Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to all the members of the committee.
I am a dentist here in Toronto, and I am president of the Canadian Dental Association. My name is Lynn Tomkins. I am joined today by my colleague, our interim executive director at the Canadian Dental Association, Dr. Aaron Burry.
I am speaking to you from Toronto on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinabe, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
I appreciate this opportunity to discuss budget 2022 and its proposed investment of $5.3 million towards access to dental care. I would also like to thank Mr. Chambers, Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Blaikie for meeting with the Canadian Dental Association on this topic over the past few weeks.
At the Canadian Dental Association, we know that oral health is an essential component of overall health. We believe that Canadians have a right to good oral health. That is why we fully support efforts by all levels of government to improve Canadians' oral health and to increase their access to dental care. We applaud this historic federal financial commitment.
Poor oral health strains other parts of the health care system, whether through hospital visits for dental emergencies or managing the long-term impacts of poor oral health on systemic health, for instance, cardiovascular disease or diabetes. While Canada compares favourably to many other countries, too many people still do not receive the dental care they need. More than six million Canadians each year avoid visiting the dentist because of the cost. This is especially true for low-income families.
Today I would like to comment briefly on how the federal government can best ensure this funding will quickly and efficiently benefit the Canadians who need it most, namely by collaborating with provinces and territories to stabilize and enhance the existing provincial and territorial dental programs.
Yes, many of these programs have flaws. Some of them cover only limited services, and others target only a narrow segment of the population, for example, only children or only low-income families. Many reimburse dentists at rates far below the cost of providing treatment. However, this only underscores why it is vital for the federal government to work with its provincial and territorial partners to stabilize their programs and to use their existing infrastructure to deliver enhanced, federally funded coverage. It makes no sense to construct a new stand-alone federal dental care program on top of strained provincial foundations.
A one-size-fits-all, Ottawa-knows-best approach has many drawbacks. Difficulties in setting up a new federal program could actually jeopardize dental care access for millions of Canadians who already have some sort of employer-sponsored coverage. Sixty-eight per cent of Canadian households earn less than the proposed $90,000 threshold, so we risk defunding or elimination by the provinces or territories of their existing programs. This would divert hundreds of millions of public dollars away from dental care and towards other priorities.
At a time when the federal government has difficulty providing passports to Canadians—and this is a function we have undertaken for over a century—it is fair to ask whether it could quickly and successfully set up a program that directly provides health care to the general public, an area where it has little relevant expertise. The spectre of a lengthy federal procurement process and the contracting out of the delivery of billions of dollars in health care spending to a private, for-profit insurance company is also unsettling. Pursuing either of these routes would be a mistake.
Furthermore, there are massive jurisdictional issues at play. Broad-based health care programs are the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces, and efforts by the federal government to sidestep the premiers could lead to squabbles and court challenges. This would impede rather than improve access to care for the very Canadians that such a program would be designed to help.
There have also been questions about whether the federal government has the constitutional or legislative authority to deliver such an initiative directly. Premiers such as John Horgan and François Legault have already called for these funds to be transferred to their governments to support provincial delivery of dental care. Liberal governments in Newfoundland and Labrador and Yukon, as well as the Progressive Conservatives in P.E.I., have also recently made huge strides on access to dental care. In this environment, the federal government cannot and should not go it alone.
In late March, health minister Jean-Yves Duclos outlined three principles for intergovernmental collaboration on health care: sharing responsibility, respecting jurisdiction and focusing on results. Since then, we have appreciated the hard work done by him, by his team and by his officials on this file, as well as how much they have consulted with the CDA and other stakeholders. Dr. Burry and I had an excellent meeting with him just a few weeks ago. I encouraged the minister to continue this collaborative approach by working on this file with provincial and territorial colleagues in the weeks and months ahead.
Likewise, the day after the budget, CDA was happy to hear both Prime Minister Trudeau and—