Health Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Could we have order, please?

First of all, we want to say thank you to our witnesses who are here today. We look forward to your presentations. We have a video conference as well.

Mr. Lawrence Frank, are the connections working? Can you hear me?

[Dr. Lawrence Frank, Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia]

Yes, very well, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you, and welcome.

Mr. Frank is from the University of British Columbia. We also have Dr. Paul Veugelers, from the University of Alberta. It's good to have you here.

As well, we have Gord Steeves and John Burrett, from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

We'll go in the order of our agenda, with the University of Alberta first. We'll start with you, Paul, and then we'll go to Lawrence, and then on to Gord and whoever is presenting there. Let's start with that. We welcome you to our committee and look forward to your presentations.

The floor is yours, Mr. Veugelers.

[Dr. Paul Veugelers, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Alberta]

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm a researcher, so I will present some research results, some of which have already found their way into policy.

Schools are the focus of my research. Schools provide a wonderful opportunity for interventions for addressing childhood obesity--schools, school environments, and the neighbourhood at large.

I'll start off with lunches at schools. At some schools, Monday is McDonald's, Tuesday is Burger King, Wednesday is Wendy's, and so on. We all know that this is not the quality of diet we would like our children to eat.

I did a survey and demonstrated that those who purchase lunch at schools are 39% more likely to be overweight and 39% more likely to be obese. You may wonder whether maybe these are the children who are also physically inactive, who don't engage in sports and so on. We have the statistical models that take all that into consideration, so the increased risk of purchasing lunch at school is as it is. It's the exposure to and the consumption of those lunches. Those children are almost 40% more likely to be overweight and 40% more likely to be obese compared to children who brown-bag their lunches or just go home and have lunch there.

Following these observations, I provided some recommendations to the Nova Scotia government, and I was very happy to see that they came up with a policy response. They have now implemented a new school nutrition policy, and hopefully that will address this issue.

Another one, very much related to the school setting, is the amount of physical education that children receive. There's a clear correlation between the frequency of physical education classes and obesity and overweight. There is up to 40% more overweight and obesity among children who have a limited number of physical education classes. Again, my recommendations here are very clear. We need more physical education in the schools.

There is a policy response in Nova Scotia. More physical education teachers will be recruited and employed.

You may note that I'm not the only one who has made this observation. There's a lot of advocacy going on. The Province of Alberta, for example, has already implemented a policy of daily physical education.

It appears that there is a problem with the implementation of this policy. Why is that? Because often schools don't really have the capacity in terms of a gym and facilities to accommodate that policy. I would think that this goes towards a recommendation about the built environment: we need schools equipped with good physical education facilities.

One of the most remarkable findings of my research so far is a school program developed in a cluster of schools in the Annapolis Valley. They do a combination. They provide healthy lunches only. They have a no-junk-food policy in schools. They have daily physical activities. They have things like having the gymnasium open after school for the children. They have a comprehensive curriculum on health and nutrition. And they have been extremely successful in fighting childhood obesity. There is up to 59% less overweight in those schools and 72% less obesity in those schools. Those are very impressive numbers.

Obviously, this leads to a recommendation for a comprehensive approach to tackling childhood obesity. I was very happy to see that the Nova Scotia government followed up on that, in that they asked the successful program people to expand the program from the initial seven schools to all the schools in that school board. So we're talking about 40 or something schools.

Now I would like to move a little bit further and focus on neighbourhoods and how that affects obesity and overweight and health in general.

We know from studies using U.S.-based data that where you live determines your health, independent of individual factors like socio-economic status, etc.

I've been involved in this type of research here in Canada, and generally my observations were that we see less neighbourhood differential in health relative to the U.S. I tend to explain that in terms of our having a good public school system and a health care system, and for that reason we see less of a gradient over those neighbourhoods.

However, in my research on childhood obesity I did see a tremendous differential. Basically children living in better neighbourhoods have only 50% of the risk of becoming overweight and obese relative to children living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The background of information is all the same, and clearly this begs the question of why that is. We cannot explain it on the basis of individual factors. What is it in the neighbourhoods that explains those differences?

I looked at access to playgrounds and parks. Children who live in neighbourhoods that have good access to playgrounds and parks are much less likely to spend a lot of time in front of televisions and computers playing video games and much more likely to engage in outside activities. They also have a decreased risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Clearly there is a general recommendation to support more and better access to good playgrounds and parks. It is also a recommendation towards the school environment. They need to be equipped with good playgrounds and sports facilities. Playgrounds around schools are quite often financed through charity and through funding from the food industry that brings the food into those schools.

You may actually have an opportunity to double tackle this problem. First of all, you provide the playgrounds and in return you ask the school to implement a school policy and to ban the purchase of junk food in the schools.

I also looked at the level of the access to recreational programs is in schools, and also here there's a clear relationship. Those who live in neighbourhoods with good access to recreational programs are much more likely to be physically active and much less likely to be overweight or obese. Clearly another recommendation is to provide better infrastructure that supports the organization of recreational programs.

Further, I looked at very simple things like how kids travel to school. Are they walking? Are they biking? Do they take the bus? Clearly a benefit here is walking and biking. It's not always a choice, regretfully, but if you are in a position to have a choice, it's strongly recommended to do so because you're less likely to be overweight or obese. In terms of bus services, there's a clear gradient. The longer children spend sitting on the school bus every day, the more likely they are to be overweight. If we can address efficiency in busing and maybe other ways of limiting the travel time for children, that would benefit their weight and their health in general.

Further, I looked at safety, and we know from various studies that safety is a big issue in the U.S. I was not able to fully confirm that for the situation in Nova Scotia. Possibly safety in Nova Scotia, and maybe in Canada in general, is not as big an issue. I did see that there was more playing reported and less time spent in front of the screen. However, I could not find an association between neighbourhood safety and obesity rates.

In terms of deprivation--and I developed a deprivation score consisting of littering, youth making problems, drug trafficking, and the quality of housing--I did see an association, not too strong though, but there was an association. In deprived neighbourhoods, kids are more likely to spend more time in front of screens and less likely to be physically active and have healthy body weights.

Lastly, I'd like to report on good access to shops. We may note that deprived neighbourhoods tend to have a lot of fast food outlets, and access to general supermarkets for modestly priced healthy foods--fresh vegetables, fruits, etc.--is troublesome in those neighbourhoods. We see that also reflected in the Canadian situation. If you don't have access to good shops in your neighbourhood, the quality of your diet is likely to be lower, and the children are more likely to be overweight.

In summary, I think there are quite a few opportunities to address prevention of childhood obesity in this country by focusing on prevention activities in their school environment and in their neighbourhoods.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll get on to questioning after our first round of witnesses.

We now have Dr. Lawrence Frank. If you are ready, we will accept your presentation now.

[Dr. Lawrence Frank]

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to present to you today.

Am I visible and audible?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, visible, audible--looking good.

[Dr. Lawrence Frank]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the opportunity to present to you today. I wish I could be there.

My talk follows perfectly on the first speaker's presentation. There is a great deal of evidence accumulating around the built environment and health in adults, and we're now beginning to learn about how it affects childhood obesity. I commend the committee for taking on your project on childhood obesity. It is extremely timely. Unfortunately, it's timely more than we wished it were.

The neighbourhood design impacts are, from what we know at present.... I'll just summarize quickly, having done a good bit of the research and presented with the Heart and Stroke Foundation on their annual report cards a couple of years ago. Basically, neighbourhood design is in terms of how mixed uses are, having shops and services nearby. The street network is very important--having a connected network, so things that are nearby we can actually access.

Cul-de-sac road network design, which prevents throughput or the ability to walk to nearby destinations, may actually have certain benefits for youth, because they play on cul-de-sacs, but it precludes the ability for communities at large to actually access destinations nearby. In fact, I think what we're seeing with the youth playing on cul-de-sacs is it's because of lack of open space and recreational amenities such as parks in these neighbourhoods that have been built in the last 20 years. So I don't think the answer is more cul-de-sacs. In fact, that's a mistake. But what we do know is that people who live in the more walkable, connected, denser, compacter neighbourhoods are significantly less likely to be obese and more likely to achieve recommended physical activity levels prescribed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the U.S. Surgeon General.

Now some specifics. People who live in the most walkable neighbourhoods—I did some research in Atlanta on this, and it got pretty widely circulated in Canada—are 2.4 times more likely to get the amount of physical activity recommended by the Surgeon General and Heart and Stroke Foundation. What we're learning is that these results now seem to play out fairly similarly in youth, and I'll get to that in a moment.

The other thing we know from a number of studies is on the obesity front. What we've learned is it's not just the design of the neighbourhood that relates to obesity. Of course it's the way it would affect how we get around and the travel patterns that we have as families--adults and children--and how families travel. Each additional hour spent in a car is associated with a 6% increase in the likelihood of being obese.

Now that's in a region like Atlanta...the variation in the physical form. So what I think would actually play out here in Canada, especially in a place like Vancouver, is if in Atlanta there are these enormous differences in commuting, there's not that much difference in the design of the environment in Atlanta. It's all fairly sprawling, if you will, compared to most Canadian cities. So I think in some ways we're actually, perhaps conversely to what the first presenter said—I think it's complementary—going to see more of a difference in behaviour when we study this in Canadians because of the difference in the neighbourhoods. We've got some pretty good sprawl in Canada too, but we also have a lot more walkable places. So the differences in the built environments are greater.

What we learn from the driving patterns is that this increase in obesity is related to sedentary behaviour. It consumes the amount of time we have to be active as adults. I think that then relates to youth in the household. What we know is that each additional kilometre that people walk translates into about a 5% reduction in the odds of obesity.

That's a little bit of a summary on obesity and physical activity in adults. We're learning a good bit about that. But what do we know about kids? So we're just about to release a study in about two weeks where we have 3,100 youth in our sample. This again is evidence from the U.S., but I'm doing it as a professor at UBC and then I'm going to present to you some research on Vancouver as well and some policy implications of that for Canada.

We've divided children into age categories, five to eight years old, nine to eleven, twelve to fifteen, and sixteen and older. Those break points are important, because as youth approach sixteen, a big thing happens: they then have access to a car--not always, but often.

What we've learned is that across all age groups the single factor that predicts the likelihood that a child will walk is the presence of open space and parks in their neighbourhood, meaning within a kilometre--walking distance of a kilometre. A park could be only half a kilometre, a quarter kilometre, 300 feet away, but if they can't get to it, meaning the street network is not connected, it doesn't matter, it doesn't help.

We have to have connections to the parks and open spaces that we already have that are safe, that provide crosswalks, that provide sidewalks, that are lit at night, and so forth--for adults as well. But the main issue is that it has to be within a walking distance of a kilometre. That matters for all age groups of youth. It was the single factor that was most significant. That is consistent with the findings of our first speaker. That's interesting to see.

As youth become older other factors become important. For a five- to eight-year-old the only thing that matters is having open space nearby, in terms of the built environment's predicting whether or not they will walk. Walking is one measure of physical activity, but it's an important one.

The next is that for nine- to eleven-year-olds, what matters is having some density, some compactness. This becomes a school-siting policy, I believe, because what we're capturing is the number of kids who live within a half to one kilometre of school so they can actually walk to school. The policy implication there is where we put our schools...[Technical Difficulty-Editor]...and make decisions about land use around schools, so that kids can live close to schools so they can walk. That's an important implication, because once they're over about a kilometre from the school, they don't walk. That's what we find.

Parents don't want them to walk. The perception of risk among parents increases with distance to the school. It makes sense. This is what we're finding in some research here in Canada now.

The summary is that the 12- to 15-year-olds are the most built-environment sensitive. As would be expected, a young teen has interest in going to shops and services out in the neighbourhoods, and the younger kids.... The face validity of the work is really quite amazing to me, that it just came out exactly as we would expect. Those are the youth who, before they're driving.... Having shops and services nearby, having parks and open space nearby, all of that matters to the 12- to 15-year-olds. When the study gets released in a couple of weeks, I'll actually release the specific statistics that go with it so that you can have those.

I'm actually going to see if I'm able to pre-release it to the committee. It is accepted. It is ready to go out in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Once the kid hits 16 years of age, guess what happens? The built environment becomes less important; all of a sudden the significance goes down. And then comes the effect of really having an alternative mode, so the walking becomes less significant.

I do not prescribe that the policy implications should be to raise the driving age, but one of the implications we're seeing is that the number of cars in the household is an amazingly powerful predictor on whether or not kids walk. So that could become a way that.... You know, taxation on extra cars--even a third car versus a second car--would determine if there's a lot of extra vehicle availability for youth. There's also the question about providing parking at schools or having kids walk--if we prioritize that or make it have an impact or a cost in different ways.

So there are lots of policy options for you to consider on this question. I will suggest a few of the general areas that you're probably familiar with and thinking about. As an urban planning professor, I think these are things that seem to come to the top of the array of things to consider.

Zoning and land use regulation provided to municipalities by the provinces comes with the requirement to promote the health, safety, and the welfare of the public. If our research and others' research is showing that zoning is in fact possibly not achieving or promoting public health, we need to know about that.

If we're making it so far for people to be able to walk to destinations, if they can't get physical activity through walking, that may not be health-promoting zoning. In fact, it's arguably not. Remember, there is air pollution generated from all that traffic, and increased safety risks, and pedestrian conflicts, particularly in youth.

There is also the question of financing and how development gets funded, and of lending institutions and banks that make it easier to build auto-dependent development than mixed-use projects that are more walkable. That is a huge arena. All of these things are obviously massive in scale to address, but that's the nature of the built environment. It's a big question.

Of course, health care costs may differ between more-walkable environments and less-walkable environments. Provision and delivery of services in low-density environments becomes a very big question. They cost more. Everything costs more when you spread development out.

I wanted to mention that one of the policies that you could consider is pay-as-you-drive insurance. This is a strategy in which if people don't drive they don't have to pay any insurance. However, if they drive farther they're more likely to have an accident, and they're going to be polluting more, and they're also more likely to be obese. This sends the right kind of signal, which is that you get rewarded for a behaviour that's health-promoting, and that's a good way to go.

I wanted to mention in final summary that we have a couple of papers. I was asked about food environments and about how people access food. We are working with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and have a number of papers coming out--three in fact--on this topic. One will come out in the next few weeks. It follows our mapping of food environments around schools. We go into food outlets and actually monitor the quality of the food provided, and we're learning a good bit. I look forward to sharing all of that with you. I have papers and other publications for you to review as you proceed.

I commend you again on taking on this important initiative.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much, Dr. Frank. We will ask that you send along your report as it's released. We'd appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

We'll now hear our last presenter for this round, Gord Steeves, from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The floor is yours.

[Gord Steeves, Councillor, City of Winnipeg; First Vice-President, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson.

I'm Gord Steeves and I'm a councillor from Winnipeg. I'm also the vice-president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is the organization that represents all municipal government from across Canada. We have about 1,400 members; by extension, we represent about 85% of the Canadian population by virtue of our members.

I'm joined by John Burrett, who is our senior manager of social policy, and Dallas Alderson, who is one of our policy analysts in the social policy group. We would like to thank you for the opportunity to present today on this extremely important issue.

At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities we have identified this as one of the emerging issues in municipalities across Canada, and is something we've tried to spend a little bit more time on over the course of the last few years. Out of that discussion has emerged a couple of very important documents. The first was “Promoting Healthy Lifestyles in Children and Youth”, a report that was presented to the ministre de la Santé et des services sociaux by a group called the Équipe de travail pour mobiliser les affaires en prévention; that was out of Quebec, chaired by one of our vice-presidents, Jean Perrault, from Sherbrooke, Quebec. The second was “Active Cities: An Opportunity for Leadership By the Big City Mayors Caucus”, which was prepared by the chairperson of the Big City Mayors Caucus, Mayor Pat Fiacco, from Regina. I hope the existence of these two documents underscores the importance municipalities are giving to this very important issue.

Obviously, the problem has been more clearly delineated today than I could probably have done to do it justice. I'm a politician, not a researcher by trade, so my information comes at least second-hand. However, we work on the understanding that in Canada currently one in ten children is overweight, that this trend is growing, and that obesity is linked to diseases and premature death. An obese child has a 70% chance of becoming an obese adult and may face severe health consequences as a result. This epidemic has not stopped. Perhaps this generation will be the first generation to not outlive their parents. Obviously this comes at considerable societal cost to all of us.

Our diagnosis is that the leading cause of this obesity is related to the lack of physical activity in our communities, and the single most important thing that can be done by young people in our communities is to become physically active. We would applaud the government's introduction of a fitness tax credit as an important first step to ensuring that our children become physically active. However, the purpose of things today is to ensure that our young people can have proper access to that type of credit in the current rubric of our society. We need the type of infrastructure to support this type of activity so that everybody can benefit.

In our estimation, Mr. Chairperson and members of the committee, there are two areas of infrastructure that have to be considered. First is specific areas for recreation and fitness, things like arenas, swimming pools, and the like, which can be built right into our cities and communities. But we can't get stuck on the idea that those are the only types of opportunities we can offer our young people.

In our cities that exist right now, maybe, as you've heard from the esteemed presenters who have gone before me, one of the best things we can do is evolve and change our built environment. Things like cycling paths, diamond lanes,and bicycling access within our cities and communities are probably the best services we can offer to the young people who live in our communities today.

It's an important distinction to make, because it would probably be easy to get caught up in the idea that this is a talk about new arenas and about new swimming pools, when in fact that's probably only a very small part of what we're discussing today. The idea, I think, is that every day in people's lives they could live more actively, and that probably has a better role to play than this type of traditional thinking.

Government cooperation is probably at the heart of this. We feel that municipal governments have taken on a huge responsibility for the type of infrastructure that exists in the cities to promote active living. Things like cycling paths, arenas, and swimming pools--we'll use those as examples--are borne to the largest extent by municipal governments. That presents a challenge, because municipal governments have to do this within the envelope of their current funding parameters, which present all sorts of difficulties because of the limited fiscal capacities of those governments to produce that revenue and thus produce that recreational and active infrastructure within our communities.

The vast majority of our recreational infrastructure was built between the 1950s and 1970s, including a lot of arenas and recreational facilities. Many of these facilities are now in pretty dire need of structural repair or outright renewal. We feel there's been an imbalance over the last several years, probably owing to an imperfect understanding of the problem at hand. These are some of the challenges that have to be addressed.

The federal government has taken steps to address the challenges encountered by our young people, some of whom are getting involved in illegal behaviour. We believe that physical activity in young people enables them to achieve greater health, a wonderful end result. It also keeps our young people busy and constructive and tends to lower participation in crime and raise marks in school. It isn't just about the physical activity and health of our young people. It's also about their psychological health, their role in society, and their opportunities for success and productivity.

The environmental benefits that have been discussed by the federal government over the last several years are augmented by all of these initiatives. Active transportation allows us to achieve all sorts of environmental benefits.

We know you understand that municipal governments can't help communities all by themselves. The fact that you're sitting here today listening to us proves that you understand this as well as we do.

Solution-wise—and this where we can move the ball a little in our thinking—we have some ideas and directions that we'd like to set out today for discussion by this committe and the government as a whole.

This government and past federal governments have done yeoman work in addressing the infrastructure deficit in our communities right across Canada. We're trying to evolve the thinking on the infrastructure deficit and what infrastructure means in cities and communities across Canada. We're trying to expand the definition to include not only roads, bridges, and transit, but also arenas, swimming pools, and bike paths. We want to establish the necessary connection between active living and the built environment in our community.

There are all sorts of places where this connection can be established. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is trying to evolve by expanding the way we think about infrastructure in Canada. It's a very important step that we have to take, and we think you have to take it with us. We're hoping that this discussion, which started some time ago, will continue.

The gentleman from British Columbia spoke a lot about the built environment and how zoning decisions can affect the health and activity of young people within Canada. This is not purely within the jurisdiction of the federal government. It has a lot to do with what we do. If we can't access that funding, if we can't get there within our current envelope, then we feel we have significant challenges.

If we can expand the way we think about infrastructure, then we can get to that place, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, and we can have that ongoing, more inclusive discussion about what it means to build our built environment within Canada.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much to all the presenters.

Now we are going to move to the question and answer period. I am going to ask the committee this. We have a specific number of minutes on our schedule, but we have two more panellists to present to us. Can we proportionately cut down our time a little on the first round? We'll do a first round and then move to our other presenters and then carry on.

Is there a consensus? Perhaps a minute less each, so instead of five minutes, four minutes.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

It is up to you to manage the time that you allocate to each party.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, okay.

Ms. Bennett, you'll start.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thanks very much. It's wonderful to hear what you're all up to and get an understanding of this multi-factor approach we are trying to take as a committee.

Last year, Stephen Owen and I were part of the meeting with the sport ministers across the country. As you know, our government had been working toward an infrastructure program that would be mainly for physical activity, not just sport facilities but also bike paths and the kinds of things municipalities might want.

In terms of the amount of money in the transit pass now, I would like to know whether you would have preferred to have the money for infrastructure and whether there is any evidence showing that a transit pass will actually increase transit, if transit is slow; and whether you're getting more people onto public transit because of the pass, or whether or not it's a bit of a savings for the people already doing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Mr. Steeves.

[Gord Steeves]

I can try.

Regrettably, I can't necessarily say I'm an expert in what we are expecting in terms of ridership. I can tell you anecdotally from our perspective, because of the tax credit, we would expect a slight increase in transit ridership in municipalities, for example in Winnipeg. Would it be a marked increase in transit ridership? We don't expect that. That would be my first sense as to that program.

Having said that, we take no issue with the federal government putting that tax credit in place. That is fine with us. While the federal government was addressing transit ridership through the implementation of a tax credit, we would hope that wouldn't in some way be a substitute for hard infrastructure funding in our communities.

I would hope there is room for both programs. That would be my hope, my request, and my answer. I hope that one would not be a substitute for the other.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Dr. Frank, go ahead.

[Dr. Lawrence Frank]

Thank you.

I think the question is extremely important. In fact, it is the interface or the synergy between walking and bicycling and the ability to access transit. Providing and improving transit service is critical to reducing the need to get around by car.

To get around a region, you have to have a means like transit. There is no way to create.... We would be missing a fundamental facet of a walkable community if we didn't invest in transit and make it more convenient and affordable.

The two go hand in hand. We didn't talk about it earlier, but I'm glad the question was raised, and I again support the notion that they can be thought of as complementary. If you take the money out of one to put into the other, then maybe you won't make much progress at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you.

Mr. Owen.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

That's dealing with the transit systems and transit passes.

What the sports ministers and the public health ministers agreed federally and provincially and territorially last year was that we needed a dedicated sport and community activity infrastructure program, because although they qualify for most of the infrastructure programs--certainly the municipal and rural infrastructure program---they always fall to the bottom of the list for sewer and water and bridge repair and such. There was a suggestion last year by the federal government to put $350 million to be matched three ways for over a billion-dollar community sport and recreational fund dedicated, so that we can actually have some spaces for people to get to.

The other side of it, Mr. Steeves, from a municipal point of view is of course green space planning with greenways. As cities or communities expand, it's much cheaper and of course more effective to build in green space planning as you expand rather than to wait until it's built and then try to correct it later.

I wonder if there are comments on those issues and whether the FCM in particular might be encouraged to urge the federal government to actually implement this municipal recreational and sport infrastructure dedicated program.

[Gord Steeves]

Absolutely. I thank the committee member for his question. It's an excellent point and something that I did want to highlight as part of my presence here today.

We would encourage the federal government categorically to move towards a dedicated stream of funding for recreational infrastructure in our cities and communities. That would be a wonderful outcome of this committee's work.

In the meantime, if we're aware that we have existing programs, and in certain cases, as Mr. Owen has indicated, it becomes difficult for cities and municipalities to actually access that funding for the purposes of recreational and active infrastructure in our communities, it would be wonderful if the current programs that exist that support that recreational and active infrastructure could be supported and potentially expanded in the existing programs. And in a perfect world, if it could be established, as the provincial ministers have gotten together and I think suggested, that if there were a federal pot set aside where municipalities and communities could access that funding for specific recreational and active infrastructure in their communities, then that would be a wonderful outcome to achieve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

And we would expect nothing less from municipal government coming to Ottawa and not asking for money, so you're true to the post and it's understandable.

Are there any other answers to that? If not, we'll go on to the second questioner.

Madame Gagnon.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Thank you. What you have to say is quite interesting. A lot of the things that you like the government to do are primarily the responsibility of the provinces. You spoke of parks, schools, roads, urban planing. Those are all areas of provincial and municipal jurisdiction, and we represent the federal government.

We know that for a number of years, Liberal government transfers to the provinces where dramatically reduced. We do not know how the new agreement will manage to set things right. I hope there will be an agreement on fiscal unbalance, because infrastructures are deteriorating and children are being denied access to certain activities, even in their school yard. In Montreal, a study was done on the deteriorating equipment in playgrounds that are no longer set for children.

Mr. Steeves, you said that you were satisfied with the $500 tax credit. But that only represents $78 per individual or child. That is no way near enough to have any significant impact on obesity. We know that the lack of physical activity costs the government $5.3 billion, which represents 2.6 per cent of our health cost. Expenditures related to obesity represent 2.2 per cent of health cost in Canada. That means that it costs the government $4.3 billion to make up the shortfall. The tax credit has been roundly criticized. Who will be entitled to receive it, and what type of activity will be eligible? There are so many questions one could ask. A report has been published.

I would like your opinion on the tax credit and on it effectiveness. The disadvantaged communities are the ones that are hit the hardest. Can those people really afford to pay $500 for a $78 credit?

[Gord Steeves]

Thank you for the question.

I want to be as clear as I possibly can on this. If the federal government wishes to take the tack of a tax credit for transit riders, we take no issue with that. In fact, we're perfectly able to support that and not stand in opposition to that position. If it benefits members in our community, which no doubt it does to a certain extent, that is completely acceptable to us.

I think everybody around this table understands that a tax credit to individuals will not assist a municipality in building a multi-million-dollar rapid transit system or a multi-million-dollar diamond-lane system within the city of Winnipeg, the city of Toronto, or the city of Edmonton. So the two have to stand, to a certain extent, in isolation from each other.

If someone were to suggest to our organization that instead of attributing infrastructure dollars to these types of projects in our cities and communities, we're going to take that money away and offset it against revenue that will not exist because of the tax credit, then I don't think we could support it.

I've never actually heard that, and I would hope that it would be a two-pronged approach. On the revenue side, potentially, we could see some benefits in terms of ridership, but it would in no way adversely affect the infrastructure dollars that were going to the cities in terms of program, because we simply couldn't fund those types of infrastructure projects.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

A point of clarification, Mr. Chairman. I am talking about the fitness tax credit. He did not answer my question.