Absolutely, I think that's a very important question.
As I mentioned, my colleague who holds this portfolio, the Minister of Housing, will also be appearing before the committee.
There are a number of things I want to highlight that we're addressing in terms of the two parts of your question. When you talk about aging at home and aging in their own communities as long as possible, which is something I've heard is extremely important for seniors, there are a few things we're doing on that front.
First, as you may know, Madame Zarrillo, we put billions of dollars into home care for the provinces and territories, which was reiterated in the announcement on health transfers just this week.
I also want to talk about an initiative that we put forward, which is the “age well at home” initiative. This provides practical supports to some of those lowest-income vulnerable seniors. It provides them with....
Ms. Zarrillo, you may know this, and this is something I've heard from talking to seniors. It's that sometimes it's something very practical that prevents seniors from leaving their own home in their community, whether it is shovelling their driveway or someone coming and giving them a good meal or giving them a ride to pick up their prescription medication or such things.
In budget 2021, we put aside $19 million over three years for the “age well at home” initiative. We actually launched the call for proposals for this program last year. We will have more to say this year about those organizations that have received funding.
Another thing that we've done, Madame Zarrillo, is that just a few months ago, both the Minister of Health and I tasked our National Seniors Council to serve as an expert panel on what an aging-at- home benefit could look like. They're working tremendously hard on this fund, and I'll come back to this committee again to showcase some of the results of that study as well.
As you know, in the last budget we also put in other measures, doubling the home accessibility credit and introducing the multi-generational home renovation tax credit. These measures were in the budget to make sure that those living with disabilities and those seniors who want to stay in their own communities and their own homes for as long as possible get that support. We are always looking at different ways to support them.