Thank you very much.
Good morning, committee members. CDPAC is a network of about 60 voluntary public and private sector organizations. We have a provincial-territorial alliance, and we have a thousand active members within CDPAC. We're really looking at a country-wide movement toward the prevention of chronic disease and an integrated population health approach to that.
When we talk about chronic disease there are reasons to be optimistic and certainly reasons to be pessimistic about this area. We're optimistic that there is increasing recognition of the burden of chronic diseases on our society today. We commend the government for putting forward, in 2005, $300 million over five years toward an integrated strategy for healthy living and chronic disease. We're also very happy to see the number of organizations and sectors that are working together in this area.
We know more today than we've ever known about chronic diseases and the prevention of them. We know that 80% of premature heart disease, strokes, and type two diabetes can be prevented, and we know that 40% of cancers can be prevented. That's through healthy diet, physical activity, and the avoidance of tobacco. However, there is a problem, because we know that chronic disease currently costs Canada $80 billion annually. With the aging population it's only going to get worse. We know that our risk factors aren't great: 60% of Canadians are overweight or obese; 80% of Canadians over 20 are not physically active enough; and even though we've had gains in tobacco, about 20% are still smokers.
CDPAC has put forward a number of recommendations, which you'll see in your package. I'll dive right into them.
The first two recommendations are around keeping our citizens healthy. We're asking that the government fulfil its commitment to allocate 1% of federal health spending to physical activity and sport. We know that Canadians are not physically active enough. This contributes to obesity and chronic diseases. We know that physical activity is an important component. We also know that you need a comprehensive and coordinated strategy around physical activity.
We have a pan-Canadian physical activity strategy that has been put together by the NGO community through the Coalition for Active Living. So we're suggesting that the federal government work with the NGO partners, such as Coalition for Active Living, look at those funding priorities and the various elements in there, and commit the funds to this very important area.
The second recommendation is around mental health. We know that mental health is an important factor in chronic disease prevention, and one in five people will be affected by mental illness. So we're suggesting that the federal government fund a Canadian mental health commission. You can find more details in your brief.
The next three recommendations are really around infrastructure pieces that you had in your proposals.
One is that the federal government allocate funding for physical infrastructure to reduce obesity. We know that there is a link between obesity levels and how our communities are designed. So when we talk about the design of communities, we're talking about the interconnected street networks, bicycle paths, sidewalks, walking trails, and public transportation. Unfortunately, our communities are not designed properly for that, so we're suggesting that 7% of transportation-related infrastructure funding be allocated to active transportation projects that facilitate active living. This is the same proposal that went forward from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and is also supported by the Canadian Cancer Society.
The next recommendation is on the surveillance system. It's very important to monitor chronic diseases in Canada through surveillance. We feel that the surveillance system is inadequate, has significant data gaps, and lacks integration and coordination. So the existing systems need to continue to develop and grow. We also need to build on the links of those that already exist through cancer, diabetes, physical activity, etc.
The last one we want to discuss is the new Canadian lifelong health initiative. It's a groundbreaking set of large cohort studies that would track the health of thousands of Canadians over many years, generate new knowledge, and really give us some good data on how to get a handle on these diseases and the health of our population. This would position Canada as a world leader and would attract and retain the best scientists.
So with that very quick summary, I'd like to thank you very much for having CDPAC appear here and for our being able to put forward our priorities. As a non-government organization out there in the world, we're certainly very keen to work with the federal government to help move some of these initiatives forward.