Evidence of meeting #38 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
7:35 p.m.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I'm still confused. I guess this is something that we'll get to when we get to clause 7.
7:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Actually, Mrs. Goodridge, it's my bad.
You said it was clause 7. It was actually subclause 7 within clause 2. You're entirely within your rights and I shouldn't have provided the guidance or intervened or interrupted or anything of the sort. You are absolutely on point and you should go right ahead.
7:35 p.m.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I'm sorry. I thought I was right and then I got confused and very nervous.
I think it just points a few things out. The part that gets me concerned is when we look at the program that's in place for first nations kids specifically. Many of these kids have to travel long distances to see the dentist. In my riding, if a kid lives in Janvier, they're travelling 150 kilometres each way to get to Fort McMurray or a few hundred kilometres to get to Lac La Biche. While they are covered under insurance for the cost of the procedure, there are a lot of out-of-pocket costs to be able to attend this.
I'm very confused as to whether those kinds of out-of-pocket costs for mileage would count for large rural ridings like mine or Mr. Hanley's, where a large number of people would have to travel to be able to get these services, or is it just for the service itself?
I think there's some importance in having some of this clarification because this will benefit, potentially, families in my riding, depending on how the answer comes out.
7:35 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Health
There is a definition about dental care services and what that encompasses. It does not encompass the mileage, for example, that you used in your example. It is really meant for the services that a dentist, a denturist—that's probably less likely for children—or a dental hygienist is lawfully entitled to provide.
It goes on to explain that it could be for “oral surgery and diagnostic, preventative, restorative, endodontic, periodontal, prosthodontic and orthodontic services.”
7:35 p.m.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I'm still confused, but I think we're going to have to move on.
7:35 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll go back to the original amendment that we have, just for clarification from the sponsor of that first amendment.
Are we talking about this being an aspirational statement that you see being added on? This isn't an aspirational document. This is legislation, a bill, and this is not where an aspirational statement should be because that's not what the bill is.
I'm assuming that's what you're talking about, so with all of the conversations that are going on, you would like to see the statement ended it where it is because that's what this bill is. It's a plan for all of those conditions. They say 12 and under and those types of things. That's what the bill is. It's not a plan.
What comes after in that sentence is an aspirational statement, which is not this bill. What you're looking for would be the next bill they're going to bring, which says what the extension is and what the plan is. That would be that bill, not this one.
7:35 p.m.
Liberal
7:35 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Yes, Mr. Chair.
It's important to understand that right now we're focused on the legislative content of Bill C‑31. My colleague got that right.
As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health said, all the parties must work together, whether it's the NDP, the Liberal Party or the others. We must be constructive and work for Quebecers and for Canadians.
There's nothing stopping parliamentarians from doing their job. There's nothing stopping other types of policies related to this from being developed later on.
What's in here is the NDP's electoral platform, not what should be in the legislation. To be thorough, I think the two lines should be removed. We're not here to include speculative statements in the proposed legislation. The preamble serves to describe the content of the legislation in the simplest of terms, and these two lines should not be part of it.
7:40 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
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.
7:40 p.m.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have another question for Ms. Tomson.
If a family has insurance, but they max it out and they are in need of dental care, are they eligible for this at all?
7:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Health
No, they're not.
7:40 p.m.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Just with the NIHB, again, a first nations family with the NHIB is able to top up with that. Is that correct?
7:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Health
That's correct—again, bearing in mind that you meet all the eligibility criteria and you do have a receipt for out-of-pocket expenses for what they're not covering. It's the same thing for provincial and territorial programs.
7:40 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would ask if any officials have any corrections about the costing of this program. I would welcome their input.
Further to Mr. Davies' intervention, the amount of $10 billion struck a chord, and I just keep coming back to asking where the $10 billion is, because I don't see anywhere we could possibly be spending $10 billion with this. I looked at the PBO, too, and the legislative costing notes said there are $703 million for one aspect of it, and $940 million for the other aspect of it, which adds up to $1.643 billion. It's the same amount of money approximately. That's the total over the course of the three years this would be in place. There's some of 2022, all of 2023, and then some of 2024. This is a two-year period that would be starting now. It's a one-time payment of $500.
I suffer from the big numbers problem. That's an enormous amount of money. It sounds extraordinary. In May 2020, we unanimously passed a $300 top-up to CCB, because everybody was in dire straits. It was a really challenging time. Lots of people weren't working and things were costing a lot of money. And that was more money; that was $1.9 billion. This is an injection of money that is going to support Canadians who need it at a time when they really need it—and it's not $10 billion.
If I'm wrong, I would love some clarification.
7:45 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Health
[Technical difficulty—Editor] different reports, one on a dental care program, which is more extensive, and what you would imagine a dental care program could be. What just came out is for the benefit. The benefit is two cycles, two benefit periods, and the budget that the government has announced is $938 million.
7:45 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you.
Just to clarify, we're not having any conversations about future and ambiguous dental care provisions tonight.