Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
I am proud to support the motion, as it would help the majority of people in my riding. What will not help that majority is the current Liberal tax cut.
The PBO found that the Liberal tax proposal will cost $6.9 billion annually when it is fully implemented. The largest benefits would go to individuals making at least $113,000, who would get $325 per year. This would not help the majority of people who live in my riding.
In London—Fanshawe, the average income for an individual in 2015 was a little over $30,000. The average household income was just under $60,000. This cut would not benefit those people. Also 47% of people throughout Canada would not benefit from this tax cut.
This is typical Liberal policy that the government has put forward. I can look to the previous choices the Liberal government has made. There was $14 billion in corporate tax cuts announced in the 2018 fall economic statement. In June 2019, the PBO stated that Canadian corporations may be avoiding up to $25 billion a year in federal income taxes. The Liberal government could go after this. The Conservatives have been talking about increasing the government's coffers. The Liberals could do this, but they refuse.
From CRA's own records, we see that the wealthy and corporations hold at least 9% of Canada's total financial wealth offshore, resulting in an annual loss of at least $8 billion in government revenues. What is evident is the Liberals' determination to give the wealthiest Canadians even more of a share of that wealth.
It is clear that this Liberal plan would not help my constituents. However, what would help them is dental care coverage. Statistically, we know that every dollar spent by a government on a social program is worth five times that much to the economy. The dental program that we are proposing would save households $1,200 per year.
Canadians spend approximately $12 billion a year on dental services overall. Some of this is recovered through insurance, but a great deal comes out of people's pockets. In fact, six million Canadians avoid going to the dentist or receiving care because the cost is so prohibitive. Besides tooth decay, gum disease and tooth loss, a person's oral health is linked to other illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Inflammation seems to be associated with these diseases because bacteria flourish in plaque.
Publicly funded dental care programs need to be universal and provide essential care to those most in need, including children in low-income families, seniors living in institutional care, people with disabilities, the homeless, refugees and immigrants, indigenous people and those on social assistance.
All provinces and territories pay for an in-hospital dental surgery and some have prevention programs for children. Also, a number of ad hoc and charitable programs provide dental care to the poor. Many of them run out of Canada's 10 schools of dentistry, but these programs are a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed.
Canada has one of the lowest rates of publicly funded dental care in the world. According to a report by the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, it is only 6% of total spending. Even the U.S. has a higher public share, at 7.9%. Many European countries include dental care in their universal health programs. In Finland, for example, 79% of dental care is publicly funded.
The cost to the health care system overall is significant as well. Imagine a patient with an untreated tooth infection. At the low end, a trip to the hospital ER for dental pain costs the health care system $124. If the person needs to be hospitalized, that cost jumps to over $7,000 per visit. This is hard to justify considering this could have been treated earlier at a fraction of the cost if the infected tooth had been removed. It is only logical.
Many people without dental health coverage live with pain and discomfort to the point that they end up in the emergency room to have a tooth pulled or, worse, end up dealing with other illnesses linked to their poor oral health. What are the costs to our health care system to admit people to the hospital for something more severe when they could have been proactively visiting their dentist? Canadians take sick leave, which costs the Canadian economy about $16.6 billion annually. We could create a healthier Canadian economy with healthier Canadians.
These are just the health aspects, but what about the social aspects? Oral pain, missing teeth or oral infection can influence the way a person speaks, eats and socializes. These problems can reduce a person's quality of life by affecting their physical, mental and social well-being. People with bad teeth can be stigmatized, both in social settings and in finding employment.
In many conversations about the need for a universal dental care program, our leader, the member for Burnaby South, has spoken specifically about a woman he met on the campaign trail who was missing several teeth. She was embarrassed to speak to him. She told him that she found it difficult to find a job that paid more than minimum wage and that she would love to advance in her field, but felt her oral health and appearance were a hindrance.
I can tell members that when I am in my constituency and when I was on those doorsteps, I ran into this situation all the time. So often I engaged with folks in London who faced that exact same problem. Too often we treat the idea of dental care as a choice, and if a parent or an individual cannot afford care for themselves or their family, they are judged, but the problem lies in our system of care, or, to be more realistic, the lack of that system.
Dental care cannot continue to be treated as an unnecessary cosmetic procedure, privately funded and only for the lucky few, and excluded from medicare. Health care must take a full body approach. We cannot have a society in which only the rich are allowed to have good teeth and good health. That is not the Canada I want.
We know that the Liberals have no trouble working for the richest. They recently spent public money on big, profitable, well-connected companies like Loblaws and Mastercard and on subsidies to the oil and gas sector, but now it is time to show up for the working class, for families who need that change.
New Democrats have a solution. Instead of spending $6 billion of federal revenue on something that excludes 47% of Canadians, a huge majority of people in my riding, and only gives marginal amounts to those who earn under $90,000, an investment of $1.6 billion of that program can help everyone. This program would give immediate help to 4.3 million people and save our health care system tens of millions of dollars every year. That is why I am proud to support this motion.