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.

• Although 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 efforts to establish a Care Economy Alliance and advance a national caregiving strategy:

• As announced in Budget 2025, the Government is working to establish Workforce Alliances to bring together employers, training institutions and worker representatives to work on ways to help businesses and workers succeed in the changing labour market and coordinate public and private investments in skills development.

• Up to six Alliances may be established, including a potential Care Economy Alliance which could support the systems and workers involved in caregiving.

• The Government of Canada has also discussed with experts and stakeholders in the fields of health, labour and child care 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.

• In 2021-22, the Government of Canada reached Canada-wide ELCC agreements with every province and territory on behalf of Canada, investing over $27 billion over five years. These agreements have already led to reductions in average fees for regulated child care across the country. In 2025, agreements were extended to support continued access to high-quality, affordable and inclusive early learning and child care programs and services. These extensions will provide more than $27 billion in additional federal investments to sustain the progress made from the existing early learning and child care agreements. The Government of Canada will continue its work with provinces and territories to protect and ensure access to high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive early learning and child care so that families across the country have access to regulated child care at an affordable cost.

• The Government of Canada is working with PTs to reduce fees for regulated child care to an average of $10-a-day and create 250,000 new spaces by March 2026. As of January 2026, PTs have reported the creation of more than 154,000 spaces since 2021 while also publicly announcing measures to support the creation of over 209,000 new ELCC spaces. Thanks to the combined efforts of PTs and the federal government, families of approximately 900,000 children across Canada are benefiting from low-cost, high-quality child care.

• Budget 2024 announced further investments in early learning and child care aimed at increasing the number of affordable child care spaces and supporting early childhood educators. These measures include:
o Offering student loan forgiveness for rural and remote early childhood educators. This will encourage educators to work in smaller communities and help families get the child care they need. As of December 31, 2025, Early Childhood Educators are included as an eligible occupation under the Canada Student Loan Forgiveness program. ECEs were added in a group of new professions in the education and care economy, including teachers, personal support workers, and social workers.
o Increasing training for early childhood educators. Investing $10 million over two years through the Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program to provide training and support to early childhood educators.
o Improved access to child care for Canadian Armed Forces personnel. $100 million over five years aiming to help improve child care services for Canadian Armed Forces personnel and their families.
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• The Government of Canada announced $10 million under the Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program (SWSP) to fulfill the Budget 2024 commitment to increase training for early childhood educators (ECEs).

• 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:

o 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.

o 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.

o 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.

o Eligible caregivers can also share these benefits when caring for a family member. The broad definition of eligible family members improves flexibility and responds to the diversity of family situations.

o 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.

o 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.

• Looking forward, the Government of Canada is establishing Workforce Alliances to bring together employers, training institutions and worker representatives to enable rapid agreement on the challenges their sector faces and the tools to solve them, ensuring that training programs, industry-led initiatives and government programs align with current and emerging workforce needs. Up to six Alliances may be established, including a potential Care Economy Alliance which could support the systems and workers involved in caregiving and promote well-being, economic resilience, and gender equity. This Alliance could include employers and workers providing services that involve the direct care of others such as children who require care due to young age, and adults (including older adults) with long-term conditions or disabilities.

• 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 3.9% (99,745 vacancies) in the third quarter of 2025, compared to a job vacancy rate of 3.1% (66,915 vacancies) in the third quarter of 2019 (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 estimated value of unpaid child care in Canada was valued at $284 billion, which reflected roughly 15% of Canada’s GDP that year (Statistics Canada).