I was the dean of kinesiology in Saskatoon when Saskatoon in Motion--now Saskatchewan in Motion and Manitoba in Motion--came to be.
There are certainly best practices in terms of mobilizing community and making things happen, building capacity within the community. Childhood obesity in Saskatchewan is significantly greater than in Canada as an average right now, after Saskatchewan and Saskatoon in motion have been in place for several years. Activity levels are lower in Saskatchewan than the Canadian average.
It certainly hasn't solved the problem. How much worse it would be in the absence of that is the difficulty. This is the same as the assessment of ParticipAction: ParticipAction was here for 30 years, and obesity rates climbed through those 30 years; therefore ParticipAction was no good at all.
Well, yes, but you know computers entered our lives during that time, and screens invaded our homes, and buses replaced bicycles, and so on. Was ParticipAction supposed to stop all of that from happening? So how much worse it would be is difficult to know.
It's also worth mentioning that Saskatoon in Motion started with an investment from the Saskatoon Health District, which stepped to the table after groups, year after year--we've been part of them, and I'm sure my colleagues have been--came together saying we need to do something--health, education, community, usually the groups together--then they all ran away, saying “It's not us who should lead it.” No one's going to come to the table with a cheque.
What was unique there in Saskatoon is that Saskatoon District Health came with a cheque and said, “We need to do something and we're going to start paying for it.” And then everyone came in and said, “Well, actually we can contribute to it, too”, instead of the typical scattering of everyone as soon as resources are required.
They were fairly modest resources that snowballed, just like with ParticipAction. The amount of air time they could leverage from the media, the number of things they could leverage from industry and so on was huge, and continues to be. It's certainly a best practice that's out there, and we need to build on things like that. It's happening naturally, actually.
Saskatoon in Motion became Saskatchewan in Motion. It's now migrated to Manitoba. I know other provinces are in discussions with them as well.
It also doesn't happen instantly. This is relationship development that occurs at a much more intimate level than they are typically working at. It takes some time to do that. We're starting to see the benefits of that in Saskatchewan now.