I have two interventions.
Like Mr. van Koeverden, I think that in terms of costs, it's important that we speak accurately. The budget tabled by this government allocated $300 million to cover dental payments for the fiscal year 2022-23, and $600 million for 2023-24, for a total of $900 million. Recently, the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued a more refined analysis of that, where he cut that figure to about $703 million. We probably will be under the budgeted amount, but really we're talking about $700 million to $900 million as the figure. That will pay for the two dental payments—$650 per child in the two different time periods that can be applied for in the next 14 months.
In terms of Mr. Garon's recent comment, I don't see the word “NDP” anywhere in the preamble. It says, “whereas the Government of Canada recognizes the need to provide interim dental benefits for children under 12 years old while working towards the development of a long term national dental care program”. There is no rule that I'm aware of that says preambles can't be aspirational and can't be descriptive. It's a preamble.
If you look at the very first sentence, “Whereas the cost of dental care services is of particular concern for Canadians”, you see that's a political statement. There are people probably in this room, probably in the House of Commons, who don't think that dental care services are of particular concern to Canadians.
The preamble sets out a particular introduction to the legislation that's going to follow. I won't belabour this point, but, again, given there's been so much confusion about this bill and what it does and doesn't do, I think it's imperative that we say that this establishes an interim payment and the government is working towards a permanent dental care plan—and that's what the preamble says.
I think we should vote on it. There are obviously other issues, which we can get to, that are going to come up in different sections, but I think at this point....
I just want to say as well, Mr. Chair, I don't know about the numbering of this, but this is part 1, clause 2, the preamble. After this, we get into the short title, which is clause 1, and then clause 2, the definitions; and then we get into other sections. I do think debate at this point should be restricted to the preamble and the amendment by my colleague. We certainly will get to the other issues that are very legitimate and have been brought up, but I don't think now is the right time to get to those discussions.