Finance committee  Thank you. People discuss this concept of intersectionality in legal issues. In the world of indigenous care, I am not an expert, but I work with the Indigenous Dental Association of Canada, and they have expertise. I'm well aware that while 27% of the population of Canada identifies as having a disability, that percentage is higher among our indigenous population, and the indigenous members of our community are more likely to live in rural and remote communities.

Finance committee  Thank you. I have a background in my own province of being with a Crown corporation that provided residential and day services to persons with disabilities. One of the things we came to recognize was that, while we all know the stress of trying to ensure access to health care, many of the individuals with quite severe disabilities do not have any kind of financial planning arrangement for basic issues like tax filing.

Finance committee  Thank you. We believe that the solution, as it is for so many things, lies in education. We believe there's a great need for that in all of the oral health care fields. You talked about the curriculum and this gap. We recognize that advanced education is a provincial issue. On the other hand, we also recognize that the federal government funds, for example, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and what is researched in the universities becomes the fodder for what is taught in the universities.

Finance committee  I fear, somewhat, that many people won't get the benefit they need, as I said, unless we change systems to make it more accessible. I want to say that there is no social determinant of health that is more closely related to poverty than disability. The same people who are struggling to access care are more likely to be the impoverished members of our society.

Finance committee  The profession of dentistry, and oral health in general, has failed to establish that kind of foundational approach, so we have stepped up. My colleagues are, for the most part, trained in special needs. They are often pediatric dentists. Their struggle is that they watch their clients hit the period of early adolescence and early adulthood and they're no longer able to treat them in the systems.

Finance committee  Chair Fonseca and committee members, good afternoon. My name is Joan Rush, and I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Society for Disability and Oral Health, or CSDH. We thank you for this opportunity to speak to Bill C-59 and the Canada dental care plan, or CDCP. In addition to my comments to you, please refer to our written brief, which includes more detailed information on our recommendations to the committee.