Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear in front of the committee.
The Canadian Public Health Association is a registered charity, a non-profit association, which is membership-based. We are not a professional association. We were established by an act of Parliament in 1910, so since then have been actively engaged in the public health issues of the day.
Public health is defined as the organized efforts of society to improve health and thus is distinguished from health care by its focus on populations rather than on individuals. There are many functions of public health, such as health protection, health promotion, chronic disease and injury prevention, and now emergency preparedness.
We believe that economic productivity is affected by both the corporate bottom line and by the well-being of individuals and communities. Our view is that a healthy population and resilient communities reinforce the availability of a strong workforce and lower costs for employers and to the health system. So by preventing illness and disease, and by government investment in communities, the economy is more resilient, able to plan for the future, and able respond to unforeseen events.
This breadth and depth of responsibility requires both a whole-of-government approach and an interjurisdictional approach. Canada, as a result of SARS and the recommendations from the report Learning from SARS: Renewal of Public Health in Canada, has started the process of public health renewal at all levels. We commend the government for the legislation creating the Public Health Agency of Canada and for recognizing the interjurisdictional nature of public health. The major investment in pandemic planning is also appreciated. However, more needs to be done to build on this foundation.
Recommendations 1 and 2 in our brief deal with the complicated issue of funding for public health. It's difficult to generate a precise estimate of how much of our total health system funding goes to public health, but in 2003 it was estimated that only 3% of our total health investment is focused on public health. Therefore, we would urge the Government of Canada to continue to enhance funding by focusing on increasing its core funding for public health functions, as advised by the Naylor report, to $1.1 billion per year, including the establishment and ongoing operation of the Public Health Agency of Canada, public health partnerships, and the prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
As well, we would encourage dialogue between the federal government and provincial-territorial governments to look at the allocations provided in the ten-year plan and what part of those allocations could be utilized for public health activities. We would also see it necessary for an agency, such as the Canadian Institute for Health Information, to do a comprehensive examination of how the public health system in Canada is funded and how that funding is being allocated.
Ongoing challenges will also need to focus on enhancing public health human resources at all levels. We have recommended that through HRSDC a multidisciplinary sectoral study be done of the public health workforce and its sustainability.
In closing, as the Public Health Agency of Canada completes a pan-Canadian public health strategy, public health remains an interjurisdictional issue requiring close working relationships between all levels of government and the NGO sector to provide the seamlessness that public health emergencies and other public health issues will require. We must link local to regional, to provincial, to federal, to international bodies. That is why our last recommendation deals with overseas development and the need to reach 0.7% of GDP by 2015. We do live in a global village when it comes to public health.
Thank you.