Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the panellists. I thought the presentations were very good.
I want to follow up with Mr. Bird. The place I want to go puts me in agreement with Ms. Wasylycia-Leis, which causes me a mild level of concern, but not too much. I do want to talk about fitness, particularly for children. It's an area that I've spent some of my life working in. I joined the health committee last year in hopes that we would have some impact on getting a national wellness agenda put through following the creation of the Public Health Agency of Canada, which I think is a good initiative, both for public health but also for population health, chronic disease. I come from Atlantic Canada. We have the highest levels of chronic disease: diabetes is out of control, cancer, heart disease, and all the risk factors for poor health.
I've talked recently with Dean Hartman, who owns Nubody's Fitness in Nova Scotia, and Kevin Cameron. They are people involved in trying to put together a health promotion agenda in Nova Scotia. We're fortunate in Nova Scotia that we have Canada's first health promotion department, ably led by Scott Logan, and we have Jamie Ferguson, who you may have met somewhere along the way. They've done some good work.
I'm pleased with your recommendations. One of them mentions including tax measures. The others are sort of more involved in volunteerism and infrastructure. It seems to me that we have to go that way. The kids who are most unable to access measures that will keep them fit are at the lowest level of income in society.
I just registered my son for hockey for the first time. He's seven years old. It was $350 to register. It was another some hundreds of dollars to buy the equipment. There's travel. Getting a tax credit at the end of the year would incent nobody to do it. It will help me and it will help other people who already register their kids in hockey, but it doesn't provide any kind of direct incentive for kids who otherwise might not be able to register for hockey.
We have the Commonwealth Games coming up in Halifax, which I strongly support, mainly because I think it will provide some infrastructure afterwards for kids and adults and others in the community.
I have two questions after that lengthy regional preamble. Do you agree that direct investment in infrastructure and in programs mainly for kids who can't afford it otherwise is more important than tax measures, or do you think the tax measure is better? I'm not condemning it. I think it's a worthwhile initiative. In my view, it's not the priority. I would be interested in your view.
The second question is, whatever we do for hockey and baseball, should we not do for dance and other forms of physical fitness?