- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- NDP
- Vancouver Kingsway
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 58%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $153,893.57
- Government Page
- Oct/3/23 4:18:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, speaking of affordability, Canadians have seen what happens when Loblaws is left unchecked: price-fixing and gouging. Now, Galen Weston is turning his sights to health care by expanding Shoppers Drug Mart private clinics. Experts are warning that huge corporations put profits before patients. It is the government's job to prevent this.
What is the Liberal plan to ensure that rich CEOs like Galen Weston do not gouge Canadians for health care like they do with food?
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- Feb/16/23 5:05:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as we near the end of this debate, a couple of things have been made clear to me.
One of them is that I have not once heard the Liberals stand up in this House and say they agree with the New Democrats that additional federal public dollars must go to public health care. They claim to support public health care. They claim to support the Canada Health Act. However, they will not say those words.
The result is that the extra $46 billion that will be delivered to the provinces will be allowed to be diverted to private, for-profit care. The problem is that this care is more expensive, it is more inequitable and it will lead to a drain on the public system. That is the crux of the policy discussion we are having here today. It is not that it does or does not violate the Canada Health Act. It is that it is bad public policy that would result in longer wait lines for Canadians in the public system and additional pressures on already burnt out working groups in the health care sector of this country.
Has my hon. colleague heard anything from the Liberals today that would tell her they understand the gravity of the situation? What needs to be done to protect public health care?
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- Feb/16/23 3:24:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this motion calls on the government to close loopholes in the Canada Health Act. One of the most egregious of these is that while the Canada Health Act prohibits extra billing, which means doctors are banned from charging patients more than the medicare rate for insured services, private clinics get around that by advertising and offering surgery to patients from a different province whom they then charge tens of thousands of dollars. This loophole needs to be closed.
Does my hon. colleague think that her government should agree with the NDP that the Canada Health Act must be amended so that provinces can no longer permit the odious practice of allowing the charging of patients for covered insurance services simply by allowing their citizens to cross a provincial border to get that surgery?
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- Feb/16/23 12:34:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I note that the Bloc Québécois voted against dental care and now it seems it will vote against the NDP motion to ensure we have a strong, publicly funded system. I do not think that is what Quebeckers want.
However, my question is not really about the Canada Health Act today; it is about policy. It is about whether we are going to allow public dollars to be diverted to private-for-profit care when we know that it is more expensive and that it is going to drain workers from our public health care system. That conforms to the Canada Health Act. The question is whether the government is going to attach conditions to its health care transfers to the provinces to prevent it.
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- Feb/16/23 12:02:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I say this with the greatest of respect, but there is a profound error in my colleague's comment, when he asserts over and over again that health care is a provincial responsibility in jurisdiction only. That is just incorrect. The Supreme Court of Canada said, “'Health' is not a matter which is subject to specific constitutional assignment but instead is an amorphous topic which can be addressed by valid federal or provincial legislation...”.
We know there are conditions attached because the Canada Health Act establishes them. When Quebec or any other province gets money, they agree to take that money on the basis of respecting five conditions of the Canada Health Act.
Is the Bloc Québécois in favour of two-tier private access to care? He says he is going to vote against our motion. Does that mean the Bloc Québécois is in favour of two-tier private care in our country, because that is what this motion is about today?
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- Feb/16/23 11:15:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague was relying on quotes, so I am going to share some quotes with him.
Bernie Robinson, from the Ontario Nurses Association, said, “I fail to understand where the government thinks it's going to get the human resources to staff these private clinics other than by draining our already-taxed public system.”
J.P. Hornick, from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said, “To improve access to care, public hospitals require staff and funding, both of which will be even further depleted with increased reliance on private clinics.”
Finally, Dr. Bob Bell, former deputy minister of health in Ontario, said, “I totally agree with their desire to do more surgery by moving it out of the hospital into the community. But moving it to a for-profit model is simply dumb.”
This is not about upholding the Canada Health Act. Why is the federal government not stepping in to make sure that the additional funds are not diverted by the provinces to private clinics, even if they are publicly paid for?
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- Feb/16/23 11:07:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague and I sat through a study of the human resources crisis in health care. He knows, as well as I do, there is a screaming conclusion: Human resources are finite. The same pool of doctors, nurses and other health professionals currently working in the publicly funded system would be pulled from that system to work in the privately funded system.
He knows that a parallel private system reduces the incentive to work in the public system, as health care workers may be paid more in the private system despite caring for less complex patients. That is the process known as cream skimming. The reduced capacity in the publicly funded system leads to worsening wait times for those who cannot access the private care.
Could the member explain why he does not agree with New Democrats that additional federal funds should be conditioned on going to the public system? He knows that if that money is diverted to the private system it would simply extend wait times and deepen the crisis in the public system.
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- Feb/16/23 10:34:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I respect my hon. colleague's position. Actually, health care has been ruled by the Supreme Court of Canada to be a shared jurisdiction in this country. We cannot even find the words “health care” in our Constitution. The provinces have jurisdiction over the establishment and maintenance of hospitals and also regulation of the professions. The federal government has its spending power; the criminal law power; and peace, order and good government. We will not fix health care in this country.
By the way, I do not think Canadians care about jurisdiction. What they care about is that, when they get sick and they need care, they can go to their public system and get timely access to world-class care. That is going to take all levels of government working together to deliver it.
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- Feb/16/23 10:32:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we absolutely need to open up the Canada Health Act, but we need to do it for the purpose that the NDP is talking about today. This is to close the loopholes that are allowing private, for-profit care to creep into our system. Right now, we have a shortage of doctors in our hospitals. We have a shortage of nurses in this country. Staff are burnt out at every hospital. How can it possibly be a positive development to allow private clinics to drain people from that system and then allow access based on private access to care?
We have to add profit and administrative costs to the system. By the way, the United States pays 31¢ out of every dollar to administration. In Canada, we pay under 2%. Administrative costs are much higher in the private system. If we drain those workers, what is going to happen to the wait times in the public system? Obviously, they will get longer.
We need to close the loopholes to make it clear that all publicly insured services in this country are delivered in the public health care system. Let us build up our public system. Canadians deserve to have timely access to world-class care. They are not getting it now. New Democrats will continue to make proposals so they can get that.
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- Feb/16/23 10:30:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not disagree that provinces and territories should be sharing information and best practices, but the debate today is about national leadership. It is about the member's government and what it is going to do to help ensure that we not only protect but also strengthen and expand our public health care system.
When the Prime Minister of the member's government is applauding a privatization plan by a Conservative premier in this country, that is not the kind of national leadership we need. We want the government to say plainly to Canadians that every additional dollar of health care funding in this country will go to strengthening our public health care system and not be diverted to private, for-profit care. That would make our public system worse. It would increase costs, extend wait times and make care for Canadians worse.
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- Feb/16/23 10:19:21 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that, (i) during the 2021 federal election campaign, the prime minister was harshly critical of the Conservative Party of Canada proposal to encourage “innovation” in the health care sector by expanding for-profit provision of publicly funded services, (ii) the prime minister has now dramatically changed his position and has lauded as ‘’innovation” Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s proposed expansion of for-profit clinics, (iii) for-profit clinics would poach workers from the public system and lead to longer wait times, (iv) there are multiple public reports of two-tier health care in Canada, where people are charged for faster access to care, such as family doctors or surgery, the House call on the government to: (a) express disappointment that the prime minister has promoted Ontario’s for-profit health plans as “innovation”; (b) ensure that recently announced health care funding is not used for the expansion of for-profit health care, but instead used to rebuild and innovate within the public system by hiring more staff and reducing wait times; and (c) enforce the Canada Health Act and immediately move to close loopholes that allow for the growth of two-tier health care in Canada.
He said: Mr. Speaker, Canada's health care system is based on the principle of access to care based on need rather than ability to pay. A well-designed, well-funded single-payer system can provide fair, effective and high-quality care to make this a reality.
Our public health care system is certainly facing some challenges, but the solution lies in strengthening our public health care system, not weakening it.
If we introduce private funding, then need will come second to ability to pay. That would result in less accessibility, longer wait times and higher costs in the public system. It would also lead to increased administrative costs, in other words, more money for insurance companies and less money for health care.
Introducing private payment prioritizes care based on ability to pay, not need. It leads to worse access and wait times, as well as higher costs in the public system. It also leads to higher administrative costs, which means less money for patient care.
There is not only little evidence that private, for-profit investor-owned corporations can provide better quality care or reduce costs. In fact, there are many examples that show precisely the opposite. Those seeking to improve the quality, equality, access, efficiency and equity of health care services in Canada can do so by focusing on strengthening our public system rather than dismantling it.
Proponents of privatization claim that increasing private pay and/or private for-profit delivery will reduce wait times, either overall or for those in the publicly funded system specifically; reduce costs to the public system; and lead to better health outcomes. There is perhaps no more serious and dangerous myth in Canadian politics today than that statement. I want to review the situation today and some of the factors that show this is not the case.
Everyone deserves health care when they need it, no matter the size of their wallet. No one should need to wait in pain because there are not enough health care workers or because the wealthiest jump the queue.
However, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, today people are waiting in pain for hours, days or weeks, and sometimes months or years. Folks are losing their quality of life while they wait for surgery. In addition, health care workers are run off their feet, burned out and exhausted in every corner of this country.
The Prime Minister could make things better for patients by hiring and rebuilding the public health system. Otherwise, he can contribute to making the crisis even worse by helping to fund for-profit schemes that will poach staff from the public system.
We are not surprised the Conservative Party loves for-profit care. It will make billions for corporations and rich CEOs. This is right out of the Conservative playbook: starve a public service and use that as an excuse to hand it off to the private sector.
A condition of federal health care funding should be investing to fix public universal Canadian health care, not funnelling funds and staff into for-profit facilities. New Democrats want health care to move towards more public delivery, not farther away from it.
If new bilateral health agreements do not result in thousands of new health care workers in our public system, it will fail. Ottawa urgently needs to partner with the provinces and territories to help provinces train and hire more health care workers, respect current health care workers and pay them better, and recognize the international training of thousands of health care workers who are already in Canada and ready to work.
During the 2021 election, the former Conservative leader said that “he would support provinces in introducing privately led health care ‘innovations’”. At that time, our current Prime Minister told Canadians this was evidence that a Conservative government would threaten Canada's public health care system, saying that the Conservative leader “believes in a for-profit, private health care system and he will not tell people what exactly he wants to do with that.”
My, how things change once one is in office. The Prime Minister recently reversed his position by calling Ontario premier Doug Ford's private for-profit clinic scheme an example of “innovation”.
Let us just quickly review the privatization plans by Conservative premiers across the country. Doug Ford has said that he wants to divert funding from his province's hospitals towards for-profit surgical clinics.
His plan includes an expansion of private cataract surgeries, MRI and CT scans, minimally invasive gynecological surgeries, and knee and hip replacements. Ontario's plans to contract out to private for-profit clinics for cataract surgeries is expected to cost the government 25% more per surgery. Moving only hip and knee replacements to for-profit clinics will benefit owners, with an estimated windfall of half a billion dollars annually. The owners of Herzig Eye Institute, one of the top private surgery clinics that lobbied the Ford government to expand private cataract surgeries, have donated thousands of dollars to the Ontario Conservatives.
In a recent throne speech, Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson announced her government's intention to seek out private partnerships to deliver health care.
Saskatchewan is moving forward with plans to reduce its backlog of surgeries by privatizing certain procedures.
In January, Alberta announced that it is contracting Canadian Surgery Solutions to perform more than 3,000 orthopaedic surgeries covered by the provincial medicare plan.
Why are they doing this, and how are they getting away with it?
There are several loopholes here, but I want to itemize one of them. There is a serious loophole in the Canada Health Act. As we speak, private clinics across Canada are advertising to prospective patients that within weeks they can get surgeries that typically take six months or more under provincial health plans. All the patient has to do is pay them $20,000 to $30,000, depending on the clinic.
CIHI estimates that the average cost per joint replacement operation in public hospitals in Canada is $12,223, which means that the private clinics are charging patients roughly double what the surgery costs the provincial medicare system.
To those who claim that private surgery is cheaper, one can tell right away that when one adds profit and extra administrative costs, diverting money to the private system will cost our public system more.
Doug Ford says, “Oh, that is okay. We are still paying for it with public dollars”. Why would Canadians ever tolerate paying twice as much for surgery in a private system than they would in the public system?
The Canada Health Act prohibits extra billing. This means that doctors are banned from charging patients more than the medicare rate for an insured service. However, private clinics are getting around that by operating only on patients from other provinces.
Imagine the loophole in this country where, if one is in Manitoba, one can sell a private surgery to someone from Ontario but not somebody in Manitoba.
This violates the fundamental principle of the Canada Health Act. It is a gaping loophole in our system. We are calling on the government to close that loophole right now if it truly cares about public health care as it says.
It is not only those kinds of surgeries, though. Maple, a Loblaws-funded virtual care business based in Toronto, is charging patients $69 per doctor's visit or $30 per month for 30 visits per year if one wants to go bulk. In-person service would be covered by Ontario's public insurance plan.
Ontario has insured virtual visits under OHIP, but Maple has found a way around the province's rules by connecting patients with a nurse practitioner or physician outside of the province. This is another gaping loophole.
That is not to mention the odious practice that has been going on in this country for years, where people appear at private clinics only to be upsold. They come for cataract surgery but are told that if they want a better lens, they have to pay more. That kind of introduction of private pay and access to health care is a fundamental violation of the medicare system that Canadians hold so dear in this country.
Let us talk about the evidence against privatization. A recent study led by Dr. Shoo Lee, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and former pediatrician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, looked at international experiences to determine what impact private financing would have on Canada's health system. That study found that private financing, both private for-profit insurance and private out-of-pocket financing, negatively affects the universality, equity, accessibility and quality of care.
It is not just that study. A recent study of England's National Health Service found that as outsourcing to the private for-profit sector increased from 2013 to 2020, so did the rates of death from treatable conditions.
I look forward to hearing any questions. Let us stand up for public health care in this country and make sure that every dollar of public funding goes to public health care in Canada.
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- Feb/14/23 2:47:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for-profit clinics across Canada are selling preferential access to surgery for those with the money to pay for it. They are exploiting a loophole in the Canada Health Act that is costing Canadians up to $28,000 per procedure. Even former Liberal health minister Jane Philpott says this contravenes the principles of medicare. New Democrats believe Canadians should have access to care based on need, not wealth.
Why are Liberals letting for-profit clinics pray on the desperation of patients and allowing two-tier access to care in Canada?
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- Dec/8/22 2:29:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government is not present. That is the problem.
Ontario hospitals are so overwhelmed with sick kids that they are calling in the Red Cross. Staff at the Alberta Children's Hospital are worried that a child might die waiting for care because it is overrun with patients. Across Canada, the situation is dire and parents are horrified, but the Liberals are missing in action and Conservative premiers are moving to privatize health care.
Canadians expect leadership from their Prime Minister in a time of crisis. When will he call an urgent meeting with the premiers so our children get the care they need and deserve?
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- Nov/24/22 2:52:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservative premiers want to take us back to the dark days of private health care. Ontario's Doug Ford openly talks about privatizing services. Heather Stefanson in Manitoba included it in her throne speech, and now Danielle Smith in Alberta wants patients to fundraise for their care. This is wrong. They threaten the very basis of universal public health care and make access dependent on wealth and privilege.
Will the health minister condemn these measures, enforce the Canada Health Act and protect patients across our country?
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- Nov/14/22 2:31:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, parents do not want to hear excuses; they want to know their kids will be taken care of when they get sick.
Across Canada there are shortages of children's Tylenol and Advil, and now hospitals are dealing with a lack of pediatric antibiotics. It is a scary time to be a parent, and there are things the government can do now.
Instead of giving vague promises and pointing fingers, the Liberals must ensure our kids get the medicine they need. Parents are desperate for help. Where is the plan to care for our children?
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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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- Sep/21/22 3:12:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are not getting the care they need in our health care system. This is not surprising. The government has failed to offer real solutions to fix what the Canadian Medical Association is calling an “unprecedented health crisis”. This failure of leadership is paving the way for the Conservatives, who want to privatize health care, putting profits over patients.
Health care workers and Canadians are counting on the federal government to protect their public health care system. When will the Liberals act to rebuild health care in Canada?
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- Jun/23/22 2:49:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, health experts are raising the alarm. According to the Canadian Medical Association, our health care system is collapsing around us. Health care workers are dealing with severe burnout and leaving the profession. Patients are being treated in cars. They wait months for diagnosis and are suffering without care. Despite this, the Liberals are missing in action.
Will the government call an immediate meeting with provinces and territories to address the health care staffing crisis and provide significant, stable and long-term federal funding for health care to Canadians?
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- Jun/14/22 5:09:51 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, one of the, I think, good things about the bill is that it removes mandatory minimums for drug sentences, but it leads to a larger question of consistency with the government. The member and the government voted against the NDP Bill C-216, which would have treated addiction as a health issue and decriminalized it for everybody. The government continues to say that it does believe that it should treat substance use as a health issue, yet it continues to criminalize substance use through the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
If it is right to remove mandatory sentences from people suffering from addiction in the bill, why is it not right to treat all drug addicts across the country with the same empathy and ensure they are treated as patients, not as criminals?
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Madam Speaker, the budget contains $300 million this year, $600 million next year and $1.2 billion the year after, for a total ongoing commitment of $1.7 billion thereafter, to provide dental care to some 6.5 million Canadians: the children, seniors, people living with disabilities and low-income families with no dental insurance now.
My hon. colleague talked about being unable to afford things. I was in the House when the Conservatives wanted to increase military spending in this country to 2% of GDP, which would add about $26 billion every year to our budget.
Does he think that spending $1.7 billion to bring dental care to 6.5 million Canadians is less of a priority than spending $26 billion a year? Can he explain to us why he thinks we can afford the military but cannot afford dental care given those numbers?
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