I am very happy to be here with you this morning for this very important event.

I would first like to thank those of you in this room who have worked so hard for so many years to see this happen. Those of you who are stakeholders, those of you who have been part of the early childhood education community, thank you. I am glad you are here. You deserve to be here. You should be here. This is your day and it is terrific that you are here.

I'd also like to thank those who have really worked very hard in Ottawa to keep this alive, those who have been part of Women's Caucus, those who have been part of the Social Policy Caucus: Paddy Torsney, Beth Phinney, and especially Maria Minna. Thank you.

I used to write books and I learned in writing books that the easiest chapter to write is the last chapter because if you get the other 19 chapters right, the last chapter almost writes itself. And really, you've all written the first 19 chapters. We're here just to help you write the 20^th. So congratulations to all of you for writing those terrific first 19 chapters.

We have all just come from a child care centre. And why we are doing what we're doing today was all so clear in what we saw. We saw kids doing, playing, interacting, exploring, adventuring, eyes alive and engaged.

This is, of course, what early learning and child care can be. And the exciting part is that in five years or 10, it will be so much more and better, in ways we can't even imagine. It will be better because as parents, as citizens, as business people and media, we will see the possibilities of it and we will push to make it better. Because no longer a patchwork of good and bad and non-existent, it will have the understanding and ambition and sense of importance to all of a real early learning and child care system.

A year ago, despite the near-heroic efforts of so many in the child care community over so many years, not much was happening to drive this system forward. And not much was foreseeable in the years ahead.

Then came a commitment, then came last February's federal budget and now here we are today. The key had been to give early learning and child care a push: $5 billion over five years, but crucially with a goal, with the right, ambitious goal, "to create a national system of early learning and child care." To set it in motion. To give it a chance. And that is what we have done today.

Prime Minister Martin, I hope you are proud of what you have done. Marie Bountrogianni, for being so committed and smart and encouraging through every step of this way, I hope you are proud, too.

Today is a good day, a good day for parents and kids, a good day for those who have been involved in early learning and child care, often for decades, who have stayed with it because they love seeing kids develop and learn and grow, who love to see light go on in their eyes and who have stayed with it through struggle and frustration, because they believe in it.

And it's a good day in another way. In politics, I have learned, there is noise, and somewhere in behind the noise, there is the prize. And the challenge is not to be distracted by the noise, but to work over, under, around, through it—however, whatever—to get to the prize. Today is a reminder of why any of us get involved in politics. Today is a reminder of why politics matters.

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