Yes, there are just so many places. The problem has crept up on us, and we've really just started to recognize the enormity of it and to take it seriously. We're still a little bit in denial about how important it is. We do need to spend real money to tackle this problem, and it has to be tackled on many different levels. The schools are a critical piece of that. The education that our elementary school children are getting, as I said in my comments, is not sufficient. And we need to stop graduating teachers without any physical activity training.
The opportunity is there to provide greater training for before- and after-school care, but parents are the first in line. We buy the groceries. We actually dictate how our families spend their time. Certainly, what I have been doing nationally is really promoting the importance of families' having unstructured play, of getting outside and kicking the soccer ball with their kids, of giving themselves permission, instead of signing up for another hour of tutoring or another hour of language, to actually spend one night a week having a family night to get kids out and be physically active together.
Australia, as I mentioned, is a good model. They have very strong physical education experts in their schools. They have a culture that values physical activity, and we have a culture that watches physical activity on television. We watch sport on television, and that has been a shift. If we are going to continue to produce great athletes, which is one end of the spectrum, we also have to continue to really value and support activity on every level, from the level of the kid who wants to participate in hockey because it's fun, to the level of the kid who has a dream to be the best in the world. If we're not supporting the dreams of our children to be the best in the world, then we're supporting mediocrity. We need to support our elite athletes, but at the foundation we need to look at all these initiatives.
There are so many things going on in our country that are really good, as I said in my presentation. There are people who really know how to engage young people. I would suggest that the federal government take a role here in creating some sort of funds for these lean, mean programs--$5,000 really has an impact in these communities--so that they are easily accessible and are something like the Edmonton inner city project. In Edmonton there is a wonderful project that gets kids playing before and after school. They are the neediest kids in that community. They are strapped for funding. A little bit of funding makes a big difference.
Does that answer your question? I was long-winded.