Thank you, Chair and committee.

I'm delighted to be here today.

I'm the CEO of the dental association, but I've also been a practising dentist for over 37 years, and I devoted the majority of my career to vulnerable populations and treating vulnerable patients.

CDA is the national voice of the dental profession, promoting dental education, research standards and the needs of the Canadian dental care system. CDA is working collaboratively with the provincial and territorial dental associations, which represent over 25,000 practising dentists across the country, to ensure that the Canadian dental care plan, CDCP, meets the needs of Canadians.

CDA has long advocated that oral health is an essential part of general health and should be supported by investments to improve health care in Canada. The CDCP represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a significant improvement to oral health for millions of Canadians, and we believe we have to get this right from the start.

CDA has focused on being a constructive partner in the CDCP's development from the beginning. In February 2023, we published a policy paper, entitled “Bridging the Financial Gap in Dental Care”, which proposed a framework. Primarily, we recommended that the CDCP should work like other dental care plans. We stress that patients should be allowed to choose their own dentist, and that existing dental care plans be safeguarded.

The federal government must ensure that the cost of eligible treatment is fully covered. Many seniors will soon learn that this program may only cover a portion of the care they need. Vulnerable seniors have unique oral health needs that may not be covered under this program, and certainly not at launch.

Dentists are worried about the bureaucratic demands this program will place on their offices in terms of HR and other resources, which are already stretched due to staffing shortages. Dentists need the program to be administratively simple. That is critical to ensure access to care for the millions of Canadians who will be eligible over the coming months.

Over the past several months, CDA and provincial and territorial dental associations have expressed concerns about the current program design to the federal government. A recently conducted survey of 4,000 dentists found that 61% of dentists said they would not participate in the program. Without the support of oral health providers, this program will not succeed, and the millions of patients signing up for the program will not be able to find a dentist.

Today, I'd like to share with the committee three areas of concern.

First, the CDCP does not provide free dental care, but many Canadians are under the impression that it does. In fact, the program only covers a portion of the usual and customary fees, despite our call that the government respect established provincial and territorial fee guides. This is already causing confusion, with the burden of explaining misunderstandings falling on dental administrative staff.

Second, formal registration under the CDCP, or a claim-by-claim pathway, is different from normal dental plans that other Canadians have. The issue is that they include terms and conditions that are generally not found in other normal plans. What we're hearing from dentists is that the extensive terms and conditions may be too much for their clinics to take on.

Third, federal government approvals should not be part of providing medically necessary care. The initial service schedule set to be launched in May gives people some level of services for the care they need, but not all. To get the care they need, CDCP patients may need to go through pre-authorization, but this will only be available after this November. The CDCP is not consistent with other dental care plans. It's a complex government program, and it involves more complex authorization processes that we believe will disrupt patient care.

Our goal from the beginning has been to make sure the CDCP succeeds. That is why we made recommendations on how the program needed to be designed to work for vulnerable populations. That's our focus. We want to work to reduce the barriers to care, not to see new ones implemented.

On a final point, as of today, there are a lot of unknowns about this program. For example, dentists don't know how coordination of benefits with provincial programs is going to work. We also don't know exactly what level of services will be pre-authorized to meet patient needs.

I want to finish by thanking the committee for having us here today, and for listening to these concerns. We believe in the intent behind this program, and want to work with the government to get it right for patients. All Canadians deserve the best oral health care possible. The program needs to be designed so that it works for patients, and the dentists and staff who care for them.

Thank you very much.

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