(Ottawa) Federal Health Minister Mark Holland accuses the Conservatives of sabotaging the government’s dental care program by calling dental associations and intimidating them. Conservatives call Mr. Holland’s accusations “exaggerated.”
The Liberals began covering dental services for seniors last month.
While the government has slowly expanded eligibility for the program over the past few months, it has also made changes to the program in an effort to attract more dentists.
So far, more than 40 percent of dental providers have signed on to the program, Holland said at a news conference Tuesday.
Still, the Canadian Dental Association has raised concerns, saying patients are unaware they will have to pay out of pocket for some services that are not fully covered by the government program.
The health minister said he had worked with the associations to improve the program whenever they raised an issue, but now it was time to “move on.”
“I now find myself in an unfortunate position where I don’t really understand what their problem is,” he told reporters.
He added that the associations are “actively looking” for problems and he blames the Conservatives for this reason.
“I think they’re actively pursuing it, if I can be really frank, because the Conservative Party doesn’t want it to succeed and [il est] calling these dental associations and yelling at them and getting angry with them,” Holland said.
“I think dental associations, which normally treat their patients as dentists, are suddenly faced with rabid conservatives who […] want to see this program fail, because they fear it will benefit our party. »
He said there is currently recklessness and chaos within the conservative movement, which “seems more interested in tearing things down to prove they are broken than in providing solutions.”
The Canadian Dental Association gives its version
The Canadian Dental Association did not directly respond to Mark Holland’s allegations regarding preservatives, but said in a statement that it had never explicitly asked any oral health professional to oppose the program nor to discuss it with a political party.
The opposition says the Liberals have no one to blame for dentists’ reaction to the program but themselves.
“It is Canada’s dentists, those who provide care to Canadians across the country, who are calling out this NDP-Liberal government for implementing a broken dental program and for breaking its promises to Canadians,” said Tuesday, spokesman Sebastian Skamski said in a statement.
“If Minister Holland is looking for someone to blame for yet another broken promise to Canadians, then he should look to himself, to Jagmeet Singh, and to Justin Trudeau. »
The dental association said it had offered advice to the government on how to improve the program and recently sent a letter to try to highlight remaining concerns.
She also said she looked forward to working with the government and “all political parties to ensure the program is well placed to best meet the needs of patients”.
So far, more than two million seniors have registered for the program and the government has processed some 200,000 applications.
At the end of the month, the government is preparing to extend eligibility for the program to children and those who benefit from a disability tax credit.