Watch Dr. Brandon Doucet explain the future of dental care in Canada

The Canadian Dental Care Plan, launched in 2024, has given millions of Canadians access to a dentist. But the plan is not perfect and leaves some people out.

Dr. Brandon Doucet joined the Canadian Health Coalition’s Anne Lagacé Dowson for a special election webinar on what the future holds for dental care in Canada on Tuesday, April 22. The webinar is now available for viewing here –

Dr. Doucet is a practicing dentist, founder of the Coalition for Dentalcare and author of About Canada: Dental Care (Fernwood).

“More than just a perfect smile”

Doucet began his talk with a definition of oral health from the World Dental Federation: “Oral health is multifaceted and includes the ability to speak, smile, smell, taste, touch, chew, swallow and convey a range of emotions through facial expressions with confidence and without pain, discomfort, and disease of the craniofacial complex. So clearly oral health has much more to do than just the perfect smile.”

“Poor oral health has been shown to worsen type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and aspiration pneumonia. And a dental abscess can lead to potentially life-threatening infections. Poor oral health and lacking access to dental care contributes to the cycle of poverty. Because having missing front teeth or visible decay can affect employability,” added Doucet.

Before the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), one in three Canadians that had no dental insurance and over one in five avoided the dentist each year because of financial constraints, according to Doucet.

Doucet highlighted how dental fees have skyrocketed while the social safety net for dental care in Canada has been eroded. “In 1980, public dental spending accounted for 20 per cent of overall dental spending, but this has been chipped away at to its current rate of about 6 per cent before the CDCP,” said Doucet.

Doucet is a champion of universal dental care. For Doucet, targeted programs such as the CDCP are inferior to universal programs because it leaves some people out. He added that targeted coverage for some marginalized groups of people allows politicians to benefit from feelings of resentment of those who pay taxes but are shut out from care.

Doucet and Dowson discussed the political parties’ positions on dental care. The Conservatives’ Pierre Poillievre has suggested he would not cut the coverage of those currently covered under the Canadian Dental Care Plan. Doucet reminded listeners that the Liberals delayed fulfilling their promise to fully implement the CDCP, only providing coverage to the largest cohort to be eligible, just after the election.

On March 22, the Canadian government announced all remaining eligible Canadians aged 18 to 64, with annual household incomes of less than $90,000 will be able to apply for the plan in May 2025 with coverage starting as early as June 1, 2025. Doucet noted that’s more than 4.5 million people. About 3.5 million of the 8.5 million eligible Canadians are currently signed up for the Canadian Dental Care Plan.

“With Polievere saying nobody who has coverage will lose it raises a big question mark. What about those remaining 4.5 million people?” said Doucet.  

“Keep in mind that Poilievre was denying the existence of this program up until he blew a 10-point lead in the polls. And now he’s trying to distance himself from a fascist MAGA movement south of the border that he’s cozied up to for years. So, I would take his words with a big grain of salt there,” added Doucet.

Doucet noted “major cracks” in the Liberal’s commitment to public dental care, notably that income cut-offs for the program have not been adjusted according to inflation and the allowance of dentists to direct bill. Direct billing creates a situation where a dentist’s fee differences with the CDCP fee guide could mean patients face higher than promised co-payments. The Liberals originally promised a program that had no co-payments for those making less than $70,000 per year.

Doucet would like to see NDP push for more universal dental care, while noting “we do have strong MPs like Don Davies, who I’ve done a lot of work with, who has long held the position that the Canadian Dental Care Plan needs to be seen as a down payment towards a universal dental care system.”

“We would not have the Canadian Dental Care Plan if it wasn’t for the NDP holding the balance of power in a minority parliament,” added Doucet.

For Doucet, pathways to dental care coverage for everyone involves the government dealing with private health insurance companies, the corporatization of dentistry and the crushing debt of graduates from dental school.

Upcoming webinars – 

April 29 – Steven Staples and Anne Lagacé Dowson, Canadian Health Coalition, on what the federal election results mean for health care. Register for the Zoom link.

Webinars are recorded for later viewing on the Canadian Health Coalition’s youtube channel.

For more information, contact Tracy at tglynn@healthcoalition.ca.