44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 27, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, the Bloc has claimed that our dental care program is discriminatory and unneeded in Quebec. This is demonstrably untrue. Every Quebec parent can apply for $1,300 per child to fix their teeth, just like every other Canadian parent. The provincial Quebec plan only covers children under 10, is poorly funded and has inadequate coverage. The Quebec representative of the Canadian Dental Association has confirmed the poor quality of the Quebec program, supports the federal plan and explicitly opposes sending the federal money directly to the Quebec government.
Why is the Bloc putting politics over public health and opposing a plan that will help some 100,000 Quebec children who do not have the same dental care that Bloc members have?
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Mr. Speaker, I have been in this House for months and months listening to the Bloc Québécois demand additional Canada health transfers from the federal government to the province, and it is right about that. I agree. We do need the federal government to pay more of its share for health care.
We have a bill before this House that would see the federal government send $1,300 to all Quebec parents who make under $70,000 a year and have children under the age of 12 and do not have dental coverage now. It would allow them to take their children to the dentist. There are no conditions whatsoever, and the Bloc opposes it.
I am wondering if my hon. colleague can tell me why he is opposing the federal government sending out $1,300 for every child in Quebec who does not have dental care now, 100% of which would be paid by the federal government. What is he saying to those Quebec parents by opposing that payment?
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to Bill C-31, the cost of living relief act. As the health critic for the NDP, I am particularly pleased to speak to the dental aspects of this legislation.
Over 50 years ago, Tommy Douglas used his influence in a minority Parliament in this House to build our public health care system. This made access to physician and hospital care a right of citizenship in Canada rather than a privilege. This cherished institution, our public health care system, defines us as a nation. It is an affirmation that we will take care of each other when we are at our most vulnerable. It is a reflection of our commitment to equality and justice.
However, our health care system is not perfect, and it is not complete. Many important health services remain uncovered across Canada. For these, patients remain at the mercy of their ability to pay. In this minority Parliament, Canada's New Democrats are once again putting progress ahead of partisanship to address one of the most glaring gaps in our public system, that of dental care.
Through our confidence and supply agreement with the government, New Democrats were able to compel the Liberals to commit to a national dental care program for uninsured individuals and families with an income of less than $90,000 per year, with no copayments whatsoever for anyone making under $70,000 annually. We intend to build a comprehensive dental plan that would permit millions of Canadians to get dental services equal to what other insured Canadians enjoy, and ultimately to fold dental care into our public health care system as a universal publicly insured benefit, which it was always intended to be.
The Canada dental benefit in this legislation is the first stage of this plan. It is a bridge payment that would allow children under 12 to get the dental care they need urgently while a comprehensive dental plan is developed by the end of 2023 for children under 18, seniors over 65 and people living with disabilities. That plan would then expand to all families in Canada with an income under $90,000 per year in 2025, covering an estimated nine million Canadians.
The Canada dental benefit would provide eligible parents or guardians with up to $1,300 in direct, upfront, tax-free payments to cover dental expenses for their children under 12 years old over the next 14 months. The target implementation date for the program is December 1, 2022, and it would cover expenses retroactive to October 1.
To access this benefit, parents or guardians would need to apply through the Canada Revenue Agency and attest that their child does not have access to private dental care insurance, that they will have out of pocket dental care expenses for which they would use the benefit, and that they understand they would need to retain documentation to verify that out of pocket dental care expenses occurred if required. There would be an effective audit and enforcement policy. Half a million kids across Canada would receive urgently needed investment for dental care.
Unmet oral health needs impose significant costs on other parts of our public health care system through hospital stays for dental emergencies, as well as the long-term impacts of poor oral health on systemic disease. This is particularly true for children, since good oral health practices in childhood serve as a foundation for the rest of a person's life. We know oral health is an essential component of overall health. Tooth decay remains the most common childhood chronic disease in Canada. It is the most common reason for Canadian children to undergo day surgery, and it is a leading cause for children missing school.
In addition to the pain and risk of an infection caused by tooth decay, it can also negatively impact a child's eating, sleeping and growth patterns while increasing the need for treatment later in life. Numbers cannot quantify the impacts of pain, the social impacts and economic losses suffered by people with untreated dental problems, yet today as we debate this bill in this House, over 35% of Canadians, some 13 million Canadians, have no dental insurance whatsoever, and nearly seven million Canadians who may even have it avoid going to the dentist every year because of the cost.
Unsurprisingly, this impacts low-income and marginalized Canadians the most. Canada's most vulnerable people have the highest rates of dental decay and disease and the worst access to oral health care services. According to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, 50% of low-income Canadians, along with the majority of seniors over the age of 60, have no dental coverage.
This is a serious public health issue. Untreated oral health issues lead to many serious conditions, such as cardiac problems, diabetes complications, low birth rates and fatal infections, not to mention the dental health effects of chronic pain, facial disfiguration and shame. That is why Canada's New Democrats have been driving the agenda forward on universal dental care for many years.
At their first meeting following the 2019 election, the leader of the NDP pressed the Prime Minister to work across party lines to implement dental care for all Canadians. I was pleased to see the government acknowledge this NDP priority in the 2019 Speech from the Throne and was heartened to see in the Minister of Health's mandate letter at that time a direction to “Work with Parliament to study and analyze the possibility of national dental care.” Unfortunately, the Liberal government failed to take any action on this commitment in the last Parliament.
In fact, when the New Democrats put forward a plan to fund a national dental care plan by taxing the windfalls reaped by pandemic profiteers and the ultrarich, the Liberals and Conservatives voted against that proposal. When my former caucus colleague Jack Harris introduced a motion in June 2021 to establish a federal dental care plan for uninsured Canadians with household incomes under $90,000 per year, like this plan, as a first step toward universal public dental care, again the Liberals and Conservatives voted it down.
Today, we have an opportunity finally to move forward on national dental care in Canada. We must not squander it. This will represent the single greatest expansion of public health care in a generation and the largest investment in oral health in Canadian history. To those MPs who oppose this initiative, I wish to remind them that every member of this House receives dental coverage for themselves and their families paid for by taxpayers. When they vote against this bill, they are taking taxpayer dollars to cover their teeth and are saying no to the poorest Canadians for theirs, and that is a shame of the most grotesque proportions.
I see people on the Conservative side showing us their teeth. That is disgusting.
For those who claim we simply cannot afford to establish an urgently needed program, let us look at some numbers. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the Canada dental benefit will cost $703 million in total, and once fully implemented our national dental care plan will cost approximately $1.7 billion a year to provide coverage for nine million Canadians.
We currently spend about $309 billion every year on health care in Canada. This dental care plan represents less than 1% of that, and that does not account for the savings we will achieve due to fewer emergency room visits and avoided serious health complications from untreated oral health issues later in life.
Oral health is not a luxury; it is essential. Those who say we cannot afford dental care now because we have to fix our Canada health care system do not understand that oral health care is primary health care. We would never ask people what they would rather have, heart or cataract surgery, their broken leg fixed or hip surgery. Having one's mouth covered is as much a part of one's overall health as any other part of one's body.
To those who say that the provinces or territories already cover dental care, I say this: That is a myth. There is no province or territory that covers all citizens with no copays in a comprehensive way for people making under $70,000. Every program I have looked at in this country virtually without exception is poorly funded, incomplete and reserved for too few people.
It is time for us to put aside partisan differences. The mouth was always intended to be a part of our Canada health care system. It is only a historical anomaly that it is not. When Prime Minister Diefenbaker asked Justice Hall to recommend what should be in the Canada health care system in 1964, Justice Hall recommended that dental care be included. This is an over 50-year omission that we have the chance to rectify and the New Democrats are not going to stop until all Canadians can get their teeth fixed as a matter of right, just like they can with respect to every other necessary medical issue in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, I remember the words of J.S. Woodsworth, who said, “What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all.” I think that this is an excellent guiding principle as a matter of good citizenship and good governance.
If I flip that around, I think of the utter hypocrisy of people in the House voting against providing dental care to Canada's poorest citizens, while they themselves get their teeth fixed, their spouses' teeth fixed and their children's teeth fixed, not paid for by them but paid for by the taxpayers. The leader of the official opposition has been in the House since he was 25 years old. He has been having his teeth fixed, paid for by the taxpayers, since he was 25, and he is going to stand in the House and say that people who make under $70,000 should not have dental insurance.
Seniors over 65, do we know how many seniors over 65 make under $70,000 a year and have no dental insurance? Almost all of them. That is who the NDP is going to bring dental care to. I want to know what Conservatives will say to them next election.
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Mr. Speaker, I had the benefit of sitting in on a round table meeting that had not only the Canadian Dental Association but representatives from every province and territory of the country, including Alberta.
This is what they told me about Alberta. They said that Alberta has an existing low-income and seniors program but, like Ontario, the coverage is poor. Dentists do not accept most patients or they ration patients. They said there are 750,000 visits to hospitals every year in Alberta for people who are accessing dental care. They said they need $4 billion to treat all untreated cavities in the province of Alberta. That does not sound like there is a very good program in Alberta to me.
One of the myths is about the 10 provinces and territories that do have programs. I have met with all of them. None of them have a good program. There are gaps in coverage. There are high copays. What they really do is that they dump the cost onto dental professionals and they pay substandard rates to dentists, denturists and dental hygienists so that they are actually subsidizing the poor coverage that is already there. The plan that we are talking about is a normative plan for all Canadians that is as good as my hon. colleague's plan is.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is worried about rushing the bill through Parliament. Dental care has been recommended to be part of our Canada health care system since 1964. I think that Canadians have waited long enough.
Second of all, I was at the health committee the other night when we had every opportunity to put in amendments and, in fact, the Bloc Québécois did put two amendments into the legislation. One of them was to have every province opt out, which, of course, defeats the entire purpose of the program.
Let me read what the Quebec member of the Canadian Dental Association told us. Quebec has a very basic program for kids under 10. There are a lot of procedures not covered. It is poorly funded. Dentists are subsidizing that program. They do not want the transfer to go to the province and they prefer the federal program.
Why does the hon. member want children in Quebec whose families make under $70,000 not to get $1,300, starting in a month or two, so that they can go to the dentist for dental exams, for cleanings, for X-rays and to get their teeth filled? Why would he stand in the way of that for Quebec families? I wonder what he says to them.
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