Dental care: Scheer won’t say whether Conservatives will end

Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer won’t say whether his party will scale back or fully scrap Canada’s federal dental care program, despite new data showing nearly 650,000 Canadians have used the plan.

A national dental care program was one of the keystones of the now-ended supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and NDP, inked in 2022. It involves plans to roll out coverage especially for children, seniors, and low-income Canadians, and with remaining eligible Canadians slated to gain access in 2025.

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced last week he’d formally ended the pact with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party, 10 months before it was set to expire. Absent that agreement, the possibility of a general election before the set date in October 2025 is more likely.

When asked by CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos whether the Conservatives would roll back dental care if they form government, Scheer wouldn’t say.

“First of all, the NDP never want to talk about government greed and government waste, and when we talk about fixing the budget so that inflation and interest rates can come down, that’s what we’re focusing on,” he said in an interview airing Sunday.

Scheer also pointed to and characterized specific government spending, including the infrastructure bank and consulting fees, as inflationary, accusing the Liberals of “waste and corruption.”

“But again, it’s all about how inflation takes a big bite out of workers’ paychques, and that these programs aren’t as advertised, that we’re hearing from people all across the country saying that they’re not qualifying for these programs, that the dentists aren’t adopting in,” Scheer said.

The dental care program faced early criticism from dentists for what they said was an administrative burden, along with confusion over its reimbursement model. Despite that, the federal government announced this month that more than 2.4 million Canadians have been approved for coverage, and that more than 82 per cent of dental care providers are now participating in the program.

When pressed by Kapelos on the statistic that nearly 650,000 Canadians have already accessed care, Scheer again would not directly say whether his party would scrap the program, if elected.

“We’ve seen workers’ paycheques completely gutted by nine years of NDP and Liberal deficit spending and borrowing,” he said. “That’s why workers’ paycheques don’t go as far. That’s why prices have risen so dramatically.”

When asked a final time whether those 650,000 Canadians would lose access to dental care under a Conservative government, Scheer said his party will “have a fully comprehensive plan in time for the next election.”

MPs are returning to Ottawa as the House of Commons resumes Monday, once again under traditional minority government dynamics after more than two years of the supply-and-confidence agreement.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, has promised his party will table a non-confidence motion as soon as possible.