Thank you.
Dr. Allison, you wrote in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, “it is important to understand that the proportion of Canadians reporting not visiting a dentist because of the cost has increased from 17% in 2007–2009...to 28% in 2016”. It's interesting to note that that's the term of the last Conservative government. You also said:
Furthermore, in 2018, Statistics Canada reported that 36.4% of Canadians had no dental insurance...and Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) data indicate that in 2019 (i.e. the most recent “normal”, pre-pandemic year for such data), while total expenditure on dental care in Canada was $16.4 billion, only $1 billion (i.e. 6.2%) of that was publicly funded....
By establishing the CDCP, some nine million Canadians will be able to visit a dentist. What will be the long-term health and economic impacts of that program?