Finance Committee on Nov. 6th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting to order.

This is meeting number four of the Standing Committee on Finance. I want to welcome our guests here today in continuing our pre-budget consultations of 2013.

Colleagues, we have a very busy afternoon. We have two panels with us. I welcome all of you and will introduce you by speaking order.

First of all, we have Professor Kathleen Lahey from Queen's University. From the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, we have Diane Bergeron and Margaret McGrory. From ParticipAction, we have Kelly Murumets, president and CEO. From PearTree Financial Services, we have Ms. Marilyn Anthony. From Special Olympics Canada, we have Sharon Bollenbach. From Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band, we have Chief Michael LeBourdais.

Welcome to the committee. You each have five minutes maximum for an opening statement.

We'll start with Professor Lahey, please.

[Prof. Kathleen A. Lahey, Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation to offer my observations on the important priorities that should be addressed in this round of budget policy-making.

I'm here to speak in specific reference to what has happened to women both during the recession and during the period subsequent to that. I have provided a one-page handout which has a couple of exhibits on it that give a bit of content to what I am saying.

My main point here is that if you look at the one-page graph that is with the materials that have been handed out, you will see there have been significant gender differences in the losses and gains experienced both by women and by men during the recession. Basically, since January 2010, as men have managed to regain shares of standard employment—full-time permanent employment—women in the shadows of that have been gradually losing full-time employment. More recently, they have been losing shares of their temporary employment, which they turned to as they were looking for ways to make ends meet during the actual recession.

This is bringing Canada not closer to jobs, growth and prosperity, but to a point of crisis in relation to the overall structure of the labour market.

The core thing that I think the budget should address is how to eliminate the discrimination that has produced this situation, driven mainly by the rapid removal of huge numbers of married women from full-time employment the minute the recession began and continuing with their exclusion. This has been exacerbated by the lack of equality in access to employment insurance resources, because the lion's share of employment insurance benefits during the recession and subsequently have gone to men. Women, because women have lower incomes overall and have less eligibility for employment insurance, do not have access to a survivable employment insurance benefit.

There needs to be greater enforcement of equal employment rights and equal employment insurance rights.

Second, as a budget priority—and this is on the back of the one-page handout—it is time to face the fact that Canada has to stop paying women to not work. Women's employment is a crucial component of labour market stability in Canada and has been the mainstay of labour income employment growth over the last 15 years. With the upcoming introduction of parental income splitting, Canada will soon be spending close to $9 billion per year to pay women to not work, at a time when their labour is needed not only by the national economy but also by their families.

My final point is that if this money were not spent to pay women to not work, it would be available to support dual-income families, who really cannot reach their full potential on behalf of their children or themselves unless they have access to affordable care resources.

I draw to your particular attention the severe upside-down effects of parental income splitting which, if it is implemented, would give the families with the greatest need $39 per year as their benefit from parental income splitting, whereas people with the highest incomes in the top 1% of the population stand to receive $4,780 per year. This is money that will not help women with already low levels of employment gain access to jobs, growth, or prosperity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now hear from the CNIB, please.

[Diane Bergeron, National Director, Government Relations and Advocacy, Canadian National Institute for the Blind]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think that everyone has a copy of my presentation in English and in French. We have also provided a copy in Braille today. I read Braille, but I will make my presentation with the help of a computer. My reading of Braille is a bit too slow. I will listen to the presentation on the computer and repeat what is said.

On behalf of the charity, CNIB, otherwise known as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and also on behalf of the chair of our national board, Jane Beaumont, who is here in the audience today, we would like to thank the Minister of Finance, the finance committee, and the Government of Canada for their commitment to supporting the development of a nationwide equitable library service for Canadians living with print disabilities.

In order to reach that goal, CNIB is proposing that the federal government renew its commitment to support the national digital hub, Canada's primary distributor of print materials that is accessible to the three million Canadians unable to read print because of a disability such as blindness.

According to the 2006 participation and activity limitation survey, the employment rate for Canadians with blindness or partial sight is only 35% compared with 56% for all Canadians with disabilities and 82% for Canadians without disabilities.

This low employment rate costs Canada’s government $886 million annually in social transfer payments, forgone taxation revenue, and lost productivity. We believe these employment rates are closely linked to a lack of educational opportunities for people who are blind or partially sighted. In turn, we believe this lack of educational opportunity comes as a result of the long-standing need for print materials for Canadians with print disabilities.

Currently, the national digital hub, which is being incubated within CNIB, distributes the majority of its 80,000 accessible materials to library users on CDs via Canada Post, shipping more than one million CDs, or two million pieces of mail, to people with print disabilities each year. The federal government supports these mailing costs through Canada Post, through its literature for the blind program, with approximately $11 million in annual investment.

In February 2011 the federal government provided grant funding to CNIB to make progress in support of development of long-term funding and service arrangements with provinces and territories and other stakeholders for ongoing accessible library services past March 31, 2012.

In the March 2013 economic action plan, the federal government provided funding to CNIB to assist in transitioning the responsibility for accessible library services for Canadians with print disabilities from the charity to the public library sector through the development of a national digital hub.

Working in partnership with the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, whose members work collaboratively to strengthen the capacity of Canada’s urban libraries, CNIB anticipates that this non-profit national digital hub will be launched in April 2014. The new organization will support the delivery of equitable library services through Canada’s public library systems from large urban libraries to small and first nations libraries.

CNIB requests that the federal government build on its commitment to equitable library service for Canadians with print disabilities by providing $9.63 million in flow-through funding for the next three years for the national digital hub to move out from the CNIB and to provide stability in its formative years, allowing it to focus on improving service delivery and increase the quantity of alternative format materials available to people with print disabilities from 80,000 to 180,000 titles without a corresponding increase in costs.

In addition, CNIB requests that the government partner with us to realize savings in the $11 million of funding currently spent on mailing costs for the literature for the blind program, resulting from the transition from physical mail delivery to more cost-effective wireless distribution, and invest those savings in accelerating the process.

In summary, these investments would allow the new national digital hub to reach more Canadians who have print disabilities with more accessible content, contributing positively to their education and employment opportunities, and would support the government's desire to “reduce barriers and increase opportunities to ensure the full participation of persons with disabilities in Canadian society”.

Investments in the transition to electronic book delivery would ultimately reduce the costs to the government associated with the literature for the blind program and support Canada's digital economy strategy to accelerate the adoption and use of digital technologies.

Thank you for your consideration.

Merci beaucoup à tous.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Ms. Bergeron.

We will hear from ParticipAction next, please.

[Kelly Murumets, President and Chief Executive Officer, ParticipACTION]

Good afternoon, my name is Kelly Murumets. I'm the president and CEO for ParticipAction. We are the national voice of physical activity and sport participation in the country. I am absolutely honoured and thrilled to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

For the next five minutes I'd love to tell you a little bit about ParticipAction, why we exist, the results we've achieved over the last six years, and why.

No matter who you are, you will probably remember ParticipAction, and usually with fondness, whether you remember the 60-year-old Swede, the flexed arm hang and the Canada fitness awards, or just Hal and Joanne. Somehow if you remember one of those, you're Canadian. That is our history.

In 2001 we closed our doors because of insufficient funding. I brought the organization back in 2007. The fact that we're back is fantastic, but the reasons why we're back are not so great.

In Canada, 15% of adults meet the physical activity guidelines. Only 5% of our kids meet the daily physical activity guidelines, which means that 95% of our kids do not get an hour of physical activity per day.

We know that sport participation rates have dropped 20 percentage points over the last 20 years. We know that on average kids spend 62% of their waking hours in sedentary behaviours, and that includes, on average, eight hours per day in front of screens, seven days a week.

The last stat I'll cite is that in Ontario alone, if health care costs continue on the same trajectory, health care will consume almost 80% of the provincial budget within the next 10 years. This is not in a generation from now; this is today.

We would suggest that we have a physical inactivity crisis in the country.

ParticipAction's vision is that physical activity will become a vital part of every Canadian's everyday world. Over the last six years, we truly have been doing a great job in terms of improving the way Canadians live. With the continued support of the public and private sectors, we believe that we can build a healthier, more active, and therefore more productive society. It's this vision that we've been working towards for the last six years.

We have an opportunity to change the way we live, but only if we work arm in arm with those in the not-for-profit sector, with elected and non-elected public sector officials from all levels of government, and also with the private sector. I come from the private sector. I believe strongly that the private sector has a role to play, and they wish to play that role as partners.

This is exactly how ParticipAction has been achieving results over the last six years. By working together, we can lead a healthier, more productive, and more active life.

At ParticipAction our focus has been essentially on children and youth, and children and youth in the most vulnerable populations, including able-bodied, less than able-bodied, urban, rural, and aboriginal kids. Our job is to touch the most vulnerable in the country. That is the work we've been doing.

In the next couple of minutes, I'd like to highlight a couple of our success stories.

Our most recent campaign is called “Bring Back Play”. It's a social marketing campaign targeting moms of school-age kids. It's our fourth campaign. It's truly a 360-degree campaign. We offer inspiration, information, and tips and tools to moms to help them inspire their kids and their families and get them more physically active.

Our message is that physical activity is the magic elixir. It helps your kids be healthier, yes, but it also helps them to be happier. They score better academically. They have better self-confidence and better self-esteem. They do better socially. It truly is the magic elixir.

The second example is the ParticipAction teen challenge, with teens inspiring teens to be more physically active. It's a $10-million, 10-year commitment from Coca-Cola Canada. Over the first five years, we deployed $3.5 million back out to community grassroots organizations. We touched 3,600 community-based organizations. We got a quarter of a million teens more physically active. We worked in every province and every territory, and we worked with the most vulnerable in those populations.

On November 25, we're going to be announcing a very big private sector partner that is going to help us improve physical literacy in the country.

Last year's report card on physical activity for children and youth took us from a failure from the year before to a D-minus. While a D-minus is not good enough, we'd say that it's significant in terms of the trajectory. We're moving in the right direction.

We would ask the committee to recommend annual funding of $5 million for ParticipAction in budget 2014. For the last two years, we've been able to leverage the moneys you have given us over the last two years, leveraging almost $4.5 million a year into $26 million of private sector funding, both in kind and in real dollars.

We truly believe we are uniquely and ideally positioned to maximize Canada’s investment in the promotion of active, healthy living. We have a trusted brand and partnerships. We will work unbelievably diligently to make sure that the Government of Canada and the people of Canada receive a huge return on their investment. That's what we've been doing, and we'd like to continue doing that, because our mandate is to go change the world.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Ms. Murumets. Did you bring a bar so that we could do the flexed arm hang today?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Kelly Murumets]

We could.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now hear from Ms. Anthony, please, for five minutes.

[Marilyn Anthony, New Business Development, PearTree Financial Services]

Good afternoon, Mr. Rajotte, and members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me to present to you today.

I'm appearing in my capacity as head of business development and director of philanthropic services at PearTree Financial.

Prior to my joining PearTree over three years ago, I enjoyed an almost 20-year career as a major gift fundraiser. I worked with grassroots organizations, such as the Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria, with leading research funders, such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, and with social service umbrella organizations, such as the United Way of Greater Toronto.

I've experienced first-hand the frustration of fundraisers with no new incentives to encourage major gift owners to give more on an annual basis, not after their death but now, when a charity needs its funding and a donor can experience the satisfaction of immediate funding that is meeting immediate need.

I've also experienced the frustration of donors feeling that the charitable sector has not developed innovative gifting formats that provide rational financial incentive for increased giving.

Flow-through share donations have become a proven philanthropic tool, widely used by Canadian charitable organizations. It's a Canadian innovation. The format provides benefit to the charitable sector and to the junior resource sector by combining two well-established tax incentives: flow-through shares and charitable donation credits.

Within the format, a donor who is in pledge to their charity of choice subscribes to a flow-through share issue, and in so doing accesses the tax benefits of these shares. Flow-through shares are issued by a junior exploration mining company that gives up the deductions incurred because they are conducting high-risk surface exploration activities.

Our donor clients tend not to have a history of purchasing flow-through shares. They do so within our format to donate them to their charity, which means we have created a new source of capital funding for the Canadian junior mining sector. The donor immediately donates their flow-through shares to their charity, and under our guidance, the charity immediately sells the shares to an institutional investor. The charity receives a gift equal to the donor's pledged amount, and issues a tax receipt equal to the cash that has been received by the arm's-length institutional investor at no net cost to the charity.

Our recommendation number one respectfully requests that the mineral exploration tax credit, known as METC, be made permanent in the income tax system. Currently, it's reviewed on an annual basis in each federal budget cycle. Mining is a strategic industry for Canada, and exploration, the research and development phase of mining, is its driving force. Flow-through shares and the METC significantly improve returns on high-risk investments, and therefore make it more likely for investors to back Canadian projects than to back comparable international ones. Without METC there would be a critical investment gap in the mining industry.

METC is also a very important element to the efficiency of flow-through share donations. Without the METC, the efficiency of the gifting format would be materially reduced.

The mining industry in Canada is currently facing a confidence issue, which makes it extremely challenging for juniors to raise money, an activity that's crucial to the industry's existence. Making the mineral exploration tax credit permanent would provide the industry with more confidence. In particular, it would enable them to move more effectively to plan financing for multi-year exploration programs.

Though it may be obvious that mining occurs in remote and rural areas of Canada, if the industry has a great sense of predictability for investors, it can provide a sense of stability in these remote communities. Ancillary companies, suppliers, and service providers surrounding the mining companies would benefit and provide peace of mind for the rural and northern-based Canadians who depend on mining exploration for growth, employment opportunities, and local trade. Mining spinoff boosts the Canadian economy as a whole, but it makes a significant difference in the day-to-day lives of people living in rural and northern regions.

Within our brief we've provided supportive letters from a mining company, a charity, and a major gift donor. One donor in particular has allowed us to bring forward to you knowledge that they have tripled, even quadrupled, their donation. It's the Taggart family of Ottawa. In fact, they're going to be recognized on Thursday night as outstanding corporate philanthropists by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

As competition for charitable dollars increases and major gift donors are faced with donor fatigue and their own financial limitations, innovative gifting formats are in high demand. Transforming high-risk resource funding into philanthropic dollars meets and fulfills two government objectives.

In our second recommendation, we suggest that the government take on an exploration of the benefits and the no cost to the fiscal authority of the METC. Based on the findings of this evaluation, policy can be formulated that entrenches the METC as a net tax addition to expand economic activity at little cost to the fiscal authority.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Ms. Anthony.

We'll hear from Ms. Bollenbach, please.

[Sharon Bollenbach, Senior Vice-President, Sport and Strategic Initiatives, Special Olympics Canada]

Good afternoon, my name is Sharon Bollenbach. I am the senior vice-president of sport and strategic initiatives for Special Olympics Canada. Joining me today in the observer seating are Special Olympics athlete Jacob Mathews and Special Olympics coach Rachel Mathews, who also happens to be Jacob's mom.

We wish to thank you for inviting us here. We're all so thrilled to be here and to present to you our recommendation for the budget consultations. We've provided a written submission, which is a full description of our recommendation.

As noted, Special Olympics is requesting that the federal government provide graduated incremental funding over a four-year period to support the growth and ongoing delivery of high-impact, cost-effective, community-based programs for athletes with an intellectual disability.

Special Olympics Canada is dedicated to enriching the lives of Canadians with an intellectual disability through active participation in sport. As a national sport organization, we provide year-round community sport training and competitive opportunities for over 35,000 athletes with an intellectual disability, of all ages and ability levels. We are supported by more than 16,000 volunteers, including more than 12,000 trained coaches.

Special Olympics programs reach athletes where they live. Each day of the week from coast to coast to coast in large and small communities, Special Olympics programs provide athletes with an intellectual disability the opportunity to experience the transformative power and joy of sport.

Through Sport Canada, the Government of Canada supports our shared vision of sport for all through its generous and ongoing financial contribution; however, there is still so much more that can and should be done. At present, Special Olympics Canada is reaching only 5% of the potential population of individuals eligible for its programs.

Stories of life-changing experiences for Special Olympics athletes and their families are numerous, like that of Jacob, who is here today. At 25 years of age, Jacob has been involved in Special Olympics since he was nine years old. He trains and competes in four sports. He's been to four Special Olympics national games.

This past winter, he competed in snowshoeing at the 2013 World Winter Games in South Korea. Jacob came home with one gold medal and one silver medal, contributing to Team Canada's total of 109 medals. I know he has them with him today, so if you're interested in seeing a world medal, he has a couple of them.

Success in sport has not always been the case for Jacob. As a little boy he loved being active and part of a team, but by the time he was seven years old, his disabilities were interfering with his participation in regular sport. Although there was no doubt that Jacob was a good athlete, he could no longer keep up on the soccer field. Everyone else could think and respond faster, and Jacob needed more time to learn the skills.

At the age of nine, he enrolled in Special Olympics, and the rest is history. Now, not only is he an accomplished athlete, but he is tremendously confident, has two jobs, and excels in all aspects of his life, both on and off the field of play.

As Special Olympics strives to achieve its five-year strategic growth targets, additional funds are required in the following critical areas.

The first is athlete growth. We've identified six initiatives that will increase the participation of athletes in our programs. One, increased funding is required to reach more athletes in all 12 provincial and territorial chapters. Two, increased funding is required to reach more young athletes ages two to twenty-one. Three, increased funding is required to assess current demographics and develop a diversity strategy that identifies and reduces barriers to participation in sport. Four, increased funding is required to conduct community outreach and get into new communities and cover grassroots program growth. Five, increased funding is required to support the planning and execution of larger national games. Six, increased funding is required to implement Special Olympics healthy athletes programs.

The second critical area of growth is volunteer growth. As we look to have more athletes in our programs, it goes without saying that we need to place equal emphasis on recruiting volunteers.

The third and final area for critical growth is around sustainable capabilities, making us a stronger, smarter, and more efficient organization. We'd like to undertake research to provide quantitative and qualitative facts and figures to confirm our impact. We'd like to make sure that more Canadians are aware of our programs and the role we play, and we'd like to amplify and strengthen our organizational capacity.

There is no doubt that the impact and benefits of sport are multi-dimensional. For athletes with an intellectual disability, the impact is even more far-reaching.

Special Olympics develops healthier athletes with lifelong physical fitness habits, and instills confidence, self-esteem, and other life skills. In order for these benefits to be sustained and extended, additional support is required to ensure both the quality and the growth of sport programs that contribute to personal development and result in building stronger, more inclusive Canadian communities.

We thank you for your time. Both Jacob and I are available to answer questions, should you have any.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Ms. Bollenbach, for your presentation.

Welcome to Jacob and Rachel.

Jacob, on behalf of the entire committee, I extend our congratulations on your success.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Our final presentation on this panel will be Chief LeBourdais, please, for five minutes.

[Chief Michael LeBourdais, Chief, Whispering Pines Clinton Indian Band]

Thank you, James.

You brought an Olympian, that's good; I'll remember that the next time I come.

[Sharon Bollenbach]

They tell our story best.

[Chief Michael LeBourdais]

Mr. Chair, it's a privilege to have an opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Finance. We both have a difficult challenge, you and I. We're both elected to make Canadians' lives better: you for Canada and me for my community back home.

I'm the chief of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band. It's a small community located just outside of Kamloops. We were moved there in 1972 to make way for a B.C. Hydro transmission lines project.

We currently are a small community of 150 band members. I'm one of the old guys; we have 150 people, and my band number is 38, so there are 112 guys younger than I am on my reserve. We have only one person on SA, social assistance, and that's because we pour a substantial amount of money into education. We take the education funding that we receive from INAC and we use it. We do partnerships with pipeline companies, logging companies, and so forth, so we have a well-educated young population.

My community has the same dreams that other Canadians do: to receive primary and secondary education at the same standard as other Canadians; to have post-secondary education opportunities; to acquire skills, education, and meaningful employment; to live in a healthy community; to raise our families; and to own our homes. That's what I am asking for here: to own our own homes.

Like you, I was elected to realize the dreams and goals of our youth, and I was elected to honour our elders and provide health care for them. That's why I'm here. However, in my community we can't do that. Our elders can't retire with security and our youth can't get ahead.

First nations people do not and cannot own their own land on reserve. My house is owned by the Minister of Indian Affairs. It says that in subsection 2(1) of the Indian Act. I bought it; I paid for it; I paint it; I fix it; I insure it; but he owns it.

Under the Indian Act, we are prohibited by legislation from holding legal title. In Canada, only children, mentally incompetent persons, and first nations people living on a reserve cannot own land.

Why should our young families not be able to own homes on our land? Why should our elders not be able to retire using the equity they've acquired in those homes? On what grounds does Canada continue to justify first nations not having the same human rights as other Canadians?

A recent event has given me a profound appreciation of why property rights are a fundamental human right. Hernando de Soto, the distinguished Peruvian economist, visited us last year at Thompson Rivers University.

In his work throughout the world, Mr. de Soto has found that the distinction between prosperity and poverty is the laws. Quite simply, it's how you hold title to the land and how you hold title to your house. As Mr. de Soto put it when he visited us, to not provide these rights is to condemn a people to poverty. Why should we as first nations be condemned to poverty through the Indian Act?

Mr. de Soto has learned this lesson in his own country. In 1992, Peru was impoverished and beset by the Maoist group, the Shining Path. Peru had informal property rights that were not codified into law so they could not be enforced and traded. Mr. de Soto led Peru through a program to create legal title to the land for Peru's people, with very impressive results. Over the last 20 years, Peru has been the fastest growing economy in South America and North America; the Shining Path has been eliminated; and the violent crime rate is among the lowest in the Americas. This approach has become a model for the rest of the world.

Hernando de Soto visited us a month or so ago because that is precisely what we want to do in Canada with first nations reserves. Our community is one of the proponents of the first nations property ownership act legislation. If passed by Parliament, this legislation would return our home and native land to us. It would be our land, under our jurisdiction. It would allow our members—our youth, our elders—to access mortgages, business loans, lifelong education opportunities, retirement savings, and other things like that, which Canadians take for granted.

All I'm asking the Standing Committee on Finance to do is to urge the government to act on the economic action plan 2012 commitment to introduce and pass the property ownership legislation. It was the Standing Committee on Finance which wisely recommended that the government include the commitment in the 2012 budget.

My community members support property ownership. There is no good reason for Parliament to continue to overlook this human rights violation. Parliament must act now to introduce this optional first nations legislation.

We are not asking for special rights. We are simply asking for the right to own our own house and to own our own land, just like every other Canadian.

We are not asking for sympathy or pity. We are not asking for handouts. We are simply asking for what is right.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Colleagues, we'll begin our five-minute round of members' questions with Ms. Nash, please.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all of the witnesses. What an interesting, varied group. Sadly, I only get five minutes to ask questions.

Let me begin by saying that you make me think of a very wise economist I once spoke to. When I asked him what he would recommend to help grow the economy and to have an innovative and productive economy, his answer was to invest in children.

To start with you, Professor Lahey, one of the proposals you touched on was child care. I wonder if you would describe for us whether you see the provision of child care services as something that's important to a productive economy, and how you see the benefits of that.

Then I want to move on to some of the other witnesses.

[Prof. Kathleen A. Lahey]

Based on my experience in investigating that specific issue in a number of European countries and other countries, it is very clearly established that early childhood education, when linked with child care services of the highest quality, actually increases the store of knowledge and the acceleration of development of all of the human capacities that are needed for vital economic growth.

Simultaneously, it gives parents the confidence and security they need, knowing that their children are making the very best use of their time possible while the large number of families who have to have more than one income have to go out into paid work. It's a very synergistic combination of resources.

As I outlined in my formal submission, Canada can easily fund, with some of the money that is already being used for various forms of child care and paying for various types of care, a program of that dimension with approximately $7 billion to $9 billion per year. It would add a lot.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I do notice that some of the countries that we point to as models, Scandinavian countries, Germany, and some others, in fact have these child care services.

I'd like to ask Ms. Murumets about the economic benefits of ParticipAction. Have you done any studies or work in terms of quantifying how beneficial it is to get kids moving, to get everybody moving, but especially our children?

[Kelly Murumets]

We know that physical inactivity costs the country over $4.5 billion a year. That comes from Conference Board of Canada statistics.

In terms of economics, in the short term, in the very current term, we know that if populations are more physically active, health care costs go down and productivity goes up. There are very direct economic implications relating to physical activity.

When we think about our kids, as I mentioned earlier, if children are more physically active, they are healthier for sure, but they're also happier. They score better academically, have better self-confidence and higher self-esteem, and they do better socially.

If we think about that for this generation, but also for generations to come, there are unbelievably significant economic implications. We know that if we raise a generation of children who are more physically active today, they will be more physically active as adults, and they will create a much healthier economic society.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

It helps children's physical health and their mental health as well, I would assume.