Coming to grips with the “existential” crisis in care amidst an increasingly austere economic environment requires not just financial support for caregivers, but broader system investments and reforms.
“It’s existential.” That’s how entrepreneur and caregiver Arlene Dickinson described the crisis facing Canada’s caregivers and care sector at the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence’s (CCCE) summit late last year. The statement resonated strongly with the packed room of representatives from across the care sector.
With economic, trade, and environmental threats screaming from the headlines every day, it’s easy for care to get lost in the shuffle. But while many look elsewhere, Canadian caregivers are quietly providing 5.7 billion hours of unpaid care every year, with care responsibilities disproportionately falling on women. Working caregivers put in an average of five hours per day on top of their jobs and incur average out-of-pocket expenses of almost $8,000 per year. Seventy-two percent of caregivers report feeling burned out to the point where they question their ability to continue, and an estimated half a million people have dropped out of the workforce completely because they don’t have enough support to balance their care and work responsibilities. The crunch for working and non-working caregivers is getting worse as the cost of living skyrockets.
The crisis in care is particularly existential for the non-profit sector, whose workforce is 70% to 80% female, and thus more likely to be providing care to loved ones, and whose workers earn 13% less than workers in other sectors, and thus may be disproportionately affected by cost-of-living increases. Many non-profit workers who provide care at work also pull double duty at home after hours.
The caregiver pocketbook is being pinched in both directions: in their own household and also among the realities of their care responsibilities.
James Janeiro, Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence
CCCE conducts a biannual survey with caregivers and care workers to identify trending issues and challenges. “[Affordability] was just below the surface when we did our 2023 survey. It’s now at the top of the list,” says James Janeiro, director of policy and government relations at CCCE. “The caregiver pocketbook is being pinched in both directions: in their own household and also among the realities of their care responsibilities.”
Having high-profile advocates like Dickinson calling attention to the crisis in care is important. She was emotional during her keynote as she recalled her experience caring for her mother through her dementia journey, and described how the experience motivated her to advocate for care-sector reform. She urged decision-makers and governments to move away from “file-save-as” planning, her term for the business-as-usual approach that she says stands in the way of a meaningful response to the crisis in care.
“This is a critical moment [in history] when we have been forced into a chance to rethink how we do many things. You can see that as an opportunity or you can be very negative about it and say we’ll never get out of this, it’s just too hard,” Dickinson says in an interview after the summit. “I am certainly of the pragmatic optimist kind of view that says this is our reality but this doesn’t have to be our future. We can change it and we can do things together. That requires a different dialogue, and it requires more honesty amongst people about where we’re at and what we need.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals reiterated a commitment to establishing a national caregiver strategy in their 2025 party platform – a promise that was first made by Justin Trudeau’s government in 2024. Carney’s November 2025 federal budget included a temporary, refundable tax credit that will give eligible personal support workers up to $1,100 annually between 2026 and 2030. In February of this year, the government announced the establishment of a Care Economy Workforce Alliance – one of six new workforce alliances aimed at supporting key sectors under stress. Few details are available, but early communications signal an intention to bring representatives from different areas of the care sector together with government to explore how to strengthen workforce participation and alleviate pressure on unpaid caregivers.
I believe very strongly that the productivity argument alone is a reason to consider caregiving files in the same breath as everything else we’re doing around fixing our economy.
James Janeiro
However, measures that would put dollars into the pockets of struggling caregivers, like making the Canadian caregiver tax credit – which, in its current form, benefits only 4.6% to 8% of all caregivers across Canada – refundable, have yet to materialize. CCCE and others hope the 2026 spring economic statement will be an opportunity for the government to show its commitment to investing in the care economy.
“I believe very strongly that the productivity argument alone is a reason to consider caregiving files in the same breath as everything else we’re doing around fixing our economy,” Janeiro says. “We’re seeing one and a half million dollars’ worth of lost productivity because people don’t have enough support to balance their care responsibilities with work. It’s like we’re fighting this trade war with one arm tied behind our back. When we talk about future-proofing the economy, upping our productivity, getting workers back to work, we need to consider this.”
Provincial action
While federal action for caregivers has been slow, several provinces have announced new or expanded financial benefits for people receiving and providing care. A lot of the action is happening on the East Coast, where a rapidly aging population is putting pressures on the healthcare system and caregivers.
In 2024, the Prince Edward Island government introduced the At Home Caregiver Benefit, which provides $250 to $1,500 to caregivers who support seniors or individuals with high needs. It’s a welcome benefit in a province where more than 20% of the population is over 65 and long-term care homes are at capacity. “That’s a game changer that puts food on the table for families that might have been struggling. It helps with a rent payment or a mortgage payment that might have been difficult to make with other caregiving expenses,” Janeiro says.
Newfoundland also rolled out a benefit for caregivers of $400 per month in 2024. And the incoming New Brunswick Liberals ran on a platform that included a commitment to launch a $250 per month benefit for caregivers.
In Nova Scotia, a province that has been at the forefront of providing benefits to caregivers, however, budgetary pressures recently put support in jeopardy. In their March 2026 budget, the governing Progressive Conservatives proposed to cut the province’s longstanding caregiver benefit, which provides eligible caregivers with $400 per month, and to reduce funding for Caregivers Nova Scotia – part of a much larger slate of cuts. The government reversed the proposed cuts after loud opposition from caregivers and care organizations.
We hope to see a renewed commitment to strengthening supports this year – whether that’s expanding access to the caregiver benefit or . . . innovative approaches like social prescribing that connect caregivers to supports earlier.
Jenny Theriault, Caregivers NS
“We’re encouraged by the decision to reverse the cuts; it sends a strong message that caregiver supports matter and that those voices were heard. But for us, this is really the starting point, not the end of the conversation,” says Jenny Theriault, executive director of Caregivers NS. “Caregivers across Nova Scotia are telling us that demand for support is growing, and what they need now is stability and continued investment. We hope to see a renewed commitment to strengthening caregiver supports this year – whether that’s expanding access to the caregiver benefit or continuing to build innovative approaches like social prescribing that connect caregivers to supports earlier.”
In Quebec, meanwhile, the provincial government announced in February that it would relax the eligibility criteria for its independent-living allowance to make it easier for recipients to use the funds to remunerate family caregivers. Loriane Estienne, executive director of Proche aidance Québec, a provincial network of nearly 150 community organizations that support caregivers, took the announcement as a signal that the government understands that caregivers are a core component of the care continuum. But, she says, the real sign of the government’s commitment will come with the renewal of its $25-million, five-year care action plan, whose term came due at the end of March.
The government’s budget announcement did include renewed funding for the action plan as well as expanded health and social service funding. A more detailed action-plan funding picture is expected before June.
“We’re asking for the amounts invested to be commensurate with growing needs, to respond to the needs of individuals who don’t live in large urban centres, and that the investment include sustainable funding mechanisms to strengthen the informal care infrastructure in the community,” Estienne says. “Right now, the government is reducing expenditures. We want funding for the action plan not to be reduced and even to be increased, especially in the area of informal care.”
System investments and reform
While increasing financial support for caregivers is urgent and necessary, addressing the crisis in care will require broader system investments and reforms.
Dickinson speaks openly about the difficulty she had finding an appropriate facility and level of care, even as a person of means. “It’s so evident once you’re in that system how broken it is, and so I really want to raise awareness of that, talk about the needs, and restore dignity to people who need care.”
It’s so evident once you’re in that system how broken it is, and so I really want to raise awareness of that, talk about the needs, and restore dignity to people who need care.
Arlene Dickinson
Many sector leaders, particularly in the gender justice space, have been calling for the government to think of care as essential social infrastructure, and to fund it as such. As Frederique Chabot, Mira Oreck, and Vani Jain wrote in February: “When the federal government released what it called a ‘generational budget,’ many hoped this meant investing in the supports that make life predictable: the systems that allow families to work, plan, and hope. Instead, Budget 2025 doubled down on a familiar hierarchy of value. Budget 2025 prioritized capital projects and industry-facing investments while sidelining or underfunding universal Pharmacare expansion, stronger income and disability benefits, childcare wages and access, long-term-care staffing, and the public service capacity that makes these systems function.”
Dickinson urges government, business, and the non-profit sector to work together to create conditions for innovation and change. “When we think about what’s going on in the nation right now, the recurring theme that we’re going to hear everywhere is that government isn’t going to be able to [address all challenges] alone. It’s going to require private investment. And private investment says, ‘We can only invest when the right circumstances in government exist.’ And so it becomes an impasse,” she says. “What needs to happen is that government needs to listen to business, and business needs to understand government.” The new federal Care Economy Workforce Alliance may be a test of whether these parties can come to the table for productive collaboration.
In the meantime, as we saw in Nova Scotia in March, continued action and engagement is needed to protect existing benefits in an increasingly austere economic environment. In her keynote at the CCCE summit, Dickinson encouraged attendees to “stand up as high as you can, be loud, and become unafraid about correcting wrongs.”
“When you’re advocating, I think there’s an impatience – that at least I have – that says you want things fixed right away,” she says. “Try to be reasonable, but also [be] determined to get your voice heard. And don’t forget to take care of yourself.”
