NDP continues healthcare-based campaign in Brampton with dental care pledge

The New Democratic Party continued its drive to win in Brampton’s five federal ridings on Friday, with local candidates re-announcing a policy the party first floated on Wednesday. In Brampton’s Churchville area, local NDP candidates laid out the party’s plans to introduce free dental care for families earning less than $70,000 per year. 

“Brampton is in a healthcare crisis; I know we’re all hearing that at the doors,” said Jordan Boswell, candidate for Brampton Centre. “Liberal neglect and Conservative cuts aren’t going to solve healthcare, especially here in Brampton.”

Saranjit Singh, who is running in Brampton East, added: “Our crisis goes beyond the fact that we only have one hospital. Dental care is prohibitively expensive for so many of our residents. They’re forced to go abroad at times because it is so much cheaper to go outside of Canada than to get treatment in Canada.”

Boswell and Singh, alongside Mandeep Kaur (Brampton South), Melissa Edwards (Brampton North) and the staff of Dentistry on Dusk were present to talk about a policy that party leader Jagmeet Singh first introduced in Sudbury on Wednesday. The plan, part of the NDP’s push for national healthcare reforms, would provide dental care free to those with household incomes under $70,000 per year and make subsidies available to those earning less than $90,000. If elected, the NDP says, it would enact the policy in January 2020 across the country. 

Analysis released by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget put the cost of providing dental care at $1.884 billion in the 2020-2021 fiscal year, when it’s expected pent-up demand will lead to a rush to dental offices, and $830 million through 2024-2025. The policy would cost $856 million by 2028-2029 across the country as a whole. Saranjit Singh, responding to The Pointer’s questions about the high cost, suggested that the NDP’s plans to tax corporations more heavily as one way the policy would be paid for. 

Including dental coverage in public healthcare across the country isn’t the only policy the NDP has floated in Brampton over the past few weeks. On the second day of the official campaign, Leader Jagmeet Singh arrived in the city to announce a policy to introduce universal pharmacare, plus a pledge to provide federal funding to expand Peel Memorial Centre as well as build a new hospital in the city.

The latest policy announcement, reiterated today in the Flower City, may be particularly appealing to Brampton’s diverse population. According to 338Canada, the city’s five ridings have median household income ranging between $74,100 and $100,300. The lower median household incomes of Brampton Centre ($74,100) and Brampton South ($75,000) would suggest many residents of those two ridings in particular may find the idea of free dental care compelling. 

Saranjit Singh told The Pointer the NDP program is something “Canadians across the nation need” and that it was not targeted at key ridings in Brampton, where leader Jagmeet Singh made a name for himself in politics. He said a desire for more comprehensive healthcare coverage affects everyone.

Speaking to The Pointer after the policy re-announcement, Dr. Gurpreet Singh Chohan, the principal dentist at Dentistry on Dusk, where the campaign event was held, said many patients came to him requiring emergency care after seeking inferior dental care abroad. Backing the NDP’s policy, he said that “an ounce of prevention” was worth “a pound of cure.” 

“A lot of our patients have been coming in with dental emergencies after they sought care abroad, whether that’s in India or in Europe,” Chohan said. “I honestly think that the care there in some regards is inferior. They’re going there because it is less expensive, but they are also getting bad treatment that has less longevity. It is not done to the Canadian standard. I think we have the highest standards in the world.”

Those who need dental care the most are often least able to afford it, he added. “We have universal healthcare in this country; we should have dental as well. They go hand in hand.”

Also crammed into the relatively small dental practice were Ravneet and Karamjit Kaur. Daughter Ravneet, who has previously volunteered with the NDP, was on hand to describe how her mother had flown to India for major dental treatment in the past. 

“Back in 2008, my mum had a problem with her teeth and we wanted to get it fixed over here, but it was crazy expensive,” she said. “So we struggled and we ended up going all the way to India to receive dental care that wasn’t as expensive. Ultimately it was less expensive [to fly to India], than getting it done here.” 

Healthcare concerns are top of mind for many Canadians, but nowhere more so than in Brampton, which has been at the centre of the “hallway healthcare” crisis for several years.

With national polls looking grim for Jagmeet Singh’s NDP, the party seems to be paying extra attention to issues that will resonate in the party leader’s hometown of Brampton — including making people like Ravneet Kaur and Gurpreet Chohan available for interviews.

In Brampton East, for example, the party is vying for second place with the Conservatives as the campaign heats up. However, with about a month to go until the election, the NDP and its five Brampton candidates are throwing everything they’ve got at a city they are quietly confident they can win in. 

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