs. Charles Coffey said:

A child's brain development in the first six years of life sets the foundation for lifelong learning, behaviour and health. High-quality early childhood education produces long-term positive outcomes and cost-savings that include improved school performance, reduced special education placement, lower school dropout rates, and increased lifelong earning potential. Not only does high-quality early childhood education make a difference for children, it matters to their employed parents. Employers increasingly find that the availability of good early childhood programs is critical to the recruitment and retention of parent employees. It's estimated that work-life conflicts cost Canadian organizations roughly $2.7 billion in lost time due to work absences.

I guess we could add that to the Tory cost as well. David Dodge, Governor of the Bank of Canada, said:

While parents, along with some psychologists, sociologists and public health experts, have long intuitively understood the importance of ECD, it is really only over the last quarter century or so that scientists, physicians, and social scientists have come to recognize the crucial role played by ECD.

To sum up, the literature clearly shows that intervention to improve maternal and infant health, to support parenting, and to provide early childhood education is effective in improving readiness to learn at age six, thus raising the efficiency of primary schooling as a tool of human capital formation.

In the minister's view, what so far makes this a national program?

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Chair, it is an honour and indeed a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to the minister from this seat belonging to the Leader of the Opposition. I usually sit in the corner so I do not get the chance to go face to face with the minister when I ask him questions in the House on some of these really important issues.

I am pleased to be here tonight with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre who is very passionate, as are all New Democrats, about some of the programs for which the Minister for Social Development and his colleagues now have responsibility. These are program that support and help people live life to its fullest capacity. They help those in difficulty and those who want opportunity. They support people in their health care needs and support families and children in their education needs. The minister and his colleagues all have a great responsibility on their shoulders and we are here as New Democrats to work with them to achieve some goals on that score.

We are willing to stay this evening because we are concerned, interested and actually excited about the possibilities since the new NDP budget was passed at second reading in the House. I know from being in my own riding, as does my colleague from Winnipeg Centre who was in his riding last week, that people are very excited about this new budget, the new commitment to spending on programs that will support people and communities and make life better for everybody.

Just off the bat I want to suggest to the minister that he not, for even a nanosecond, think about replicating what Mike Harris did in Ontario from 1995 to 2003 because that was a devastating, damaging, destructive, heart ripping experience for the people in that province. I know because I was there. I served for eight years in opposition to that program. We could not do anything because it was a majority government and it kept changing the rules to make it easier for it to drive that agenda.

The story is now well-known across the country. All one has to do is mention the name Walkerton to understand that the Ministry of the Environment lacked the resources to put environmental inspectors in the field to ensure that kind of thing did not happen.

Everyone knows what happened in Ipperwash and how all of a sudden the attitude toward our first nations, in a very short period of time, changed dramatically from day to night.

Today the Ontario Liberal government is struggling big time to make ends meet and to find the resources to live up to the promises it made when it ran in the election of 2003. When it was elected it found out how difficult it was, as we knew it would because we were the government from 1990 to 1995 in some very difficult economic and challenging times. From 1995 to 2003 we had some of the best economic times in the country. However the government of the day under Mike Harris gave that money away. It gave tax break after tax break to corporations to the point where now there is no money left in the coffers of the Ontario government to support people and communities and for education and health care.

Health care in every community across Ontario is in dire crisis. It is a crisis everywhere. We cannot get enough doctors. Hospitals are struggling to keep beds open. Emergency rooms are shutting down over the weekends. All kinds of things are happening, things that we never thought were possible in a jurisdiction as rich as the province of Ontario.

It happened because we had a government that made a choice to make a priority of corporate tax breaks, which we talked the Liberal government out of in this federal budget. We told it not to spend $4.6 billion on yet another corporate tax break at the expense of investing in child care, in education, in the environment, of spending money in third world countries to take our role in the world as leaders and to do our part and at the expense of people who lose their jobs.

If this budget passes, we will have a fund to help workers who end up on the street because their companies went bankrupt and they did not have wage protection and therefore did not get paid. It will help seniors and retirees make ends meet.

Those are all the things that are now in the federal budget that the minister will have responsibility for putting in place. He will have that money. He will give leadership and as long as he continues to be the minister in the government he must make good on those promises.

Canadians are waiting in great expectation for the government to work to get the budget passed so we can make those investments in child care, in education, in the environment and in housing actually happen and we can see the results of that work.

I want to talk a bit tonight about child care. This is not something new. We have had these conversations before. I also want to talk about the clawback of the child tax benefits supplement. I have been appalled ever since it started, even as a member in the provincial legislature, that provinces would actually claw back money from the most at risk and vulnerable of our families, money that was given to them in the first place by the federal government to deal with the shamefully high child poverty that exists in this country.

I also want to talk a bit about a conversation we had at committee concerning social transfers. The reason we are having difficulty supporting the passage of Bill C-22 is that we would like to see the minister's department commit to a framework wrapped around that social transfer that speaks to some of the values the minister spoke to in his wonderful speech a few minutes ago and what he thought Canada should be about and how it should support its people and its communities.

We want to work with the minister to ensure there is a framework of accountability and transparency with that money so that when it flows to the provinces we will know and the provinces will know what it is for. In that way the federal and provincial governments can be held accountable for the expenditure of that money.

I also would love to talk about an issue that was raised by the Conservatives, a Canadians with disability act. That is a wonderful idea and certainly the government would get 100% support from our caucus on anything it might do on that front.

I also want to talk about housing. I just had a meeting this past week in my riding on some of the wonderful programs that were put in place to deal with the tragic circumstance of homelessness, particularly in some of our bigger cities. Some programs that have been put in place are now starting to work but they need to be firmed up. There needs to be core funding and there needs to be some stability put into the system to help those people who are working so hard on our behalf to ensure that people who are without homes have some place to sleep at night and a place they can call home. They need to feel supported and need to feel that they do not have to spend 50% to 75% of their time fundraising. They should be able to put in the energy, excitement, enthusiasm and effort that they have for this agenda into looking after people who are living on our streets without a home.

All of these issues are very important. All of these issues have been addressed to some degree in the new budget that we passed at second reading two weeks ago and that we need to get through the House in short order.

I think everyone knows where we stand as New Democrats. We want a national child care program and are convinced that the only way to give parents choice in this country is to have a national child care program. If parents are going to have the choice to either stay home or go out to work, they need to know in either case that their children will be looked after in a safe place and with quality programs of a developmental nature that will support them in their growth and development. If we do not have a national child care program in every community in Canada, parents will not have choice. The only choice they will have is to stay home. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that choice. As a matter of fact, my wife and I made that as a family choice because we could afford it and we had no other choice at that point.

As the minister said earlier today, more parents are making that choice today. With the economy we have and the education and training that women in particular are now taking advantage of and knowing what they have to offer society, I think we need to ensure there is choice.

The argument I would make is that if parents in every community across the country are to have the choice of either staying home or going to work, we need an affordable, quality national child care program operating and funded. We believe in a national child care program that is based on the QUAD principles. I will list the things we do not agree on. We think it should be delivered through a not for profit delivery mechanism, and we need to talk about that. Actually, that is going to be my question, if the minister wants to think about it for a bit. What research does the minister have to back up his claim that we will have the same quality whether it is for profit or not for profit? If he focuses on quality, he will get quality.

The research we have is from people working in the child care community who have strongly suggested that if child care is not delivered through the not for profit system we will not get the quality. It has been proven, not just in research but in practical experience around the world, that if we get into the for profit system, invariably the big box child care system starts raising its head and becomes the dominant player.

What happens is that those institutions begin to find savings for the bottom line by cutting wages, cutting back on the food budget or by making child care workers the janitors at night after they finish teaching. By not investing in the kind of equipment, toys and facilities that we need, that results in a poor quality child care setting.

We believe child care should be a not for profit system. We also believe the minister should be working with us on legislation at the federal level to ensure that the provinces will deliver a quality national child care program and that the money that flows will be spent. Ontario is another example. The federal government did flow child care money to Ontario over the last three or four years under agreements that were signed by first ministers on child care and not a penny of that money was ever spent.

The same thing occurred in B.C. As a matter of fact, B.C. pulled its own money out and said that it was replacing it with federal money. In fact, the federal money was less than the money that was taken out of B.C.

We think we need some mechanism at the federal level to ensure that the money that flows, which is a significant amount of money, particularly if we move toward 1% of GDP, will actually be used for child care and that the federal government will be there at the end of the five years still contributing and helping to grow that system so the provinces are not left holding the bag, so to speak, which has actually happened in previous experience, and the provinces are worried about that.

We need some legislation that would speak to that, speak to the not for profit, speak to quality and speak to the QUAD principles. I would like to work with the minister on that.

I am running out of time so I will pose my question. What research do you have to back up your decision to allow for profit or not for profit? In doing that, why are you so confident that you will get the quality that you think is possible?

[Income Tax Act, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned because I did not hear a commitment to not for profit. As I know and as anybody who has looked at this file knows, if we do not commit to not for profit we are inviting big box corporate child care to come into Canada and take over. I know that the minister himself is concerned and I know that there are provincial ministers who are concerned.

As a matter of fact, in the first two agreements with Manitoba and Saskatchewan they insisted that there be a very definite commitment in writing to the not for profit, because they know, as do many others, particularly the communities that have been waiting for this national child care program for so long, that if we open it up to the for profit sector, we invariably will get the big box corporate interests coming into Canada and scooping up the public money that is now being flowed to actually put in place much needed child care spaces across this country.

What is the minister going to do to satisfy us or to give us comfort that if the government continues down this road of allowing the for profit model to play a role we will not in fact end up with big box child care--

[Income Tax Act, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, over the last nine months I have asked the Minister of Social Development on a number of occasions to commit to a not for profit delivery system for the new national child care program.

As a matter of fact, last week I asked him if he was not afraid of the advent of big box child care if he continues down this road. I shared with him that all the research supports the fact that a not for profit model gives us the best quality, which he insists is what will drive his child care program.

The minister says that his benchmark is quality, and he believes that whether the model is for profit or not for profit does not have any impact on quality. That is not what the research says. That is not what practical experience from around the world says either. He points to Quebec as a jurisdiction with both, but fails to recognize that in order for Quebec to have what it has, which is primarily not for profit, it put a moratorium on any public money going into for profit care for five years.

Therefore, if the issue for the minister is quality, he is obviously not looking at the research. Research from around the world and here at home shows that non-profits provide better quality care and are more accountable for the proper use of public money. A study done by the University of Toronto in December 2004 found that, with government subsidies accounted for, the quality of care in non-profit child care centres was about 10% higher than in for profit child care centres.

The same study also showed that the wages and education of employees were higher at not for profit child care centres. Higher wages and education among child care workers positively impacts care quality and helps maintain a workforce with experience.

In a field widely acknowledged as lacking room for profit, for profit centres cut operating costs in order to maintain profitability and competitiveness. Parents should not have to choose the amount of quality they can afford.

Two studies in Quebec both confirmed that quality is higher in not for profit delivery. It happened in home care in Ontario and it will happen in child care unless the McGuinty Liberal government closes the floodgates now.

If we build it, they will come. Let us build it right and invite the kind of providers we really need, those providing quality, non-profit, community based care. Let us stop the advent of big box day care in Canada.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly can. Everybody knows that every penny invested in education, for example, is an investment in small business and industry in this country because students who obtain an education participate, contribute and compete in the global economy. Every penny we put into affordable housing means families and children can participate more actively and successfully in the education system and ultimately in our economy.

Every penny put in to protect the wages of workers across this country as small business and industry go bankrupt protects communities and families in this country. Every penny put into infrastructure, roads and our public transportation system, is an investment in our industry and small business. They all depend on it to get their products to market and to obtain supplies to produce whatever it is they are selling.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we in the New Democratic caucus are indeed standing up for the workers of Sault Ste. Marie, Winnipeg, Vancouver and communities across this country. We are fighting for the health care that families and children need. We are fighting for the university education their children need, and against the phenomenal debt they have when they graduate. We are fighting for the infrastructure we need to support industries.

Economically, northern Ontario has been going downhill for the last 10 or 15 years, at a time when we have been seeing unbelievable corporate tax breaks given out to corporations across this country. As a matter of fact, Canada is very competitive with the United States in terms of its corporate tax rates and is lower in many instances.

To suggest for a second that somehow more corporate tax breaks are going to make Algoma Steel more competitive is not to understand the dynamic of the steel industry in Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton and across the country today. The steel industry is cyclical. It is being challenged by what is happening in China and India. In actual fact, it is doing quite well right now.

Algoma Steel is doing better than it has ever done and it is because of the contribution our community has made to the restructuring of that industry, and the contribution the workers in that industry are making. The retirees who are now sitting back looking at corporate tax breaks and the kind of money that Algoma Steel is making have given up their own wages and the indexing of their pensions to in fact save that company.

The member should not lecture me on what is important to a company like Algoma Steel or the steel industry in Canada or North America.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to put a few thoughts on the record where Bill C-43 is concerned and perhaps to speak somewhat as well, flowing from that, on Bill C-48.

However, first, there were some things in Bill C-43 that we as a party appreciated and could support, but there was more in it that we could not. Because we could not support it, we voted against it, primarily because of the surprise in it, the Trojan Horse so to speak. It contained the next round of corporate tax breaks which we thought were unnecessary. They were not in keeping with the discussions our party and our finance critic had with the Minister of Finance on the Liberals' commitment during the election.

Based on the Liberal platform and the conversations we had with individual ministers, the commitment was not in any concrete way included in the budget. All of sudden, in an agreement to win the support of the Conservatives, significant corporate tax breaks were included in the budget which would take another $4.6 billion out of the public treasury. We felt that money should have been, and will be if we pass Bill C-48 tonight, spent on the priorities of Canadians for their communities, their children, their aging parents and their infrastructure.

The tax breaks in our view were yet another gift to those in our country who already had more than enough. They have been getting corporate tax breaks for the last 10 to 15 years. When I go back and speak to my constituents, they ask me these questions. When is enough, enough for the corporations of this country and the world? When is another increase in wages to the CEOs of some of the corporations enough? When is another stock option to executives in these corporations enough? When is more income for the wealthiest of our provinces enough? When does it turn to greed?

I believe we have gone beyond that point. It is time now for us who have been given responsibilities as leaders in the country to look at those things that we need to invest in, things that will support a standard of living, which we know we can afford, for our families, our neighbours, for everybody who calls themselves Canadian.

We were not happy with the corporate tax break. However, we were pleased with the commitment that the government made to a national child care program. Unfortunately, as it rolls out, the government now finds itself in a hurry, as we seem to be going headlong toward the possibility of en election. Agreements are being made with provinces that do not fit with the framework we believed was there, those of us who were involved in the discussions, lately me more than others.

Some people in this province have been working on child care for 20 to 30 years. They have done the research and the work. They know that if we are to have a national child care program that is worth its salt, that will deliver the services we know are needed by families, by children and by the economy, it needs to be framed in legislation. It needs to be based on the quad principles. It needs to be delivered through a not for profit delivery system.

We were very excited with the first two agreements that were signed by Manitoba and Saskatchewan, two New Democrat governments that understand those principles. They understand why it is important we stick to them. We need to a program that is right from the start. This is the first national program in over 25 years. Manitoba and Saskatchewan have committed to a framework of accountability. They also have committed to a not for profit delivery system, with which we are pleased. However, we now see that Ontario, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are getting less and less of that commitment.

However, we are getting more anxious and nervous about the way the national child care program is beginning to roll out. We know that once it gets away, it is hard to get it back into shape. We need to ensure that it truly is a national child care program, not another patchwork of child care with more money. We need to ensure that the money is spent in an appropriate way so we get the best value as an investment in our children, families and the economy.

However, money has been allocated. Reference to a national child care program was first promised by the Liberals in 1993 and the Conservatives before that. Finally, there was a reference this past year because of a significant presence of New Democrats here pushing the Liberals in that direction. It was referenced in the Speech from the Throne and then it showed up in the budget. We were pleased about that.

The economy in my community is beginning to change its direction. We used to have some valuable high paying jobs in the resource based sector of steel and paper. Those jobs are becoming fewer and fewer. We are now looking at a growing sector of call centres where people do not make as much money. They do not make anywhere near the kind of money they used to make in those valuable, unionized jobs, in the industries that were industrial heartbeat of northern Ontario.

Ontario now has jobs that are less dependable. They do not pay as much. It is important that we have a good, affordable child care system in place for parents who want to participate. If they want to make ends meet, or want to buy a house, or pay the mortgage, or feed the kids, and all the things we want for ourselves and for our families, they probably will have to work two jobs. Some work two and three jobs in the same family. If they do not have good, affordable, high quality, safe child care available to them, they will be unable to do that.

The national child care program, however incomplete it is as it rolls out, because of the lack of commitment by the government to the principles and to the not for profit delivery system, is still very important. That is why we need to pass Bill C-48, the budget we negotiated with the Liberals, tonight. We need that money in our communities and in Sault Ste. Marie. It represents a significant growth in that sector, not only spaces for families and for children, but jobs for child care workers, good jobs and more money for those people already working in the child care sector. They will have benefits, pension plans, all the things we all want for ourselves.

The national child care program is a very important. We encourage members of the Bloc and Conservative Party to ensure that the bill goes through tonight so we can move forward with these.

I want to talk briefly about the criticisms by the Conservatives over the national child care program, which are misleading at best. They talk about an investment of $5 billion to $10 billion in our young people, our children, as somehow pouring money into a big black hole. Their suggestion as to how we might do this, which would be to give tax breaks or tax credits to parents to buy their own child care, would not create a national child care system. Also, it would cost us four or five times as much money to put in place. We are talking $20 billion to $25 billion if we add up all the money.

That is not to speak of the reduction in the economy if we remove those people who are skilled and trained, women in particular, from the workforce. The analysis that has been done by people who know, the economists, tells us that it could be anywhere from $70 billion to $80 billion a year. We are talking a cost of close to $100 billion a year if we follow the plan that the Conservatives have suggested is better than the plan in the budget, which would give us a $2 return for every dollar we spend in early learning and early child care for our children.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I take exception to the comments made by the member, in particular his comments that NDP plans are not good for Canadians or for the economy. I only have to point to health care which has been identified by numerous studies as one of the most competitive planks in our economic package. It was first introduced by Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan and then by the NDP here in the House of Commons. I also want to talk about the new NASA program that we hope will take hold in Canada.

I also want to speak for a brief minute about the Conservative approach to that particular challenge in our country and to quote Gordon Cleveland Michael Krashinsky who said:

The Conservatives are on the horns of a dilemma here.... That's why they will recycle their $2,000 tax deduction for all families with children (about $600-$800 per child for the typical family). However, no one is going to be convinced that this relatively puny tax break will make a difference.

The reality the [Conservatives] face is that paying parents to stay at home is costly -- much more expensive than good quality learning and care....

Unless unacceptably large amounts of public money are devoted to paying parents, only a small number will take up the option....

To encourage many employed parents to stay at home, you would have to pay them at least the rate of maternity and parental benefits, currently 55 per cent of their regular pay, up to $413 per week. Maternity and parental benefits, which cover the first year of a child's life, now cost about $2.7 billion a year. Multiply that by six...[and you're up to] $16 billion per year.

Maternity and parental benefits cover only about 60 per cent of all parents with newborns. To cover all families, it would cost about $27 billion per year.

This is the cost of the child care program that the Conservatives are talking about. If we add that to the cost to the economy when all those parents come out of the workforce because they cannot find affordable child care, we are talking about another cost of $83 billion per year. If we add $83 billion and $27 billion we are talking about some pretty significant money. That is the cost to this country of the Conservatives' child care program.

The program that the Liberals and the NDP want to introduce at 1% of GDP would max out at $10 billion a year, which would give a return of two dollars for every dollar, $20 billion back into the economy.

I would like the member to explain that to us and to help me understand why his program is so much better for the people of Canada than the one we are suggesting.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member, who is very familiar with this program, being the parliamentary secretary to the minister. It is also, from what I understand, a good investment economically. I believe that David Dodge, the governor of the Bank of Canada, and Charles Coffey, vice-president of the Royal Bank of Canada, are on the record as saying that this is a good investment in the future of our country and our economy.

In fact, there is a return of I believe $2 for every $1 invested in early learning and child care, as later in life these children are successful in high school and in the workplace. Could she talk a little about that economic investment and how important it is to this country?