Auditor General Karen Hogan tabled her audit of the Canadian Dental Care Plan on 29 October 2026. Budget 2023 committed $13.0 billion over five years to the plan, then $4.4 billion a year. Health Canada runs it, and Sun Life assesses claims.

What the plan delivered

  • About 6.9 million members had enrolled as of March 2026, and about 61% had used their benefits.
  • Members who used the plan paid an average of $264 out of pocket in 2025. The most recent comparable Statistics Canada figure for Canadian households is $536. About 560,000 members paid nothing.
  • More than 27,000 oral-health providers were participating at 31 March 2026, and about 97% of claims needed no preauthorization.
  • By income band in 2025: members under $70,000 paid $226 on average, with $1,109 reimbursed. Members at $80,000–$89,999 paid $502, with $215 reimbursed.

What the auditor flagged

  • Cost. “In the first 2 years of the program, payments for dental benefits exceeded Health Canada’s budget commitment by about $1.1 billion in total.” Health Canada covered this by moving funding between fiscal years. The auditor says this is “only a temporary solution”: Office of the Chief Actuary forecasts show payments from 2026–27 to 2031–32 exceeding the funding available. CBC reports the report put that further gap at about $2.4 billion. It also reports that Hogan told reporters a newer quarterly actuarial update cut it to about $1.2 billion. We have not seen that update.
  • Oversight. “For 6 months in the 2025–26 fiscal year, Health Canada did not check whether claims and preauthorization decisions were being made accurately and according to its rules.”
  • Service. In 2025 only 16% of preauthorization decisions were communicated within the three-business-day standard. By early 2026 that had risen to 56%. Some denials lacked clear explanations.
  • Communication. According to the auditor’s office (as quoted by CBC), enrolment letters “prominently displayed the percentage of eligible fees covered by the plan — most often 100 per cent — but did not clearly explain that members may still have to pay some costs themselves.”
  • Access. The plan was not yet open to children in provincial and territorial care. Hogan put that at about 61,000 children. Use was lowest in Nunavut (9%) and the Northwest Territories (25%).
  • Results. Health Canada has no comparable before-and-after oral-health data, so it cannot yet show whether members’ oral health is improving.

Health Minister Marjorie Michel told CBC: “There’s a funding shortfall yes … but we are looking into the whole program to see how we can better improve services, at the same time reduce costs.”

Citizen impact: Members are saving real money. Taxpayers are funding a program that already costs more than budgeted, covered by moving money between years, with a shortfall forecast into the 2030s. The audit lists the options as trimming services, tightening eligibility, asking for more money, or a mix. Earlier this month, a Gazette remission order wrote off $434 million in benefits paid to ineligible members who had private coverage.