Madam Speaker, quite a few Canadians have dental insurance through private health insurance plans, while many others are supported by provincial, territorial and federal government programs. Our provincial and territorial partners fund and manage dental services within their areas of responsibility and provide some dental coverage to residents for services provided outside hospitals. These dental care programs vary considerably from one community to the next and are often limited to certain groups such as children, people with disabilities and low-income households.
Our government supports provincial and territorial health care programs, including those that offer dental coverage, through the Canada health transfer or CHT. In 2021-22, the CHT will provide $43.1 billion to the provinces and territories. This amount will continue to increase every year based on the economic growth rate, with a minimum increase of 3% per year.
Over the next five years, funding to the provinces and the territories through the CHT should exceed $236 billion. The federal government also helps Canadians with their out-of-pocket dental expenses through the medical expenses tax credit. Taxpayers can claim this non-refundable tax credit for eligible medical expenses if these expenses are in excess of the lesser of 3% of net income or $2,397 for the tax year that just passed, or 2020.
We know that 40% of dental care costs are paid directly by Canadians. However, even with these programs that are intended to complement private insurance plans, it has been shown that many Canadians still find the cost of care prohibitive.
We also know that income is not the only barrier preventing Canadians from accessing dental care. Roughly 96% of Canadians have been affected by preventable tooth decay. This has an impact on the more vulnerable populations, especially those in rural communities or within certain age groups, people with disabilities and racialized individuals, including indigenous people.
In the 2019 throne speech and in the 2019 mandate letter of the Minister of Health, our government committed to working with Parliament to study and analyze the possibility of establishing a national dental care plan. Although we had evidence that there were access problems, that data is limited and we do not have enough current and complete data on unmet dental care needs across the country, without which many crucial factors remain unknown.
There is no consensus on the best way to address the gaps in access to dental care. In addition, the most efficient models for providing care and the way to respond to unmet dental care needs are still hotly debated among dental professionals.
What is more, it is unclear whether there is a need or an opportunity for a federal role in this area, which is largely under provincial and territorial jurisdiction. These are things a parliamentary study could clarify.
I would also like to thank the Standing Committee on Health, which decided to undertake such a study during the last parliamentary session. We are impatiently awaiting the results of this study, because we believe it should be completed before any decision is made on the most appropriate federal role to support access to dental care in the future.
I believe it would be premature for the government to commit to a broad federal program such as the one proposed in Motion No. 62 without consulting stakeholders such as health organizations, health professionals, those fighting poverty and indigenous stakeholders. These consultations are essential to identifying any approach that would improve access to dental care
The government must also engage with provincial and territorial partners and private insurers before agreeing to any federal action that could have a considerable impact on their current services. In particular, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's estimates released last October did not take into account the impact of such a program on existing provincial and territorial dental programs or on the existing EI plan, either of which could reasonably be expected to modify their coverage in response to a new federal program.
Motion No. 62 would have Parliament approve a federal dental care plan with specific income thresholds as an interim measure toward the inclusion of full dental care in Canada's health care system without first carrying out the proposed parliamentary study.
The government recognizes that there are systemic gaps that leave some Canadians without access to dental care.
However, committing to a particular federal program design without more information, committing to providing care in a particular way without knowing whether that approach will be the most effective, and doing so without engaging with the provinces and territories, which are generally responsible for dental care, is not the right way to go about this.
Accordingly, while the government is prepared to support a parliamentary study on the best way forward, I must ask our members and all members of the House to vote against Motion No. 62. Meanwhile, the government will continue to offer the existing programs that address the dental care needs I mentioned earlier.
Thanks to Statistics Canada, we are improving our understanding of this issue by including an oral health component for the next Canadian health measures survey. Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, this research will be conducted in collaboration with leading researchers from all 10 of Canada's university faculties of dentistry and experts from the United States and the United Kingdom.
In closing, I would like to take a moment to recognize that dental care is just one aspect of the overall health care needs of Canadians. The government has a vested interest in improving the health care system so that it can meet the current and future needs of all Canadians. The government continues to play an active leadership role and collaborate with the provinces and territories to help them strengthen health care in Canada, especially during these difficult times.
The COVID‑19 pandemic put considerable pressure on Canada's health care system and the government intensified its financial support for the provincial and territorial health care systems. Throughout this pandemic, our government provided a lot of support to the provincial and territorial partners. We made considerable investments in the recent federal budget, in the 2020 fall economic statement and, last year, in a series of COVID‑19-related investments, including more than $19 billion through the safe restart agreement and more recently, $5 billion to help the provinces and territories deal with the backlogs in the health care system because of COVID‑19 and for rolling out the vaccine.