It finally happened and, when it did, it happened better than I was even expecting.
Yesterday the federal budget for 2023 was handed down by finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland and in it was money for dental care for Canadians who either struggle to or simply can’t afford it on their own. As part of their supply and confidence agreement, the NDP had been insisting that this notion be made permanent policy. It would, however, help only seniors and children to the age of 18. If you fall outside those two demographics, then you go without dental insurance unless you either buy it yourself or have it as part of a benefits package at work. So there would still have been a significant gap remaining in the population, particularly the economically fragile part of it.
The Liberals surprised everyone by slapping down an additional $13 billion over five years to fund dental insurance for all Canadians who can’t afford it, not just some. Simply put, by the end of this calendar year, every Canadian will have dental insurance coverage one way or another.
In my opinion, this is one of the keystone progressive and forward-looking policies to be introduced that will serve as a benchmark in history, along with universal health care, pensions, child care, and other social security measures. We’re not exactly Sweden, Finland, or Norway yet, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction. So kudos to the Liberals, who are often criticized for big talk and little action and kudos to the New Democrats for prodding the Liberals to do it in the first place. It serves as a good example of what politicians and political parties can do when they’re not bad-mouthing one another and actually work together for the good of the people. The kind of things governments are supposed to do.
Of course some people will scream about where all this money is coming from, how it adds to the deficit, how it adds to the national debt. Unless they’re extremely well-off, most of these people will voice their complaints as they sit in homes bought with borrowed money, drive cars bought with borrowed money, and do all sorts of things with all sorts of things, much of it using borrowed money. So while these people invest in themselves and their lifestyles, the government in this case is investing in others, its own citizens, making their lives better than they would have been without.
I suppose the “work hard” people out there are going to resent the idea of giving free stuff to poorer Canadians when they have to purchase theirs on their own. But some of these people will benefit as well, since the threshold for coverage is a family income of less than $90,000 a year and no co-pays for families earning less than $70,000.
Preventative dental care is absolutely and intricately connected with a person’s overall health care, so in my mind, investing in one is significantly important to the costs of the other. Health care is expensive, absolutely, but money spent on keeping people out of hospitals in the first place seems to me to be money well spent.
Activist, progressive government is, in my mind, what government should be all about. Many take the opposite view, that government should stay out of our lives and leave us alone, but they’re just wrong.
A government is responsible for the well-being of all its citizens, not just the wealthy ones. Next up for me is the forgiving of student loans and the implementation of free tuition. Investing in young people to create more affluent taxpayers in the future seems like a prudent direction to explore.
It was Abraham Lincoln who said “government of the people, for the people, by the people.” Some 160 years on, those words still have significant merit and importance.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 