The Canadian Dental Care Plan, announced in last year’s budget under pressure from NDP, will cost twice as much as expected, according to the 2023 budget presented today by Treasury Secretary Chrystia Freeland.
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This program will ultimately cost $13 billion over five years, while a year ago Finance Canada projected a cost of $6 billion over five years. So no less than 7 billion dollars more have to be spent on this.
“The range of services covered will be greater than originally planned and inflation has generally pushed up the cost of services,” said a senior Finance Canada official.
“Since December, our investments have helped more than 240,000 Canadian children get the dental care they need,” Secretary Freeland said, adding that up to nine million uninsured Canadians will ultimately benefit from the program.
A third of Canadians do not have dental insurance. To fix this, the Trudeau administration has pledged to cover dental coverage for uninsured people whose family income is less than $90,000 a year, starting with children under the age of 12.
However, Quebec already has its own dental care plan for children under the age of 12. It is therefore to be expected that Ottawa’s intervention in this area of provincial justice will revert to the office of Secretary of State for Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc.
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agreement with the NDP
The dental care program is an integral part of the special deal between the Liberal government and the New Democratic Party (NDP). Thanks to this agreement, Prime Minister Trudeau will ensure support for Jagmeet Singh’s troops until 2025, in exchange for generous social programs, among other things.
This agreement also provides for the eventual creation of a drug insurance plan that is not on the agenda of the daily budget. However, the NDP only requires that legislation be passed by the end of 2023, laying the groundwork for announcing the program during the 2024 budget.
– With Raphaël Pirro, agency QMI
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