Status of Women committee  Well, unless you don't use roads or street lights or attend public libraries, I don't see how your community doesn't involve government. Some of the community support agencies like the ones I talked about are associated with faith-based organizations and some are not. It really depends on who's doing what in that particular community.

Status of Women committee  I think it's important for government to consider working with all the different types of third sector organizations in order to provide the sorts of services that people in all class brackets require, in rural and urban communities. A lot of these organizations help particularly people who are living in poverty or who are extremely isolated.

Status of Women committee  I think the important point is to separate the ownership structure from the delivery and funding of services. In a lot of these cases, there might be private ownership, but we often have public funding that is supporting the delivery of these services. I think that's the important point to consider.

Status of Women committee  In the case of Denmark, they did it through legislation. They made it a requirement that both men and women, if they are in a partnered relationship, take responsibility for early child care. They would take time off work. If not, it would be lost for both parties. What happened was that, over a generation, as more and more men participated in work without the negative consequences that are associated for a lot of men with taking time away from work, they have become one of the most gender-equal places on earth.

Status of Women committee  We tend to think in terms of promising practices, and around dementia care one of the things that works quite well is day programs, but along with day programs, you need to think about some of the infrastructure that's required, such as transportation to get people to and from those day programs.

Status of Women committee  It sounds really interesting. I would say that probably, in terms of tax policy, it's not my area of expertise, and so I wouldn't want to comment on that.

Status of Women committee  Yes. Again, it's not my area of expertise, but I know that in the past there have been these sorts of tax incentives, and people do take advantage of them. If you're talking about the medical expenses portion of taxes, I'm assuming that is one area that you could look at, expanding the percentage that people could use to write off their income if they make those kinds of accommodations to their homes.

Status of Women committee  I'm considering a lot of things in talking about this. One of the first things that we need to understand is that the nursing home today is not the nursing home of 15 years ago, which provided an awful lot of social care, and was there for the frail elderly, mostly people who were quite old and needed some medical support.

Status of Women committee  This is a question about shared risk and also about how we live together in a community. For instance, if somebody has a catastrophic illness, something like dementia, at what point does the state take responsibility for that illness? I would say that when we're pulling people out of gainful, paid employment, that poses risks for their own ability to contribute to their pension plans and to save for their own retirement.

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with the word “choice” here, because I think for single mothers or women who are living in poverty, it isn't necessarily a choice. I think they feel like they're in a situation and the circumstances are dictating it, rather than it being a real choice about whether to participate in gainful employment or not.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, I'm very honoured to be speaking to such an important committee. My specialization is care work for seniors, both in its paid and unpaid forms, and that's what I'll focus my comments on today. The conversation about unpaid work is current and it's critical. What it isn't, however, is new.