- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- NDP
- Vancouver Kingsway
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 59%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $153,893.57
- Government Page
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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- Apr/5/22 4:38:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is quite clear that this 2% figure of GDP for military spending has no real basis in sound military thinking. Of course, it was coined by Donald Trump. I understand recent testimony before the defence committee has made it clear, from a number of academics and experts, that the 2% has no grounding in any real figure.
What is important, of course, is effective spending. I am curious about my hon. colleague's thoughts on the 2% as an arbitrary figure. Does he think it is effective?
My second part is this. We know that, in 2015, the Liberals said that they would not purchase the F-35 fighter jet. Last week, the Liberals announced that they were pursuing a fighter jet that does not have Arctic capability and is unlikely to create jobs here in Canada. Two things the member touched on in his speech were the importance of Arctic sovereignty and creating jobs in Canada.
Can he rationalize that for me?
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- Apr/5/22 3:21:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, meeting the 2% of GDP target called for in this motion would mean increasing our military spending from about $24 billion a year now to over $54 billion. That is an extra $30 billion per year.
While I think all Canadians want to make sure that our military is well equipped and properly funded, I want to get my hon. colleague's take on this quote from President Eisenhower. He said:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Would the member agree that this is the best use of $30 billion, or would she like to see that money instead put into dental care for seniors and children and into expanded health care and housing for Canadians who cannot find it in this country?
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to Bill C-10, an act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19, and I am particularly delighted to be splitting my time with my hon. colleague for Winnipeg Centre.
This legislation is very straightforward. In fact, in my time in the House of Commons over the last 14 years, I have rarely seen a bill that is shorter. It is two sections long and would, first, authorize the Minister of Health to make payments of up to $2.5 billion out of the consolidated revenue fund for any expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2022, in relation to COVID-19 tests. Second, it would transfer to any province or territory, or to any body or person in Canada, any COVID-19 tests or instruments used in relation to those tests acquired on or after April 1, 2021. In other words, it would authorize, on an emergency basis, the purchase and delivery of rapid tests to Canadians.
New Democrats strongly believe that we must expand access to COVID-19 testing for Canadians as quickly as possible. Therefore, we will be supporting this legislation and we are supporting its rapid passage through the House, unlike my colleagues in the Conservative Party and in the Bloc Québécois. However, I must underline our profound disappointment that Canada is still playing catch-up on COVID-19 testing as we enter the third year of this pandemic.
The Liberal government's refusal to learn from its past mistakes is, with respect, inexcusable. COVID-19 has long underscored the crucial role of testing. I might remind everybody in the House that one of the first things Canadians learned about this pandemic was the profound need for testing and tracing. This, we were told, was one of the core strategies to get us out of this pandemic. It also underscored the need for surveillance in controlling infectious disease outbreaks and guiding sound public health decisions. We cannot manage what we do not measure.
However, notwithstanding this, Canada has suffered from severe limitations on testing capacity through wave after wave of this pandemic due to the federal government's repeated failure to stockpile or procure sufficient supplies or to accelerate domestic production capacity. I will stop and say that, in my view, the federal Liberal government has taken an extraordinarily narrow view of its role in this pandemic. It seems to me that it might be rectified today, but up until now it has really only reserved itself the obligation to procure supplies.
This falls squarely within that. It is the government's job to procure testing, yet here we are in February, 2022, and Canadians in every province and territory across this land cannot get access to the tests they need in a timely manner. Health care workers cannot get access to the tests they need. Educators cannot get access to the tests they need. People have to pay out of pocket exorbitant amounts of money, if they can find tests. That underscores the failure of the Liberal government's prime responsibility to procure the kind of equipment that we need to get through this pandemic.
With the emergence of the highly transmissible omicron variant, an exponential surge of COVID-19 cases has once again overwhelmed Canada's testing capacity while the federal government scrambles to secure supplies in a highly competitive global marketplace. As a result, COVID-19 testing has become inaccessible for many Canadians. Reported case numbers underestimate the true number of infections, and contact tracing efforts have been largely abandoned. This has led to extreme frustration among Canadians who want to do the right thing and protect our loved ones from exposure to the virus.
In response to shortages throughout the omicron surge, many provinces have restricted access to polymerase chain reaction, PCR, testing to individuals who are at higher risk of severe illness and those in settings where the virus could spread quickly. PCR testing, as we know now, is more precise than rapid antigen testing, and positive results from rapid test kits are not reported in official COVID-19 case counts.
However, rapid antigen tests are considered an important screening tool. Research shows that they are instrumental in preventing asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 because they provide quick and reliable results. Unfortunately, these rapid tests, as I have mentioned, have also been very difficult for Canadians to access, particularly during the recent holiday season. To date, most of the provinces' limited rapid antigen test supplies have been earmarked for schools, businesses, long-term care homes, health care facilities and other high-risk settings.
At the end of 2021, the federal government had only delivered 120 million rapid test in total, or about three per person, to the provinces and territories. To put this in context, Dr. David Juncker, department chair of biomedical engineering at McGill University, estimates that with the highly transmissible omicron variant, Canada could require 600 million to 700 million tests a month and then two tests per person every week once this wave subsides.
In early January 2022, the Liberal health minister confirmed that Canada's PCR testing capacity is “in crisis” and announced that the federal government would distribute 140 million additional rapid tests to the provinces and territories by the end of the month. However, unfortunately, the government failed to deliver millions of the promised tests. By January 28, 2022, the federal government had only delivered an additional 75 million rapid tests to the provinces and territories. Ontario confirmed it only received 17 million of the 54 million tests that were promised. Alberta received fewer than five million of its allocation of 16 million rapid tests. Manitoba was shipped a little less than half of the federal commitment. British Columbia, my province, received a little over six million rapid tests, with 18 million per capita share. Quebec was shortchanged by 5.8 million tests.
The New Democrats believe that accountability and transparency have been essential for maintaining the public's confidence throughout this pandemic. Clear communication is critical for allowing the provinces and territories to make effective plans in their respective jurisdictions. Although the federal government has contracts in place for the procurement of rapid tests totalling some $3.5 billion, details are not publicly available on when suppliers will actually deliver the rapid tests outlined in those agreements. For these reasons, the New Democrats have demanded measures to provide transparency on how the $2.5 billion outlined in this legislation will be present. We believe that Canadians deserve full details with respect to how many tests have been purchased, when and to whom they will be delivered, when they are delivered and how much of the funding has been expended.
I am pleased to state to the House today that our negotiations with the government have resulted in an agreement by the government to produce that information to the House every six months. I want to congratulate my colleagues in the Liberal government for doing that. I think it is a sign of how effective opposition can make legislation stronger and better instead of holding up something that is urgently needed in a time of pandemic in this country, as the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois joined together to do today.
Furthermore, the New Democrats are reiterating our long-standing call for the federal government to expand domestic manufacturing capacity for all essential medical equipment in this country, including COVID-19 tests and other critical COVID-19-related tools, such as personal protective equipment, treatments and vaccines. Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, has been clear that the virus will continue to evolve and that further waves will occur. These surges could be quite severe and we need to be ready for them. COVID-19 testing will allow us to move forward with greater freedom and confidence, but we need to secure a resilient supply. To do so, Canada must break our dependence on fragile global markets. The federal government must take immediate action to mobilize Canadian industry with support for research, accelerated market approvals and manufacturing and supply chain development. We need to bring back domestic manufacturing to this country, especially for essential medicines, vaccines, equipment and supplies.
All Canadians have been horrified to see throughout this pandemic that Canada has faced a shortage of essential equipment like ventilators, personal protective equipment, vaccines, which we are still not producing in this country, and life-saving medicine. That is why the NDP has proposed constructive proposals like establishing a Crown corporation for a better chain for Canadian suppliers and domestic production.
I want to read a quote from Barry Hunt, president of the Canadian Association of Personal Protective Equipment Manufacturers. He said:
The prime minister himself and the federal government made a commitment to our industry to buy products. What we've seen is the exact opposite: buying only from multinationals, buying only commodity products, locking health-care workers out of new and innovative products, and essentially, decimating the new PPE industry.
That is the exact opposite of what we need to do, so today, I call on all parliamentarians to recognize the urgent situation we are in, pass this legislation quickly and get rapid tests into the hands of Canadians to help them get through this pandemic as soon as possible.
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