The federal government unveiled details about its highly anticipated Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) earlier on Monday.
The CDCP is a $13-billion insurance program that will start covering most basic dentistry costs next year for uninsured Canadians with a household income under $90,000.
That’s about nine million Canadians, according to the federal government. In its current form, the plan is expected to cost the federal treasury about $4.4 billion per year.
Applications will first open to eligible seniors aged 87 and older. Applications for other age groups will then be phased in with a staggered approach, with the process opening up to all eligible applicants aged 18 and above sometime in 2025.
According to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, his party “forced” Ottawa to enact the program as a condition of the confidence-and-supply agreement that could keep the Liberals in power until 2025.
“People are living with pain, people are worried about the cost if they do have to go to the dentist,” he told a news conference in Toronto on Monday.
CBC News has been fielding questions about the CDCP since the announcement. Here are some of those questions answered.
Who pays for what under the CDCP?
The CDCP will help cover the cost of various oral health-care services, with the focus on “those deemed medically necessary by an oral health-care professional,” an information officer with the general information line for the government of Canada told CBC News.
Services covered under the Canadian Dental Care Plan include:
Preventive services, including scaling (cleaning), polishing, sealants and fluoride.
Diagnostic services, including examinations and X-rays.
Restorative services, including fillings, crowns and dentures.
Endodontic services, including root canal treatments.
Prosthodontic services, including complete and partial removable dentures.
Periodontal services, including deep scaling.
Oral surgery services, including extractions.
Some of these services will be available in the fall of 2024. Other services such as teeth whitening, implants and mouth guards will not be covered under the plan.
A rundown on the federal government’s new dental care program
CBC’s Evan Dyer breaks down what to expect when the government’s new dental care program rolls out in 2024, how applications will work, how much coverage people can expect to see and potential stumbling blocks.
Applicants with household incomes below $70,000 will not have to pay participating dentists, hygienists or denturists — Ottawa will pick up the tab for covered services.
Families with incomes between $70,000 and $79,999 will see 60 per cent of service fees covered by the government. The other 40 per cent they will have to cover out of pocket in what’s known as a co-pay.
For those in the $80,000 to $89,999 income bracket, the co-pay jumps to 60 per cent, with the federal plan covering the rest of the costs.
Who is eligible?
To qualify for the CDCP, applicants must have an annual adjusted family net income under $90,000 and cannot have access to other dental insurance. All eligible applicants will receive a letter inviting them to apply, according to the government’s announcement.
Applicants must be a Canadian resident for tax purposes, and an income tax return from the previous year must have been filed prior to applying for the CDCP.
The information officer said applicants will be reassessed every year to confirm they still meet eligibility requirements, but those reassessment details will be provided at a later date.
Applicants who have access to dental benefits through a program offered by a province, territory or the federal government can still apply for the CDCP if they meet all eligibility criteria, they said.
Applications for the new national dental plan will open later this month, initially for eligible seniors aged 87 and older (Sebastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images)
Is the cut-off income before or after taxes?
Applicants must have an adjusted family net income of $90,000 or less to qualify for the CDCP. This is not the family net income, which is the sum of line 23600 on your tax return, line 23600 on your partner’s tax return and any world income not reported in a tax return to the Canada Revenue Agency.
To find your adjusted family net income, the government of Canada’s website says to subtract any income from universal child care benefits (UCCB) and registered disability savings plans (RDSP) from your family’s net income. These amounts can be found on lines 11700 and 12500 on your and your partner’s tax returns.
Next, add any repaid UCCB and RDSP amounts to that total — these are found on lines 21300 and 23200 on your and your partner’s tax returns.
This final amount is your adjusted family net income. This total will determine whether you meet the $90,000 threshold and how much co-pay you will have to cover if you qualify.
Can I use CDCP with my employer’s plan?
Canadians who have access to dental insurance are not eligible to apply for the CDCP. According to the government of Canada’s website, this includes individuals who:
Have dental insurance through their employer or a family member’s employer benefits, including health and wellness accounts.
Have dental insurance through their pension from a previous employer or a family member’s pension benefits.
Have dental insurance purchased by themselves, by a family member or through a group plan from an insurance or benefits company.
In early 2024, oral health providers, including dentists, denturists and dental hygienists, will be able to enrol on a voluntary basis as a participating CDCP provider directly with insurance company Sun Life, which is administering the program.
Can I use my current dentist, denturist or dental hygienist?
If enrolled, oral health providers will directly submit claims to Sun Life for reimbursement; and if there’s a co-pay, those using CDCP will pay the cost out of pocket to the provider.
In his Monday announcement, Singh said they worked hard to ensure the CDCP would be supported by all oral health professionals and opened up applications to all providers.
“So people should be able to use this to go to their local dentist, the one they’ve been going to before,” he said.
Dentist hopes new dental-care program will improve Canadians’ overall health
Dr. Brandon Doucet, Coalition for Dental Care founder, tells BC Today host Michelle Eliot the health of some Canadians has deteriorated because their oral health has been neglected.
But federal Health Minister Mark Holland acknowledged the government “still has work to do” to guarantee the country’s dentists will provide services to publicly insured clients.
“The core success of this plan is making sure oral health professionals are signing up,” he said. “I’m extraordinarily optimistic there is going to be very strong uptake.”
If I’m eligible, when can I apply?
Applications for the CDCP will be open this month, initially over the phone. Only eligible seniors aged 87 and older can apply at first. Applications for other age groups will be phased in with a staggered approach.
Starting in January 2024, seniors aged 77 to 86 can apply, followed by seniors aged 72 to 76 in February, and seniors aged 70 to 71 in March.
Seniors aged 65 to 69 can start applying in May 2024 — the same month the application process switches from telephone to online.
People with valid disability tax credit certificates and children under 18 will be able to apply starting in June 2024. Eligible low- and middle-income Canadians between the ages of 18 and 65 can start applying in 2025.
WINNIPEG – A long-promised $600-million flood prevention project in Manitoba is now under review, and the provincial government has opened the door to redesigning it with no timeline for starting construction.
The NDP government said it has asked Ottawa to pause a decision on the plan, in order to fully consult First Nations and consider possible alternatives to the design. It would currently have two large outlet channels built to drain water from Lake Manitoba into Lake St. Martin then into Lake Winnipeg.
“The federal government had already expressed significant concerns,” Lisa Naylor, Manitoba’s minister of transportation and infrastructure, said Thursday.
“If the federal government had withdrawn the licence because of the environmental impact, the project would be dead. And so, I don’t want to see that happen.”
The project has been talked about for more than a decade, following severe flooding in 2011 that forced thousands of people from their homes.
The former Progressive Conservative government promised in 2016 to build the project quickly but butted heads for years with federal regulators, who called for more consultation with First Nations that would be affected.
In 2022, a Court of Queen’s Bench judge ruled the government did not consult properly before setting up a right of way on Crown land for preparatory work, such as groundwater monitoring.
A report in June from the federal Impact Assessment Agency said the project’s environmental effects could be addressed, but it would have significant impact on Indigenous land use. The federal environment minister said he would refer the issue to cabinet for a decision.
Seeking a pause on that process will give the province time to address concerns of First Nations communities and Ottawa, Naylor said.
The Tories, now in Opposition, said there was consultation and the project needs to move ahead to prevent another disastrous flood in the region.
“I think there were hundreds and hundreds of consultations that have been done with First Nations,” interim party leader Wayne Ewasko said. Technical documents, including papers translated into Cree and Ojibway, were posted online and shared with community members, he added.
Naylor said the pause will also let the government consider changing the project’s design.
“A number of smaller mitigation projects have taken place over the years that may change what the outcome ultimately needs to look like,” she said.
The province is signing a memorandum of understanding on next steps with the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council, which represents several communities in the region.
Cornell McLean, chief of Lake Manitoba First Nation, said he’s pleased with the government’s commitment because there has been no meaningful consultation to date.
“There has been none, and they say there were text messages, phone calls, faxes. And I said, ‘Well, that’s not consultation,'” McLean said.
“If you want to have true consultation, it’s face-to-face, meaningful consultation.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. – Three teenage girls have been charged with assault after two separate violent attacks took place on Metro Vancouver’s transit system.
Metro Vancouver Transit Police say the assaults happened on July 11, the first of which was on board a SkyTrain while it travelled from New Westminster to Surrey.
Police say a 16-year-old student was attacked by the three suspects after she tried to prevent one of them from prying open the doors while the train was moving.
The attackers are accused of punching and kicking the girl, then dragging her by her hair before other passengers and SkyTrain attendants in Surrey were able to help her.
Police say the second attack happened about three hours later, when the three boarded a bus and surrounded an 18-year-old woman following a verbal exchange. They punched and kicked the victim and pulled out clumps of her hair.
Officers who were called to the scene identified the suspects as a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old from Surrey, as well as a 15-year-old from Abbotsford. All three have been charged with assault causing bodily harm.
The suspects cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Police say while they would never ask bystanders to put themselves in harm’s way, the intervention by the other passengers to help the victims in the attacks should be acknowledged.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Forecasters have elevated their warnings about an atmospheric river system that is expected to hit coastal British Columbia on Friday, bringing potential flooding, heavy rain and high winds.
B.C.’s River Forecast Centre has issued a flood watch for the south and central coasts, while Environment Canada has upgraded its special weather statement over the region to a rainfall warning, with mountainous areas of Vancouver Island expected to get more than 200 millimetres of precipitation.
The weather agency says the atmospheric river system will arrive early Friday and persist through provincial election day on Saturday in places including Metro Vancouver, Whistler and almost all of Vancouver Island.
The north and central coasts from Bella Bella to Haida Gwaii are also under a wind warning, with gusts expected to reach 110 kilometres an hour.
The River Forecast Centre says a high streamflow advisory is in effect for the north coast, upper Fraser and the Thompson regions.
Environment Canada issued the first snowfall warnings of the season along the British Columbia and Yukon border, with accumulations up to 20 centimetres expected in some areas.
The weather office says the snow will spread through southwestern Yukon until Saturday.
It says 10 centimetres of snow is expected in most regions, but predicts up to 25 centimetres in Swift River.
It says an arctic ridge of high pressure will clear the skies on Sunday and temperatures will fall to about -20 degrees Celsius by Monday.
Environment Canada says the “first substantial snow” is also expected south of the border in Fort Nelson, B.C., starting Friday.
It says about 10 centimetres is expected in most regions, but there could be more than 20 centimetres close to the border.
The weather office is warning drivers about low visibility Friday night due to drifting snow.
It says the Trans-Canada Highway near Rogers Pass may also “see wet snow Friday afternoon before it quickly changes to rain as the weather system brings in mild air.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
