Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Ste‑Marie.
You were right to mention that family caregivers are mostly women. In fact, 20% of family caregivers live in financial insecurity. I was looking again at the figures we had, and it turns out that they spend an average of $7,600 annually on the family members they support. These people help us by supporting their loved ones at arm's length, since we need fewer resources from the public sector. If we added up the number of hours they spend caring for loved ones, it would mean that we would need about 1.2 million more people in the public system to do the same.
We are simply asking that the government keep its promise and that the Canada caregiver credit be expanded and amended so that it is refundable, so that people with very little income and who pay very little or no tax can also benefit from it.