Health committee  Well, as I've been told and led to understand, the funding comes from the federal government and then the provinces decide how it will be used. If you look at provinces like Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, they do have reasonably good programs. No program is perfect. For i

Health committee  Those are all very good points. As I understand it, with the current Canada dental benefit, this is something that has a finite lifespan. As I said, this will be part of the ongoing dialogue. I don't know if Aaron wants to add to that.

Health committee  It's extremely important to oral health, because if you get community water fluoridation and you get fluoride added to the water in the right amount, it will enable those teeth to be stronger. I have benefited from that myself. You probably have as well. However, it comes down t

Health committee  What we have now is an interim program. The money is going to low-income families and children who need it. What we would say is that as part of the dialogue, we would want to be involved as we develop this program going forward. You are correct; there are programs in existence a

Health committee  I'm sorry. I was listening in two places.

Health committee  No. If you look at it, actually, it's more like a health spending account.

Health committee  Well, certainly we would like to see the money being put toward dental care for children. As to whether or not the person actually does it, as I understand it, CRA has various mechanisms for audit and for checking on how the money is used. We wouldn't want to see dentists having

Health committee  That's a question I really cannot answer, because it's in the design of the program.

Health committee  I refer to what we have now as a health spending account. In a sense, the administration of that is very simple. Going forward, whether we have a federal program or whether we have transfers to provincial programs with the accompanying administrative burden, we would want to be a

Health committee  Thank you. Yes, certainly. We have the opportunity to get something going here that's going to have long-lasting effects and, hopefully, is going to be a long-lasting program. It's definitely worth taking the time to consider all the aspects and to consult with stakeholders, den

Health committee  One thing that's important is that we would not like to see something that adds to the administrative burden. We don't want to be the gatekeepers on determining eligibility and having to chase patients and make them verify. That really comes between the doctor and the patient in

Health committee  You may recall that I said earlier that there really isn't a shortage in terms of number of dentists in the country. We see lots of new entrants into dentistry every year, both from our dental schools and from graduates coming from countries outside of Canada. I think the emphas

Health committee  Well, one of the numbers is actually in the government's backgrounder for this program: an estimate that approximately half a million children could be eligible to access this program. I think that's probably a good starting point.

Health committee  Thank you for that question. There is considerable variation across the country. If you go to provinces like Newfoundland or P.E.I., which do have programs, they are funded well enough so that dentists are reimbursed for the cost of providing care and the ability to make a livi

Health committee  Certainly as the Canadian Dental Association that represents 20,000 dentists from coast to coast to coast, we would be happy to partner with the government to make everybody aware of it.