Plan sponsors and HR professionals should understand what's suppressing uptake in Canada's public dental coverage program
Only 49% of New Brunswickers approved for the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) in the 2025–26 benefit year have actually received care, new federal data shows — highlighting a persistent uptake gap that extends well beyond one province and raising questions about the effectiveness of Canada's largest public insurance expansion in a generation.
Federal statistics showed 121,191 New Brunswickers were approved for the benefit year, but only 59,439 had received care as of April 30, 2026, according to Health Canada. The provincial figure sits slightly below the national average — roughly 60% of approved CDCP members nationally had received dental care as of late 2025.
Paul Blanchard, executive director of the New Brunswick Dental Society, said the picture was mixed. While uptake was lower than expected, the program had meaningfully improved access in many communities.
“We know from our survey that probably two-thirds of our dentists see this change as a positive, and 50 per cent of them have acknowledged that access to care in their communities has really improved,” he said. “There’s been a lot of pent-up demand, and so people have been dealing with old dentures or partials for a long time, and they haven’t had the means to come in and get this care that they need.”
Why uptake is lagging
New Brunswick’s gap reflects a combination of workforce shortages and program misunderstandings that are depressing utilisation across the country. For plan sponsors and HR professionals managing group benefits alongside the CDCP, these structural barriers matter — employees who don’t understand the program’s limits may still look to employer plans to fill gaps.
Blanchard said 40% of the province’s dentists are over the age of 50, clinics in northern New Brunswick are not accepting new patients, and 79% of survey respondents said they were advertising for a dental assistant while 70% were looking for a hygienist.
“As a patient, you can take six months, nine months to get an appointment for hygiene, and we’d certainly like to see you more frequently,” Blanchard said.
Nationally, the CDCP has struggled with similar tensions. As of April 2026, more than 4.3 million Canadians have received care under the plan, with total claims exceeding $6 billion, according to Health Canada. Health Canada added that, on average, each patient has had $800 in expenses covered per year, and close to 100 per cent of active dentists, denturists and independent dental hygienists are now treating patients through the program.
Consistency and predictability around what is and is not covered continue to be problems nationally, with some patients cancelling treatment rather than navigating a lengthy appeals process when pre-authorisation requests are rejected. The CDCP’s rollout has drawn ongoing scrutiny from dental associations and employer groups concerned about misalignment between public and private coverage.
Renewal confusion and administrative burden
A significant contributor to the uptake gap is confusion around the program’s annual renewal requirements. The CDCP provides coverage over a single benefit period ending each June 30, and enrollees must reapply each year to confirm they still meet eligibility criteria. The renewal window for the 2025–26 year closed June 1, 2026.
Blanchard said many enrollees did not realise they had to reapply annually, and that people who did not receive care in the previous year likely assumed their coverage would carry forward automatically.
“What Health Canada is asking us to do is to predetermine or submit in advance to make sure that when you come in, you have coverage, so that they can avoid those things. But that does create a lot of administrative burden at the dental office,” he said.
Co-payment obligations have also caught some enrollees off-guard. Depending on adjusted family net income, the plan is not free of charge. Blanchard said a number of patients arrived expecting no out-of-pocket costs. To be eligible, applicants must have no access to private dental insurance, an adjusted family net income below $90,000 and Canadian residency.
Ontario and British Columbia lead the provinces on uptake at 59% and 56% respectively, with New Brunswick’s 49% placing it slightly below the national average but broadly in line with most other provinces, according to Health Canada data.
What this means for plan sponsors
The CDCP’s structural gaps have direct relevance for benefits professionals. As the Canadian Dental Association has warned, there is a risk that employers may assume employees are covered by the public plan, cancel existing group dental benefits, and leave workers without adequate coverage. HR executives and plan sponsors should review whether their workforce overlaps with CDCP eligibility criteria and communicate proactively to avoid coverage confusion.
Help is on the way for New Brunswick’s supply-side constraints, at least in part. From September 2026, five students from the province will enter Dalhousie University’s dental program each year for at least the next five years, following the restoration of funding for those seats. There are also three seats for New Brunswick students at Université de Montréal and two at Université Laval.
The CDCP’s rollout offers a large-scale case study in the challenges of launching a complex public benefits program at national scale. Workforce capacity constraints, enrollee confusion over policy terms, inconsistent coverage decisions and administrative friction at the point of claim are combining to suppress utilisation well below the program’s theoretical reach. For the benefits professionals tracking the CDCP’s evolution, the gap between enrolment and actual care remains the central metric to watch.
