RECOMMENDATIONS

Creating a society that values paid and unpaid care work will require fundamental changes. Care policy is not limited to health care and child care policy. Care work can be valued through reforming the immigration system, investing in public transportation that is designed to meet women’s needs, supporting community-based care for people with disabilities, or ensuring all residents have access to paid sick leave. To create a society that truly values care, a whole of government approach will be needed.

To ensure a whole of government approach, the government should establish a national care economy commission tasked with designing and implementing a holistic strategy that recognizes care as a human right, combats gender norms surrounding care work and builds a robust system to provide child, disability, health and elder care. The right to care could be modeled after Uruguay’s national Care Act which establishes a right to care services, provides training to caregivers and explicitly aims at balancing the care workload between women and men.

The ability to provide and receive care must be available to all people living in Canada. This means that policies must prioritize the provision and receipt of care for groups who have typically been failed by care systems. This especially includes Indigenous peoples who have suffered from Canada’s colonial education, child care and health care policies.

Indigenous women, in particular, have been especially harmed by these policies and are subject to discrimination. The phenomenon of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls reflects an abject failure on the part of the federal government to care for Indigenous women.

Black and racialized people have also been failed by care systems through the prevalence of systemic racism and discrimination. The federal government must take concrete steps to eliminate racism and discrimination from care systems to uphold racialized peoples’ right to care. Special attention must also be paid to those without legal status who do not have access to many care services and care-related benefits in Canada. A right to care for those without legal status would involve regularizing their immigration status upon arrival.

The federal government must also make it a priority to combat gender norms around care work. Currently, no federal department has the mandate to transform gender norms around care or educate people about gender stereotypes. Without intentional action, gender norms around care will continue to persist, women will continue to bear a disproportionate amount of the care workload, and the gender pay gap will not be closed. The federal government should mandate Women and Gender Equality Canada to educate Canadians about discrepancies in the provision of care in Canada and the stereotypes that contribute to these discrepancies through public awareness campaigns and to work with provinces to develop school curricula.