Canada’s public healthcare system does not cover routine dental care. Dentistry was excluded from the Canada Health Act, the law that guarantees universal medical coverage, so visits to a dentist for checkups, cleanings, and fillings have historically been the patient’s responsibility. About 62% of Canadians get dental coverage through employer-sponsored insurance, while 32% pay entirely out of pocket. However, a new federal program called the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) is changing the picture for lower-income Canadians without private insurance.
Why Dental Care Was Left Out
When Canada built its universal healthcare system, dentistry was excluded due to a mix of professional, economic, and legislative factors. Doctors’ services and hospital care became publicly funded, but dental offices operated as private businesses and stayed that way. The result is a system where your health card covers a broken arm but not a broken tooth, unless that tooth is treated in a hospital setting. Changing this would require amending federal legislation and reworking funding agreements with every province, which is why full dental coverage under Medicare has never materialized.
The Canadian Dental Care Plan
The CDCP is a federal program designed to fill the gap for Canadians who lack private dental insurance. It doesn’t make dental care universal for everyone. Instead, it targets people in lower income brackets who have no workplace or private coverage.
To qualify, you must be a Canadian resident for tax purposes and attest each year that you do not have access to private dental insurance. If you already receive dental benefits through a provincial, territorial, or federal social program, you can still apply.
How much the plan pays depends on your adjusted family net income:
- Under $70,000: The CDCP covers 100% of eligible services at its established fees. You pay nothing at the plan’s rate, though your provider may charge above that rate.
- $70,000 to $79,999: The plan covers 60%, and you pay the remaining 40%.
- $80,000 to $89,999: The plan covers 40%, and you pay 60%.
Covered services include preventive care like cleanings and exams, diagnostic X-rays, fillings, root canals, and other restorative work. One thing to watch for: the CDCP pays based on its own fee schedule, and if your dentist charges more than that, you’re responsible for the difference.
How to Apply
You can apply online through My Service Canada Account (MSCA), which is the fastest route. If you can’t use MSCA, the application is also available through canada.ca. For those who prefer phone, Service Canada takes applications at 1-833-537-4342.
What Provinces Cover on Their Own
Even before the CDCP, most provinces ran targeted dental programs for specific groups, usually children in low-income families and people on social assistance. These programs vary significantly from province to province.
Ontario’s Healthy Smiles program covers children 17 and under in families that meet strict income limits. For a family with one child, the household net income must be $28,523 or lower. Each additional child raises the threshold by roughly $2,159. Once enrolled, a child stays covered until their 18th birthday.
Quebec takes a different approach through its public insurance system, RAMQ. Children under 10 receive a range of dental services at no charge, including exams, fillings, root canal treatments, extractions, and prefabricated crowns. Adults on social assistance for at least 12 consecutive months qualify for a broader set of services including annual exams, cleanings (from age 12), scaling (from age 16), fillings, extractions, and oral surgery performed in hospitals.
Other provinces have their own versions of these programs, but the common thread is that they’re narrow. They cover specific populations rather than all residents, and the services available are often more limited than what private insurance would provide.
What Dental Care Costs Without Coverage
If you’re paying out of pocket, a standard dental cleaning in Canada runs between $139 and $430, typically including scaling, polishing, and sometimes fluoride treatment or X-rays. Costs vary widely by province. Alberta tends to be the most expensive, with cleanings ranging from $167 to $725. British Columbia and Saskatchewan sit at the lower end, starting around $108. Ontario falls in the middle at $123 to $495.
These are just cleaning costs. Add in fillings, crowns, or root canals, and expenses climb quickly. For the roughly one-third of Canadians without any dental insurance, even routine preventive care can be a significant financial decision, which is exactly why many people skip it entirely. That pattern of avoidance is one of the disparities the CDCP was designed to address.
Hospital-Based Dental Surgery
There is one situation where provincial health insurance does pay for dental work: when oral surgery is performed in a hospital and deemed medically necessary. This typically applies to trauma cases, severe infections, or complex procedures that require general anesthesia in a hospital operating room. A dentist extracting a wisdom tooth in their office is not covered, but a maxillofacial surgeon removing an impacted tooth in a hospital may be. The line between what qualifies varies by province, and your referring physician or oral surgeon’s office can usually clarify what your provincial plan will pick up.