Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm compelled to speak up a little bit on the direction of this conversation, specifically on Monsieur Garon and the conversation around the federal government's ability...its spending power. I would challenge the word “ability”. Of course the federal government has that ability. They also have the requirement, the obligation, to support all Canadians, not just one province.
I'm an MP from Ontario, but I care about provinces that don't have a dental care provision and I care about the ones that do have a dental care provision, whether it's Nunavut, Northwest Territories or British Columbia. I was elected to support Canadians from every province and territory.
I'm not challenging any of your arguments, but I think that using the word “ability”.... I think of it as an obligation to send money across this country and ensure that we are reducing inequality.
Second, the number $10 billion has been thrown around a lot. Most recently, it was “at minimum” $10 billion. I don't think those numbers are correct. I think it's quite a lot less. I think it's a maximum of $10 billion over a long period of time, which includes a future that, at that stage, will give us a dental care bill. I'm going to look a little bit more into those numbers.
In addition to all of that, the main reason I am extremely supportive of this bill is that it will support Canadians in really tough financial situations right now, and it will ensure that they can go and visit the dentist when that might be a tough decision. It's expensive to visit the dentist, and they shouldn't have to choose between.... We've heard members from other parties talking about having to choose between essentials like rent and food, and dental care is an essential. This will remove that from the equation.
Finally, every party in the House right now in this minority Parliament has an opportunity to contribute, and precisely zero people I talked to during the last campaign would say that they didn't want us to work together. We have an opportunity to work together and an obligation to work together. To continually suggest that this bill is just to keep the government alive or something like that is disingenuous. Canadians don't care about our partisan crap. They want us to get on with it and create programs that support them. This is an example of that. There are other examples of that.
Mr. Doherty, I know you're up next. You have a good idea. You contributed a lot to the conversation around mental health and suicide prevention. We work on that together, and I'm thrilled that we do. This is just one of those opportunities to work together for better outcomes for Canadians.