Thank you very much for the question. I very much appreciate it.
In fact, our caregiver strategy has three parts to it.
The first part, of course, is financial support, for which we are grateful for the announcement.
The second part is workplace protection, making sure that people's jobs are waiting for them when they go back, because oftentimes people have to take time off suddenly, without much notice, for extended periods of time, and repeatedly. So we look for workplace protection. The federal government has a role in providing some leadership, but it is a provincial jurisdiction for workplace protection.
The final piece is almost as important, and it is asking that the health care system actually facilitate their work, that is recognize their work, provide some training, offer some information, provide respite care. Frankly, that would cost very little, in fact very little compared to the financial support that is also necessary. The whole issue of home care, of course, relies heavily on family caregivers, and friends and neighbours as well, but also on the people who work in the business in providing the care, who are often low-income workers, we fear, without adequate training, and there have been some instances with that.
I think this whole area requires a lot of conversation to make sure that we are aware of how bad it can get. People tend not to talk about these issues. As the palliative care association mentioned, one of our problems is that in this country we don't like to talk about the end of life. We congratulate the Province of Quebec for engaging and initiating the conversation. It's much needed.
If we start to look at it from the perspective of the family that needs this kind of support, we realize where the gaps are. Some of the gaps are essentially there because people don't know where to turn when the situation arises. Even that much information is something that every level of government has some responsibility in providing, and it would not cost a lot of money. So all of these things are extremely important.
In terms of extending support for medical equipment, renovations, the renovation tax credit was helpful and was used for people who had to rehabilitate their homes for use for mobility challenges as well. But in addition to that there are whole categories of equipment that are not covered by the tax credit. We need to look at that entire category to make sure that all you need in order to make the end of life peaceful for people has to be addressed.