Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 29th, 2026

[Karen Hogan]

As I just mentioned, I think some Canadians believed they would pay nothing if they were part of the Canadian dental plan. While 500,000 of the members actually had no out-of-pocket expenses for their dental care, the rest of them did have some. I think there was some confusion there for sure.

When we look at the average cost for a member in this plan, it's about $254 a year. When we compare that with a Statistics Canada survey on what the average Canadian household spends on dental care, this is about half of that. It's definitely providing access to more affordable care for individuals who can register.

It's important to know that you need to have an adjusted family net income under $90,000 and to not have coverage with any other plan. It is really meant to target populations that currently don't have access to affordable dental care.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That is your time.

We will begin our third round with Mr. Caputo.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Madam Auditor General, I would like to focus on the CARM report. To me, this appears to be a boondoggle on a number of different fronts. I want to start with the fact that the implementation of the program itself was fraught with difficulty. In my reading of your report, I believe over $80 million, or around $80 million, had to be taken from a CBSA line item and diverted to the CARM program because of its inadequacy. Is that accurate?

[Karen Hogan]

The budget that was set aside for implementation and maintenance by the border agency wasn't sufficient to cover the costs, yes. They were spending more than they thought they would on maintaining and upgrading the system.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

That $80 million didn't come from another branch of government or a reserve fund or anything. That $80 million came from within the Canada Border Services Agency's own budget. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

That's correct. They had to cash manage, as we say in the government. They had to figure out places where they weren't spending in order to be able to cover off the increased costs here.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

I suppose there were areas in which they should be spending—this is my interpretation—but in a kind of lay example, they had to take from Peter in order to pay Paul. Is that an apt description?

[Karen Hogan]

Moving from the right pocket to the left pocket, yes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

That's exactly right.

We have an issue when it comes to $80 million. Canada Border Services Agency has promised 1,000 new officers. Depending on who you talk to, where those officers are coming from....

It's not within the purview of your study, but we are in a trade war right now. We are also in a time when our border is porous. Are we able to say whether that $80 million affected frontline workers or other security elements that CBSA would ordinarily have budgeted for?

[Karen Hogan]

I didn't do that analysis to know where they found the funds in the years that they needed them, but it is why we issued a recommendation about developing a long-term funding strategy over many years. Because there are so many manual workarounds right now with the system, continued investment is needed if you want to see the efficiency gains you're hoping to get.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

The CARM program itself just didn't do a good job. About one in three businesses required assistance in registering for an account. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

The CARM project was meant to tackle three things: reduce the burden on importers, improve the efficiency of the public service and also replace old and outdated systems that were mostly paper-based. We saw that it did replace some old legacy systems, but because of all the delays in functionality coming out, there are all these manual workarounds.

The efficiency gain, in terms of the government being more efficient and also importers feeling less burdened, hasn't yet materialized. The need for businesses to get help just to register is one example of that.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

I think you're being very charitable in the way you put it, that it “hasn't yet materialized” for importers right now. It took an average of 34 days to resolve an importer's request. Sometimes these are small businesses, in the middle of a tariff war, who are putting food on the table. They're ma-and-pa businesses, we might say. It took 34 days. That could be 34 days with respect to a question or with respect to a form, but it could be 34 days that goods are simply waiting at the border.

Is there a way to determine the cost to our economy? I would imagine that it's a profound cost to our economy when we're looking at these things.

[Karen Hogan]

It's highly likely, when an importer has a question and waits that long, that it has an impact, whether it be a question about registering so that they can import goods or whether it be a question about a declaration. As you say, it is highly likely that it has an impact on revenues, but we were unable to quantify that.

I think that's something the Canada Border Services Agency should care about. That is why we said they should at least have service standards so that importers would have a sense of how long they should wait, so they could follow up instead of not knowing when they might get an answer to their question.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

In fact, there were 4,000 unresolved requests as of June 2026. These unresolved requests have been open for an average of 260 days.

These are importers, people who want to do business in Canada. We say that Canada is open for business. The engine of the Canadian economy is the small business. Importers are waiting an average of about nine months to have their questions answered. When they are not answered within that 34-day request for assistance, that must have profound impacts on the business, on the employees, on the economy at large. Where are things going in those nine months?

[Karen Hogan]

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you the impact that it would have. As I mentioned, the call centre that receives about 19,000 calls a month doesn't record calls. It was impossible for us to assess the quality of the service being provided or to know what those requests were for.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid that is your time, Mr. Caputo.

I'm moving on now to Mr. McKinnon, please, for five minutes.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here today. You've provided us with an enormous amount of data to absorb. Thank you, I think.

I want to talk about the Canada dental care plan. Particularly, I want to drill into the barriers to access.

We know that the average eligible family saves about $1,000 a year, thanks to this program, but what about the ineligible people? In your remarks, you mentioned that 61,000 children did not qualify. Did they not qualify because they're not associated with caregivers who file taxes or because they're in families that have higher income levels? Could you maybe expound on that a little?

[Karen Hogan]

Absolutely. This is a case of a known issue not being acted on by Health Canada. Children who are in the care of provinces and territories, either in a foster home or in a group home, are eligible under the plan. However, to be able to apply, you need to have filed a tax return to show that your adjusted net family income is below a certain threshold. Those children, as you can appreciate, don't file tax returns.

This is a barrier where Health Canada knows they have to make an exception to the rules in order to get this group of children onto the plan, and they haven't addressed it yet. That's why we recommended to them that they take action on the known problems—those they know of already.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

It's really a deficiency in Health Canada following through on this loophole.

[Karen Hogan]

Right. This group needs an exception to the typical eligibility criteria because they are meant to be covered by the plan.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I understand they're also covered provincially; therefore, they wouldn't be covered. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

There could be. Some of the provinces and territories do have provincial plans. That's one of the reasons we put a great exhibit that shows where the plan members are across the country.

Many of the territories have low participation in the federal dental plan because there are plans offered by other levels of government. In this case, though, we're talking about children who are not eligible, and this is the plan that's supposed to cover them.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

What about other kinds of barriers? What about seniors? Are there barriers for seniors?

[Karen Hogan]

I think you would see that there would be lots of barriers for any individual who doesn't file a tax return.

Several years ago, my office did a report on access to benefits for vulnerable populations. That report actually identified that the federal system is very focused on gaining access to benefits once you've filed a tax return. This is a known barrier for many programs, not just this one.

We do identify, though, that there's data missing on other populations—people who are incarcerated and some indigenous populations off reserve. There's definitely opportunity to keep improving access to this program.