I understand about the challenges in the health care system and access to it in rural and remote communities. It's also something we heard during our consultations on EI benefits previously. That's part of the reason that we made the change to allow medical certificates for the caregiving benefits to be signed by a nurse practitioner or a medical doctor.
In terms of access to EI sickness benefits, we always counsel claimants or prospective claimants to contact Service Canada as soon as possible, because under some circumstances Service Canada may provide more information on whether there's the possibility to backdate the circumstance or whatnot.
However, you always need a medical note. Again, it's about the medical note.