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This month, Canadians aged 35-64 can now apply for Government Dental Care (www.moneysense.ca)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by dwazou@jlai.lu to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] dwazou@jlai.lu 51 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Understanding the politics.

After the last 2021 election, Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party didn't have enough seats in Parliament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election#Results

Jagmeet Singh (NDP) asked Justin Trudeau for 3 laws:

A law creating Dental Care
A law creating Pharma Care
A law protecting striking workers against scabs.

In exchange for these 3 laws, the NDP signed an agreement where they promised to not bring-down the minority Liberal Government.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60837941

The 3 laws were voted by Parliament.

Liberals agree to launch dental care program in exchange for NDP support

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeu-jagmeet-singh-deal-government-1.6393021

Liberal, NDP bill to cover diabetes and birth control medication receives royal assent

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pharmacare-bill-passes-senate-1.7349433

Liberals table bill to ban replacement workers, fulfilling a key NDP demand

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anti-scab-labour-federally-regulated-workplaces-1.7023020

The agreement between Justin Trudeau and the NDP ended prematurely in 2024. Singh noticed that Trudeau was becoming politically toxic. But Dental Care was adopted. Pharmacare was adopted. That's what's important.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-ending-agreement-1.7312910

This is why I love multiparty politics. It forces governments to be more responsive.

Countries with proportional representation often end up with better governments than country with 2-party politics. My dream is for Canada to change the first-past-the-post voting system. The First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system is the reason why some countries only have 2 powerful political parties.

I have my fair share of criticism with Jagmeet Singh. But I'm very happy about what the NDP parliament members achieved. Politics can be very ungrateful and brutal.

In this election, the NDP was crushed.

To quote this recent article:

A bitterness is emerging from the results of that agreement which the NDP undertook to get solid benefits for Canadians The NDP were propping up Trudeau’s minority government as the tradeoff for getting those results for Canadians. But for the most part that commitment and effort is falling short of recognition and did not produce electoral results for the NDP in the April 28, 2025 election.

https://islandsocialtrends.ca/ndp-made-canadas-dental-plan-possible-now-carney-promotes-it/

(Alistair MacGregor is an NDP MP who just lost his seat)

Most Canadian voters may not be aware of it - sadly - but you guys made Canada a better nation.

Thank you so much.

Why are you saying all this?

Results are important. But it's also very important people understand how we got there.

So. What now ?

Children under the age of 18 are now covered by the recently created Canadian Dental Care plan.

https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/channels/news/expert-canadas-dental-plan-expands-cover-children-people-disabilities-357790

This month, the Dental Care Plan is expanding again.

Citizens earning less than $70,000 are eligible for coverage:

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2025/03/canadian-dental-care-plan-expands-to-include-millions-of-new-eligible-canadians.html

The Canadian Labor Unions have called Mark Carney to expand Pharmacare immediately:

https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-call-for-immediate-expansion-of-universal-pharmacare/

I urge people to resist any propaganda from insurance companies like Sun Life. For these corporations, this is a direct threat to their business :

https://www.sunlife.ca/sl/cdcp/en/

The Canadian Insurance Companies publically called Canadian lawmakers to NOT vote Pharmacare :

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/life-insurance/clhia-governments-pharmacare-plan-set-to-be-more-burdensome-479479.aspx

They did it anyway.

The campaign finance system isn't as corrupt as the US (thank god), but they still have allies and friends. They can pay youtube influencers to lie. They can buy ads in newspapers. They can pay shady "think-tanks" that don't disclose their source of funding. So be on your guard. If you can afford it, please support quality journalism. We need it more than ever.

The hard thing is going to be managing DentalCare and Pharmacare properly. It will require honest and determined leadership. It will also require funding. Hopefully, the Carney government will keep rolling them out.

Mark Carney tried to politically capitalize on them during the election. This means they will hopefully be safe.

[-] Snowstorm@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago

NDP got decimated but they functionally still hold the same weight of bargaining power : give this government stability in exchange for advancing their ideas.

The problem with this strategy being that, comes the next election, your own ideas won’t be differentiated from the ruling party and the next election will be a challenge.

Carney could be smart to form an alliance with the Bloc for exactly this reason : the distance between Liberal ideas and the Bloc is quite small : obstruct their effectiveness at opposing you with an alliance.

If the Bloc and NDP are smart they both ask for electoral reform as a condition to give the government stability.

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

How do you mean by capitalize? Like he's going to keep them rolling out

[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com -1 points 1 week ago

cap·i·tal·ize /ˈkapədlˌīz/

verb 1. take the chance to gain advantage from. "do they have what it takes to capitalize on this emerging opportunity?"

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean how's he going to capitalize on it? Like taking the credit for it to increase his political capital or use it to reverse-leverage NDP into supplying further votes for when he need them to play along?

Please don't provide dictionary definitions as an answer, its almost never going to be what the person was requesting clarification about and comes across a bit gauche. Like if someone asks how to define something, sure, but its not super helpful here

[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com -2 points 1 week ago

Like taking the credit for it to increase his political capital

Yes. It's obvious that he would want to do that, because it shows that something meaningful has been done while he's been in office regardless of who championed it. He has already done it on Twitter.

Please don't provide dictionary definitions as an answer, its almost never going to be what the person was requesting clarification about

Emphasis mine. The definition answered your question enough that you intuitively knew exactly what I was suggesting, but hey, if you want I can delete it and you can wait for a response for the person you originally replied to. They'll just say the same thing, but maybe you won't be upset about it.