Canada is about to unveil the "biggest expansion of the public health system in 60 years" , or at least that's what the headlines and political party apparatchiks will tell you.

While this is technically true, it's important to understand how this new programme began, and how it was slowly and inexorably whittled down to a hollow shell of its former self.

1. In 2021 Liberal party leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a pointless and completely opportunistic federal election. The Libs were riding high in the polls and he expected it to be a cake walk to regain his majority government. No such luck, the electoral map remained essentially unchanged from the previous election held two years prior.

2. Since the Liberals still retained minority status they need support from other parties to keep their government afloat. Enter the NDP, Canada's social democratic party. They said, "We'll prop up your government, but in return we expect you to deliver on some of our priorities, including dental care." The Libs said "Ok sure" - they had no choice.

3. So, a year passes, and of course the Libs haven't done fucking anything except start to introduce terms and conditions to what would otherwise be a very simple inclusion of dental care into the already-existing socialised medicine programme in Canada. Enter means testing. God forbid we treat teeth like any other fucking bones in our bodies. Now, all of a sudden, instead of universal dental care, this programme will apply only to middle/low income familes (under $65,000 of income IIRC). Singh is ok with this as he very notably defended means testing during the 2017 NDP leadership race (and was the only candidate to do so).

4. Still no dental care. Jagmeet Singh calls the Liberals' bluff and holds a press conference, threatening to kill the NDP's support for the Liberal government if they don't pass some form of dental care by the end of 2022. The Liberals start to shit themselves, especially since the Conservatives are soon to elect the surprisingly popular Bitcoin Milhouse to lead their party. Deputy PM) Chrystia Freeland (noted Ukrainian nazi nationalist sympathiser and enthusiastic support of the Victims of Communism memorial foundation) holds a meedley mouthed press conference assuring Canadians (and, more specifically, Singh) that the Liberals love dental care and they're totally going to get right on that, which they totally intended to do all along!

5. The Liberals, forced to deliver on their promise, insist on coming up with the worst possible interpretation of this very simple principle: Even more means testing! Now instead of just low/middle income families, it's just going to be children 12 and under of low/middle income families. But, wait, there's more! It's no longer going to be an actual social programme, but instead a technocratic series of tax-deducible expenses that these families can file after they've already paid out of pocket . OH SHIT EVEN MORE MEANS TESTING! It gets capped at $650 per year.

6. So, what started as a very simple, straightforward and reasonable demand to just give Canadians dental care turned into a $650 tax credit for poor kids. Naturally, they claim to plan to expand the coverage to more groups year over year, but I will guarantee you they will find any and all reasons to avoid doing that, or to introduce even more bullshit.

This is all not to mention the increase in administrative costs associated with means testing to begin with.

Am I happy that low income families will get an extra $650 per year? Sure, but it's a fucking fart in the wind with current inflation and housing prices.

EDIT: Some of the details have changed as the plan has been developed. Seems that the cap was increased to $1,300 and for families making less that $70,000

EDIT2: And, obviously, the Conservatives who have nothing but contempt for human life will, of course, vote against it.

EDIT3: $1,300 over two years, so yeah still $650 per kid per year, for a total of two years. Christ.