Thank you very much for the question.
We really appreciate the opportunity to be able to highlight this, because it is such a women's health issue. Caregiving disproportionately impacts women, and I really appreciate the opportunity to elevate that here to this group today.
We know that financial support is the most significant need identified by caregivers. Our recommendation around making the federal caregiver tax credit refundable is one step to accomplish that. However, there is much more that we can do.
At the Canadian Cancer Society, we have the privilege of being able to engage on an ongoing basis with people with lived experience and with their loved ones. A survey we conducted last fall demonstrated to us that the number one need identified by caregivers was mental health supports, in addition to that financial need. Very often, you have individuals who don't have access to that, and very often when individuals are in the role of caregiving, they are on a fixed income—or no income.
There are so many things we can do. I'm really thrilled that you brought up the employment insurance system, because there are lots of opportunities and strides that we can continue to take in this space, including expanding the sickness benefit further and making compassionate care leave more accessible for caregivers as well. Even eliminating the mandatory one-week waiting period to receive an employment insurance benefit is a very practical thing that could happen.
We also would really recommend developing national standards. You might hear that woven into various answers, because we do lack a significant amount of just oversight and understanding of where the gaps continue to be in order to keep informing our policy decisions. In particular, as it relates to the caregiver tax credit, we recommend developing national standards that both the government and the employers can use to measure and evaluate the overall success of programs, services and supports to meet the needs of working caregivers.
For example, right now, we were very pleased to see the sickness benefit expanded last year. We look forward to hearing a little more in the coming weeks and months about how this program change has been taken up across the country, by people living in this country, and—