Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, speaks to reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016, regarding the Auditor General report. The federal families minister is heading west to meet with his provincial and territorial counterparts to talk about the path forward on a national child care system. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean KilpatrickThe Canadian Press
The federal families minister is heading west to meet with his provincial and territorial counterparts to talk about the path forward on a national child care system.
The meeting comes more than 10 years after former Liberal minister Ken Dryden and the provinces agreed to create a national daycare program, only to watch the Conservatives end those agreements when they took office in 2006.
Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says the two-day meeting in Edmonton, which gets under way today, is a chance to talk anew about a national early learning and child care framework and how it might look.
Duclos says provincial situations have changed over the last 10 years with some offering early learning and child care services that they didn't offer a decade ago.
There are also financial pressures on provinces that could play into how far they are willing to go on a national child care system.
Duclos says the group will have to have frank discussions about their ambitions going forward.