Jagmeet Singh, shown here in the House of Commons with his new baby, has good reasons to grin after the Liberals tabled their most recent budget. Two years earlier, the PBO estimated that 6.3 million people would benefit in 2025.Įven if the latest official projection turns out to be overly bullish, it seems safe to assume some significant number of Canadians who currently don't have sufficient insurance coverage could be able to access dental care without incurring costs they can't afford. A projection released by the parliamentary budget officer last year assumed that 5.9 million people would use the program. That is a significant increase over previous estimates. The federal government now estimates nine million people will use the dental care program once it's fully operational. Less attention was paid to how many Canadians are expected to use the program. Once it's fully up and running, the program is expected to require annual funding of $4.4 billion - the federal government previously predicted an annual cost of $1.7 billion.
When the budget was released on Tuesday, reporters focused on a new projection of how much a federal dental program will cost.
MORE: Highlights from the 2023 federal budget Trudeau's Liberals mentioned it as a notion "worth exploring" in their 2019 throne speech.īut it's happening now because the Liberals and New Democrats were willing to sign a supply-and-confidence agreement and the NDP needed something to show for it. Maybe some future Liberal government would have turned its mind to the idea after dealing with other priorities. While it's a Liberal government that will actually implement the program - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in New Brunswick on Friday to tout "affordable dental care" - dental care was not a feature of the Liberal platform in either the 2019 or 2021 federal elections.
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The Liberals also might not have needed the NDP's help to decide to apply labour standards to the new round of investment tax credits for clean tech.įULL STORY: Budget 2023 offers billions for dental care, plus spending cuts and tax hikes to tame deficitīut a new dental care program for low-income Canadians is an indisputable NDP win. (Still, the decision to now promote the extra payment as a "grocery rebate" feels like a nod to the complaints New Democrats have focused on major grocers). Left to its own devices, the Liberal government might have ended up boosting the GST credit last fall anyway - and might have done so again in this year's budget. Some of the victories New Democrats are claiming for themselves are at least open to debate. Singh announced an eight-city "post-budget tour" to "talk to Canadians about how the NDP delivered results that put money back in their pockets." On Wednesday, the day after the federal budget, the party's MPs staged a mini-pep rally for the television cameras to celebrate their influence on the document. The NDP is certainly in a celebratory mood. Plus, Senior Writer John Paul Tasker looks at how much the cost of government has gone up over the last eight years.ĭental care gives the NDP a reason to smile - no matter what happens in the next electionįor all anyone knows, this might be as good as it gets for Jagmeet Singh's NDP. Senior Writer Aaron Wherry takes a look at what the policy means for Jagmeet Singh's legacy.
The federal budget released this week included new spending worth $13 billion to expand dental care to more Canadians, a key demand of the NDP. Your weekly guide to the latest in federal politics
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