Question Period Note: CARE ECONOMY

How is the Government supporting Canada’s care economy, including through advancing a National Caregiving Strategy?

The Government of Canada recognizes that care is a pressing issue within Canada, with significant implications for the economy, societal inequalities, and the well-being of Canadians, including seniors. The Government of Canada is committed to helping Canadians, and the caregivers and care providers that support them.

The Government of Canada has made historic investments to strengthen the social infrastructure that is the care economy which includes work to ensure that all families in Canada have access to high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive Early Learning and Child Care , improved tax support for caregivers through the Canada caregiver credit, and improved access to long-term care and other continuing care services through the Aging with Dignity agreements signed with each province and territory.

Health and social programs mostly fall under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, the federal government provides an array of support for the care economy and to caregivers, including the Canada Health Transfer, Aging with Dignity bilateral agreements, Early Learning and Child Care agreements with provinces and territories, and the Employment Insurance maternity, parental, and caregiving benefits.

If pressed on additional efforts the Government of Canada has made recently to support the care economy, including advancing the National Caregiving Strategy:

The Government of Canada also discussed with experts and stakeholders in the fields of health, labour and childcare on the development of a national caregiving strategy.

The Government will continue to review measures to support caregivers and the broader care economy.

Care is a pressing issue within Canada, with important consequences for economic issues, societal inequalities, and the well-being of Canadians. (Statistics Canada).

In Canada, the “care economy” is the sector of the broader economy comprising the provision of paid and unpaid care work (Statistics Canada). This paid and unpaid care work consists of the activities and responsibilities involved in meeting the physical, psychological, and emotional needs of population groups who receive care. These groups include children requiring child care, adults with long-term conditions or disabilities, and seniors.

The care economy sectors’ activities fall almost entirely under provincial-territorial (PT) jurisdiction. Under the Constitution, the roles and responsibilities in health and social programs are primarily within PT jurisdiction, and the federal government cannot set standards that amount to regulating a social service under PT jurisdiction.

However, the Government has taken concrete actions to support the care economy. For example:

Announced in 2023, the Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians Plan provides $200 billion over ten years, including $25 billion in targeted funding, to support provinces and territories in improving health care for Canadians. This includes Aging with Dignity bilateral funding agreements with provinces and territories to foster improvements in targeted areas such as home and community care and long-term care. The Aging with Dignity agreements that were signed in 2023-24 include: 1) $2.4 billion over 4 years to improve access to home community care remaining from Budget 2017. Priority areas include, among others, increasing support for caregivers; and 2) $3 billion over 5 years remaining from Budget 2021 to apply standards of care in long-term care facilities and help support workforce stability, including through wage top-ups and improvements to workplace conditions.

Through Health Canada funding, Health Workforce Canada (HWC) was established in December 2023 as a centre of excellence on health workforce data and planning. HWC convenes and collaborates with health sector partners to strengthen health workforce data and planning.

The Government of Canada is working with PTs to reduce fees for regulated child care to an average of $10-a-day and create more than 250,000 new spaces by March 2026. As of March 2024, PTs reported the creation of more than 125,000 affordable child care spaces, benefitting families of approximately 900,000 children across the country.

Additional investments have been made to advance the Canada-wide ELCC system and for initiatives that include supports for the ELCC workforce, such as extending the Canada Student Loan Forgiveness program to educators working in rural and remote communities and additional training for educators.

Each year, the Government of Canada provides funding for individuals and employers to obtain skills training and employment supports through provincial and territorial employment assistance, leading to increased earnings and quicker returns to employment. In 2023-2024, there were 40,000 supports provided to individuals from the personal support workers sector, and an additional 22,000 supports to individuals from the early childhood educator sector.

Budget 2021 committed $90 million for the time-limited Age Well at Home initiative, which supports seniors-serving organizations to pilot new approaches and expand existing projects to help low-income and otherwise vulnerable seniors age in place. All projects will end by March 2026.

The long-standing New Horizons for Seniors Program provides grants and contributions funding to seniors-serving organizations to support projects that aim to improve the social inclusion and well-being of seniors, including seniors in caregiving roles.

In addition to traditional immigration streams, the Government of Canada has introduced a variety of streams aimed at attracting talent from around the world to drive economic growth and fill skills shortages, including in the care economy.

Further, to support workers who need to temporarily step away from work to care for or support a critically ill or injured person or someone needing end-of-life care, Employment Insurance (EI) offers three types of caregiving benefits to eligible claimants. These benefits include:

The EI Compassionate care benefit, which provides up to 26 weeks of financial support to a worker providing end-of-life care to a family member that has a serious medical condition and a significant risk of death within the next 26 weeks.

The EI Family caregiver benefit for children, which provides up to 35 weeks of financial support to a worker providing care to a critically ill or injured family member under the age of 18.

The EI Family caregiver benefit for adults, which provides up to 15 weeks of financial support to a worker providing care to a critically ill or injured adult family member.

The EI program also provides temporary income support to workers who are away from work because they are pregnant or have recently given birth or because they are caring for their newborn or newly adopted child.

Self-employed workers can also access EI special benefits, including maternity, parental and caregiving benefits if they have registered in advance for the EI special benefits program for self-employed persons.

The care economy is an emerging global issue, with the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimating that globally, 2.3 billion adults and 100 million children will need care as of 2030 (International Labour Organization).

In 2022, one in two Canadians aged 15 or older reported providing either unpaid or paid care in the past 12 months for care-dependent adults or children, with 23% providing care for care-dependent adults (20% unpaid, 2% paid and 1% paid and unpaid) and 31% providing care for children under the age of 15 (28% unpaid, 2% paid and less than 1% paid and unpaid) (Statistics Canada). In addition, the majority of paid and unpaid care work is done by women, often migrant and racialized women (International Labour Organization).

Statistics Canada has also reported that the job vacancy rate in the health care and social assistance sector reached 4.3% (110,745 vacancies) in the first quarter of 2025, compared to a job vacancy rate of 3.0% (64,180 vacancies) in the first quarter of 2019 (64,180) (Statistics Canada).

Unpaid caregiving is associated with opportunity costs (loss of potential monetary gain) for caregivers. In 2018, unpaid care for Canadians (excluding minor children) with long-term conditions, disabilities, or problems related to aging was estimated to be valued between at $97.1 and $112.7 billion (Journal of Family and Economic Issues). In addition, in 2015, the value of unpaid child care in Canada was valued at $284 billion, which reflected roughly 15% of Canada’s GDP that year (Statistics Canada).