Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 29th, 2026

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

There are new provisions for automatic tax filing. Will that address some of these concerns?

[Karen Hogan]

That very likely could address some of these concerns. I think time will tell how many tax returns are filed through that system and whether that does increase access to benefits for people who might otherwise not have the ability to file a tax return.

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

You mentioned incarcerated people. Would they not be covered anyway because of their incarcerated status?

[Karen Hogan]

Again, it will depend, but this is one of the populations Health Canada identified as missing data, so they don't really know if they need this coverage or not. It's a gap in information. That's something they should address as they think about populations to target for future awareness campaigns.

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

Do you have any suggestions for other barriers that we should be looking at?

[Karen Hogan]

I've identified a few opportunities for improvement. There's communication, which is something we've talked about throughout the hearing, and, definitely, reducing these barriers.

The last one would be to look at the funding pressures this program has. Health Canada has worked with the Office of the Chief Actuary, which has predicted that the funding dedicated to this plan going forward will likely not be sufficient to cover the estimated expenses. A decision needs to be made to look at the financial sustainability of the program, whether that means more funding or a change in the basket of services covered under the plan.

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

I think that's my time.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much, Mr. McKinnon. I appreciate those few extra seconds.

Mr. Blanchette‑Joncas, you have the floor for two minutes and thirty seconds.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Mitis—Matapédia—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hayes, I would like to ask you a question about an important issue, namely climate change, if this is still a matter of interest to the government.

Your report concludes that Canada is not on track to meet its 2030 climate targets. The government has made further changes recently and a possible new pipeline has been announced. This will certainly undermine the objectives and targets.

Have you carried out an analysis quantifying the impact of the government's latest actions?

[Andrew Hayes]

We do not have up-to-date information regarding the impact of the decisions the government has taken.

We have made recommendations focused on transparency, because, given the changes to the measures in the greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan, it is important for the government to demonstrate how it will bridge the gap between the projections and the 2030 targets.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Mitis—Matapédia—Les Basques, QC]

Indeed, the reduction projected in your report is 28%, whilst the target is 40% to 45%. I'm just trying to understand. Has the government provided you with a report explaining how it intends to bridge the gap between the targets and the current projections?

[Andrew Hayes]

The percentages you mentioned are taken from the government's 2025 progress report. We do not currently have any information regarding other actions the government has taken or measures that have been cancelled or weakened. That is why we have recommended increasing transparency.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Mitis—Matapédia—Les Basques, QC]

I see.

Beyond transparency, we must also achieve the objective. Has the government presented you with a plan stating that we are currently at 28% and that the target is 40% to 45%? Does such a plan exist anywhere?

[Andrew Hayes]

No, there isn't one at the moment. So, it is important for the government to put measures in place to bridge the gap and provide information to the public.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Mitis—Matapédia—Les Basques, QC]

Understood. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Up next is Mr. Chambers, please.

It's nice to see you again.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Hogan, for your work and the work of your many officials. I enjoy most of the work that you put through. I know it takes a lot of effort to produce these reports. Thank you very much.

You just had an exchange with a colleague of mine about the funding pressures. On the dental care plan, how is it possible that the government's projections could be that far off if the intention of the plan was to cover people who didn't have access to a plan? We've seen, I think, an oversubscription of what the projections anticipated.

Is that your assessment?

[Karen Hogan]

We actually asked Health Canada about that. How, over the first two years, did they need to move money from future years to cover some of the benefit payments? Why do they think it was so much higher than originally anticipated?

I think their belief was that many of the members in this plan hadn't been to a dentist in a long time and that, in the first few years, there was a higher than anticipated spike in covered and eligible services, but it should tail off to a more manageable level. We're actually seeing that in some of the predictions from the chief actuary of Canada.

At the end of our audit, they predicted there would be a shortfall of $2.4 billion. Right after our audit, there was a quarterly update of those predictions, and now it's about $1.2 billion. I would expect that we're going to continue to see that fluctuate as we look at the experience of plan members and predict the cost of dental care into the future.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I have a theory as well.

There are a number of people who are being removed from plans, whether by a private employer or by a provincial coverer of a plan, and being told that they should get coverage from the federal plan. I understand that data is not being collected by the government. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

When we looked at the registration process, because there are two real eligibility criteria, having a net family income below a certain level but also not having coverage in another plan, you can verify that by looking at T4s but, in some cases, it really is an attestation. That could be an unintended consequence, but it is not tracked whether or not they asked and someone told them an inaccurate statement.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Right, but if you leave a plan and you have no access to any dental coverage, you are now eligible for the federal plan. Is that not correct?

[Karen Hogan]

It depends on your family income, yes.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I'm concerned that the government is not tracking the information that would help Canadian taxpayers and parliamentarians figure out whether this plan is actually covering net new people who did not have coverage prior to the plan being introduced or whether it's just uploading people who at one point had private coverage or provincial coverage. This is the exact same problem we ran into with the government with respect to its child care programming. It didn't track net new spaces created.

Your office often makes very valuable recommendations on data tracking, and I'm wondering why that recommendation has not been made in this case.

[Karen Hogan]

We did make a recommendation on having baseline information in order to really measure what the main goal of this program was, to improve the oral health care of Canadians who don't otherwise go to the dentist. They didn't gather that baseline information. Absolutely, there's a myriad of things that they should be gathering in order to improve how they report and show Canadians value for money.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Perhaps I'll just point out an obvious statement. There is no incentive for the government to track that information, because it may reduce the perceived efficacy of the program.

I think we need a recommendation from your office to make sure that they're tracking the right information to tell us whether a program is actually doing the thing intended in order to say that millions are benefiting from dental care or some of those hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people had coverage previously. I'm not sure I can determine whether this plan is doing what the government intends.