While confusion persists about what will happen to the Yukon Dental Program as the newly announced federal dental plan is rolled out, NDP Leader Kate White says she won’t let the Yukon government defer to the federal one unless equal benefits are included.

“Until the federal program is expanded in such a way that it captures all of what we have, for now, I would not accept the transfer,” White said earlier this month.

The Yukon’s dental plan is included in the NDP’s Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA) with the Liberal government.

Territories and provinces across Canada are trying to figure out how the newly announced federal dental program will fit with local programs.

A Yukon government spokes-person told the Star he is still unsure if and how they will work together in the Yukon.

“We don’t have anyone who can fully speak to the two programs right now as there are still a few moving pieces about how the two plans will work,” Department of Health and Social Services (HSS) spokesperson Zachary Burke said in an email.

It seems the federal government is also a little unsure of how the programs will fit together as well.

“Health Canada is collaborating with provinces and territories regarding public oral health services, including the co-ordination of benefits between the CDCP (Canadian Dental Care Plan) and provincial and territorial publicly-funded programs,” says a Health Canada backgrounder on the program.

The new federal program will be introduced in a phased approach, with seniors over the age of 87 being able to sign up this month, followed by descending age groups down to 65-year-olds over the following six months.

Children and people with disabilities will be eligible come June, and all remaining Canadians will be able to sign up starting in 2025.

Much like the Yukon program — which was introduced at the beginning of the year — the federal dental plans will have income limits. They both have an adjusted family income cap of $90,000 per year.

Both are also only available to people without other coverage, such as through an employer.

But the two plans are different in a few ways.

In the Yukon, individual incomes are capped at $60,000 per year, with families capped at $90,000.

The federal approach gives progressively better benefits for households making less than $80,000 and $70,000 per year.

In the Yukon, coverage is capped at $1,300 per year — with some exceptions — while the federal program does not have specific overall coverage limits with a dollar amount.

There are likely differences in what is covered, but this will not be totally clear until a more detailed list of what is covered under the federal program is released.

Both programs are the result of NDP pressures on Liberal governments.

White said she insisted on including dental coverage in the CASA.

“At the time, I was told it wasn’t possible in the territory,” she said.” And it didn’t matter because I was convinced it was.”

The federal program came about in much the same way when the federal NDP made it part of its CASA.

“No matter how hard it is to pay the bills, people shouldn’t be forced to neglect their dental health because of high costs,” federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a Dec. 11 press release.

“That’s why for years, the NDP has been fighting to provide dental care for everyone who needs it.”

White said she advocated for it in conversations with Singh when he asked local NDP leaders what they wanted most included in the federal platform.

“I told him dental coverage — we need a dental plan for Canadians to make sure that this is something that’s truly accessible,” she said. “And so, the federal NDP ran with that in their platform.”

At this point, though, White said, the Yukon program is still better than the federal one.

“It’s far more inclusive and covers far more people,” she said.

She would have liked to see the federal program be more expansive, but that is the reality of pushing legislation through with a CASA, rather than being in government, she said.

“I’m confident that the federal NDP would have wanted more and would have wanted it broader and would have wanted it to be more inclusive,” she said. “But unfortunately, it’s not them who were who were creating the program.”

In the Yukon, the two programs together may make for one system that provides more comprehensive coverage.

There are still some gaps in the Yukon’s system, White said. She said she needs people to bring these things up to be able to fix them.

“I’ve heard from people saying things like mouthguards for sleep aren’t included,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known that unless someone told me.”

A few other issues were recently brought up to the Star by Leah Olivie, the Riverstone Dental Clinic’s office manager.

She said some of their patients already had coverage through treatment plans organized by HSS, and those plans didn’t have the same constraints as the current Yukon dental plans.

Another issue was the renewal dates for the program, which are on June 30 each year. People are required to submit tax information from the previous year by that date to be able to retain coverage.

This was not widely understood, Olivier said.

But despite a few hiccups, Olivier said the Yukon’s dental plan is much better than HSS programs in which people had to go through a whole process in order to get their treatments approved.

“It’s just faster,” she said. “They get their services done quicker.”

Olivier also explained that if people run out of yearly $1,300 worth of benefits, the dentist office can apply for up to $5,000 more to get essential care done.

This has been particularly important because once the new plan began, people began showing up to the dentist who hadn’t been in years.

“Their hygiene requirements are much higher,” she said. “If people come in and they haven’t had a cleaning in 10 years.”

This is a point White touched on as well.

“They’re seeing people that they’ve never seen before,” White said.

Her view is that it has always been an oversight that dental care is not included in Canadians’ universal health care coverage.

“Oral health is overall health,” White said.

“Poor oral hygiene leads to heart disease, it leads to cancers, there’s a whole bunch of reasons why oral health is so important.”

People who want to enroll in the new federal dental plan will not need to do anything until they receive a communication from Health Canada in the mail.

These will be sent out as the age groups become eligible and will include a code to apply with through Service Canada.