Mr. Speaker, I want first to acknowledge how refreshing it is to see someone who has a business portfolio in a critic's job and be talking about child care. We do not build strong businesses in this country if we do not tap into the full array and spectacular diversity of our workforce, and we cannot get that if we do not support families and women as they move to make sure that those with skills can access the best jobs possible. We do not do that if families are not fully supported, and child care and early learning is a critical part of that.

I will also say that child care and early learning are essential to developing a future workforce. Every study shows that the sooner we get kids into early learning environments, including head start programs, and attach child care to educational systems, the better the outcomes, and we know this.

With knowledge, once we know something, the choice is in how we act on it. Our government did not wait for the pandemic to invest in child care. In our very first mandate, we put a national child care accord together. We negotiated with the provinces and territories, and now all provinces and territories have signed on to a $7-billion program. That is already producing results in communities right across the country, but what the pandemic showed us is that this is not enough.

I agree with my colleague opposite, and I could quote to him from the throne speech where we commit to a national system of child care, a national system of early learning and to working with provinces and territories to deliver this, but also to working with cities and communities and, most importantly, indigenous communities, because for the first time ever, our government has established an early learning and child care strategy with, by and for indigenous communities, led by and for indigenous communities right across the country.

That said, the issue is knowing the next step. The member opposite has suggested that we are looking at a series of tax credits to achieve this goal. I agree with him that tax credits will not achieve this goal. We do not build child care capacity if we do not build child care spaces, if we do not fund training to a high quality and make sure we achieve on that front. We also do not do it if we do not understand that close to 83% of the cost of child care is salaries, and therefore training and developing the workforce has to be part of a national strategy.

Let me assure the member opposite that the commitments that have been made in the throne speech are serious and that the budget submissions our ministry has made to the process are just as serious, and we intend to deliver on this commitment in a very profound way.

I will also say this: It was refreshing to hear the leader of the New Democrats in the House stand up and say that he will not defeat the government just as we get to the finish line on this critical issue, and it gave me hope that this system will come into existence. That is good news.

While neither one of us was an MP in the House in 2005, I was a journalist covering the fall of the Martin government. When we lost that government and when that government was not re-elected, for whatever reason we lost a fully funded national child care plan, and we have never recovered from that moment in time. I am glad to hear that the NDP is going to put good policy in front of politics and is going to put kids into child care spaces. I am glad to hear that the NDP is not looking at putting New Democrats into the House as a way of achieving this, but instead is looking at working with us to deliver the commitments we will fulfill in the upcoming budget.

Child care is critically important to families in this country, critically important to women in this country, and critically important to a pandemic recovery that is just for everybody. We will not recover from this pandemic if we do not understand that. I join the member opposite in demanding a national child care program, and I do that as the parliamentary secretary to the minister who will deliver such an accord.

Luckily, because we took action in our first mandate and because we invested $7.5 billion, we have an accord that we can build on to deliver this program quickly and we have a table with first ministers right across the country, including with indigenous governments, to work on this and deliver the results that the member opposite spoke to, for exactly the right reasons and for exactly the issues he raised.

Let us put the past behind us. I will not talk about 2005 if he does not talk about whatever decade of broken promises that were there before my kid came along. She is now out of university, but I mean the promises made before she was born. She is now graduated. I would have loved to have had a child care program in 2005 for my son, trust me.

Let us put the past behind us, let us look to the future and let us make sure that the future is female.

Adam Vaughan

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