My constituents in Nickel Belt continue to wait for this government to follow through on their commitment to provide affordable child care spaces—parents like Janelle, from Chelmsford in my riding. Janelle has had her child on the registry since April of last year—that’s 16 months ago—but she has yet to find a child care spot. This young woman travels and has applied to 10 different child care centres, yet she is still empty handed, her maternity leave ends in September, and she wants to go back to work, but cannot do that without child care for her baby.

K.G. lives in Hanmer and is a registered nurse. She has two young children on multiple wait-lists. She would accept driving to two different daycares, twice a day, every day so that she can get back to caring for patients as a nurse. Her maternity leave is done. She wants to get back to work, she is very much needed as a nurse, but she cannot go back to work until she finds child care for both of her children.

Yesterday the government stated, “Every job that sits unfilled hurts Ontario’s economy.” I agree, Speaker. But those are just two of the thousands of professional jobs across our province that are unfilled because this government won’t follow through on the commitment to deliver child care to the working parents of Ontario—talk about an easy solution that would help our health care system tremendously.