“A caregiver is a family member or someone who is considered to be like family providing care or support to the person who is critically ill or injured or needing end-of-life care. […] A critically ill or injured person is someone whose baseline state of health has changed significantly because of illness or injury. As a result, their life is at risk and they need the care or support of at least one caregiver. Their condition must be certified by a medical doctor or nurse practitioner. If the person is already living with a chronic medical condition, caregivers are not eligible for benefits unless the person’s health changes significantly because of a new and acute life-threatening event”

“You may be able to claim the CCC if you support your spouse or common-law partner with a physical or mental impairment. An individual is considered to depend on you for support if they rely on you to regularly and consistently provide them with some or all of the basic necessities of life, such as food, shelter and clothing”

“To better support caregivers, Budget 2017 proposes to provide $691.3 million over five years, starting in 2017–18, and $168.1 million per year thereafter, to create anew EI caregiving benefit of up to 15 weeks. The new benefit will cover a broader range of situations where individuals are providing care to an adult family member who requires significant support in order to recover from a critical illness or injury. Parents of critically ill children will continue to have access to up to 35 weeks of benefits, with additional flexibility to share these benefits with more family members”

“In addition, the Government is committed to further improving EI. This includes making Compassionate Care Benefits easier to access, more flexible and more inclusive for those who provide care for seriously ill family members, and providing more flexibility in parental leave benefits to better accommodate unique family and work situations. These objectives will be advanced over the course of the Government’s mandate”

“The Honourable MaryAnn Mihychuk, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, today highlighted the coming into force of a previously announced increase in the duration of the Employment Insurance (EI) compassionate care benefit, which will provide additional financial security to Canadian workers and their families in times of need. The Minister also said today that the Government will work towards providing more generous leave for caregivers in the future. The Government has committed to making the compassionate care benefit more flexible, easier to access and more inclusive, she said”

“The Trudeau government is following through on a Conservative plan to extend compassionate care leave for the care of terminally ill loved ones from six to 26 weeks starting Jan. 3, 2016. But the government says it plans to rework the program later in the year to expand the number of people who can take advantage of the enriched employment insurance plan”