Mr. Chair, there are a lot of aspects to social development and caregiving. I guess in some ways that is what our entire department is about. It is about taking care of Canadians, particularly when they cannot take care of themselves.
I was very pleased when we were able to announce, as one of the first things this government did, that we would expand the definition of who was eligible to be a caregiver to a terminally ill person in this country. The way the program was set up before we took office was that it had to be an immediate family member. What we said was that in today's world, all too often, people are not near family anymore. They have moved away. Perhaps people never married. There are no kids nearby who can help out.
We expanded the definition to include anyone that the caregiver chose to treat like family. Now those individuals can collect up to six weeks of employment insurance benefits while they are helping care for their friend or family member. That is a good thing. That is a very compassionate thing to do. That is one example of a lot of initiatives that the government is undertaking.
We are helping seniors in so many ways, one being with the new announcement today that we are increasing the age allowance for their tax situation. We are also allowing pension splitting, which is going to help two million Canadians right across the country. I believe that is what the number is. That is huge. Right across this country, they are going to better off because of that.
We are looking at a number of ways to help students. I spoke about several of them just a few minutes ago.
I also spoke about what we are doing for older workers who have been suddenly displaced through no fault of their own, displaced because their company was shut down, because of global market situations or for whatever reasons. We are going to be helping them, not to sit at home and feel that they are not contributing members of society, but to get them retrained and re-skilled and work with them, their communities and our other partners on economic development in their areas so that they have the opportunities to get new jobs.
Obviously we also are helping children and parents with young children to get the choice in child care that they need, whatever that is, whether it is parents staying home with the children themselves or whether it is nine to five, Monday to Friday. Perhaps it is evenings and weekends. Maybe they work part time.
I cannot tell you, Mr. Chair, how many people have thanked me for this. I have one couple at home who said that with three children under the age of six they are now going to be able to afford to have one of the parents stay home to raise the kids. That was their choice. I am just so pleased that it is going to work for them.
What I am saying is that we are working to help Canadians of all origins, in all locations and in all circumstances, right across the country, because that is a good thing and that is what a responsible government should be doing. We should also be doing it responsibly. That is why we make sure we review our programs. It is to make sure that the services we provide, and the ones we are paying for, are actually getting delivered to those for whom they are intended.
As we go forward, we are going to be focusing on the labour market and helping make sure that employers can get the skilled workers they need, where they need them and when they need them, and also on making sure that our workforce has accessibility to the jobs they need.
We will be working on behalf of the disabled to help reduce barriers to employment for them. We hope to be bringing in a national disabilities act which will be working in that direction.
We are also working with aboriginals to get their schooling levels and their skill levels up. We have a number of partnerships that we are working on there.
We want to work with youth at risk, because if they are employed and earning an income, their self-respect and self-esteem go up and the incidence of crime goes down.
There is a lot that we are doing. We will continue to do it.
