Good morning. I will try to be brief.
On behalf of its 170,000 volunteers, those who have cancer and their loved ones, the Canadian Cancer Society welcomes this opportunity to address the issue of employment insurance special benefits, which include sickness benefits and compassionate care benefits. A special thank-you for this opportunity, especially when daffodil month will begin tomorrow. The daffodil is a well-recognized beacon in the fight against cancer.
Our recommendations to increase the benefit period for both sickness benefits and compassionate care benefits. In the case of compassionate care benefits, we also recommend making certain conditions more flexible.
I will start with compassionate care benefits and give you a quick snapshot of who are caregivers. We know that 77% of caregivers are women and that 22% had to miss one or more months of work in the past year. Twenty-two per cent of women caregivers had to change their work patterns as a result of caregiving, and 14.5% reduced their work hours for the same reason. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of caregivers aged 45 and older increased by 30%. If this is not an issue now, it very soon will be.
Why must the compassionate care benefit be revised and improved? First, the compassionate care benefit is a labour policy intended to alleviate the financial burden on workers eligible for employment insurance who take leave to care for a seriously ill and dying loved one.
The employment insurance eligibility criteria are cause for concern because to date, 97% of compassionate care benefit claimants have been women. I already said that 77% of caregivers are women. As well, 70% of part-time workers are women. Because they are already working part-time, it is often women who will provide care for a seriously ill loved one. Yet at the point when that person most needs palliative care as he or she approaches the end of life, these women are often no longer eligible for compassionate care leave as they do not have the required 600 hours of work over the previous six months. That is the first point I want to make.
The second point concerns the compassionate care benefit period, which is six weeks in length, not including the two-week waiting period. We are told that the period is much too short. For many people caring for cancer patients, this period does not give them enough time to submit a claim, or when they do submit a claim, it is too late. In any case, they do not have access to benefits.
Human Resources and Skills Development data prove that the benefit period is not long enough. Thirty per cent of people who received compassionate care benefits subsequently had to receive other benefits, such as sickness or regular benefits.
Another problem related to the short benefit period is benefit sharing. This is a great initiative in theory, because its intention is that the burden will not rest on the shoulders of only one person. The problem is that six weeks is not enough. For example, where a child is ill, the father and mother each get three weeks, when their child is going to die.
Another statistic shows that six weeks is not enough. More than 90% of people who received compassionate care benefits did not share them. It is hard to share six weeks.
Another problematic aspect of compassionate care leave is obtaining medical proof that the person is going to die in the next six months. There are various problems with this requirement, including the unpredictability of death. I have not yet met anyone who can predict with certainty that someone is going to die. A person can still be alive five years after getting a diagnosis that he or she is going to die in three months. That can be very difficult.
I will stop here with regard to compassionate care leave.
Why is 15 weeks of sickness benefits not long enough for cancer patients? Let us take the example of breast cancer, which primarily affects women. In 2008, the incidence of breast cancer was 22,600 cases, which means that 22,600 women had to face surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. That can easily take a year.
I will explain how I got that figure. First, there are delays in surgery, which vary with surgical availabilities. After surgery, there is a rest period before patients start chemotherapy. Patients receive chemotherapy in four to six cycles every 21 or 28 days for three to six months.
After chemotherapy comes radiotherapy, which is administered for four to six weeks. But in Canada, some people have to wait eight to 12 weeks, depending on the treatment centre, before they can start their treatment.
When a later breast reconstruction is requested, the time for treatment is longer. I will not even go into the time a woman needs for physical, psychological and social rehabilitation, because that varies from one woman to another. It is clear to the Canadian Cancer Society that 15 weeks of sickness benefits are not enough for cancer patients.
In conclusion, you will understand why the Canadian Cancer Society is asking the committee to increase the benefit period for both compassionate care benefits and sickness benefits and, in the case of compassionate care benefits, to make certain conditions more flexible.
Thank you.