The National Assembly has united to demand unanimously that the government of Justin Trudeau pay Quebec full compensation for its future dental insurance plan. And the Legault government has therefore agreed to devote part of these sums to also expanding dental care coverage.
The Quebec solidaire motion, adopted without opposition on Thursday, stipulated that “health is an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec”. The text proposed to support the Legault government’s request to obtain “unconditional financial compensation”. But the wording also asked the government “to commit to using transfers from the federal program to improve dental care coverage for Quebecers”.
The proposal was supported by 102 deputies, including 73 caquists. There were no abstentions.
However, on Wednesday, Finance Minister Eric Girard did not say anything about what his government would do with the $2.9 billion it estimates it could recover from the federal government under the “Canadian regime”. dental care,” projected at a cost of $13 billion in Ottawa’s most recent budget.
A reinvestment, on its own terms
The Legault government always jealously defends its areas of expertise. Justin Trudeau had hinted that he might be willing to discuss compensation for the Quebec government, but he also warned that it should be used to provide dental insurance as generous in Quebec as elsewhere in Canada.
The CAQ thus removed a passage from the QS motion, which initially proposed to ask the Legault government to reserve “all transfers” to expand dental insurance in Quebec.
Currently, Quebec covers dental care for children under 10 years of age. The Trudeau government has been reimbursing dental care for children under 12 since last year.
In his 2023 budget, tabled Tuesday in Ottawa, Mr. Trudeau pledged to create a “Canadian dental care plan” that will extend this coverage by the end of the year to minors, the elderly as well as to those living with a disability who do not have private insurance. The plan will then be available to all Canadians with an annual family income of less than $90,000 by 2025.
Mr. Trudeau insisted Wednesday that there was no chicanery on the horizon in this file.
The National Assembly has agreed to send him the unanimous motion adopted on Thursday.
The solidarity deputy and author of the text, Vincent Marissal, was delighted that the CAQ had undertaken to improve the coverage of dental care, the left-wing party for its part proposing a universal plan for years. “We are going to monitor the file closely to ensure that the CAQ leads this battle against Ottawa to bring us back the money we need to invest in dental care,” reacted Mr. Marissal in a press release.