Evidence of meeting #25 for Health in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
I realize that, but you asked the question, and he answered the way he saw fit.
Mr. Fletcher, you have five minutes.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for coming. It's a particular pleasure to see the city council for Winnipeg, even though you represent a ward on the other side of the Red River.
I have two questions. We've actually had a series of witnesses that have talked about society's trend to keep kids inside, be it due to video games or safety concerns. Our justice minister, another Manitoba MP, has been trying to make our streets and roads and cities safer by introducing some pretty tough legislation to keep criminals in jail and reduce house arrest and hopefully provide comfort and safety for kids and reassurance to their parents that it is safe to play outside.
I wonder, Mr. Steeves, if you could talk about the importance of safety to encourage kids to play outside, because I know that as a city councillor, part of your role is to enforce the laws using the Winnipeg police force. If anyone else would like to comment on that, I'd be interested in your comments about that.
Secondly, we've talked a lot about infrastructure and arenas and so on. We have a lot of new Canadians and multi-generational Canadian families that may not play hockey or be interested in what we would call traditional sports. So I wonder how planning for flexibility in the recreational investments we provide could help, or what planning is taking place to ensure that facilities that we build reach out to all demographics, regardless of their country of origin or ethnicity?
I'll throw those two questions out and see who would like to answer.
4:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Alberta
Research has demonstrated a clear link between perceived safety and children's playing outside. Clearly, there's more playing going on if their parents perceive the environment to be safe. They will also spend less time being sedentary, sitting in front of the television, etc.
The broad feedback to your concerns is that when we're looking at childhood obesity, we're looking at a multidisciplinary, multifactorial problem. I think the answer and the solution should also be multifactorial in nature. The individual parts of legislation will each have some benefit, and it's really hard, and it should not be an objective in a discussion like this, to weigh them against one another.
The true benefits of all those little steps, all those little parts of legislation, really appear if they come together in a combination. It's a multifactorial problem. It needs a multifactorial solution.
4:30 p.m.
Councillor, City of Winnipeg; First Vice-President, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
On crime prevention, that was one of the points Mr. Fletcher raised, quite rightly.
In cities like Winnipeg, crime prevention, reduction, and combat is a three-pronged approach. Only one prong has to do with policing, and it involves arrest, detaining, and turning over to the authorities. The other two prongs have a lot more to do with social services and access to things in our community. Why does a young person make a decision to do a break-and-enter or get involved with drugs in the first place? All of the amenities available to that person within our community come into play.
We know that the Canadian sport policy includes specific research that shows quite clearly linkages between the amount of opportunity available to a young person in a city or community and what role they end up playing in our society. That's a common-sense idea that most of us could understand. But in a discussion like this, we all have to make the commitment to provide that infrastructure so they can access it.
Your second comment, about the flexibility of recreational infrastructure in our communities, is a good one as well, because every community has different needs. The answer may lie in specific programs from the federal government that involve a municipal component in terms of choice and access--maybe even on a percentage basis.
For example, we are just starting to build an indoor soccer facility for the city of Winnipeg because we didn't have a four-plex. That's our particular issue in Winnipeg, but it might not be the answer in every community across Canada, because they might have different issues they have to address specifically. If the programs you administer from the federal government level have that choice built in, you might indeed answer some of those challenges.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Veugelers, you talked about Alberta in particular--or maybe we were talking about Nova Scotia--building physical education and regular activity into the day. We all agree with that. We've all seen people try to do that and do it successfully at the elementary school level. What normally happens in grade 11 and grade 12 is students drop it because they can't fit it into the curricula they need to get enough credits to get into university. What if they redid high school curricula so students could have mandatory phys. ed. and still get the credits they needed to meet university or post-secondary entrance exams?
4:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Alberta
I'm not aware of that regulation, sorry. I thought it was just in elementary schools.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
Yes. We get this challenge at the secondary level, where it gets dropped because you need physics instead.
Gord, it's nice to see you. I'm from the city of Surrey, as you may know. We're the city that shows what it's like to try to fix it after the fact. Marvin might disagree.
In places where there are DCCs, 10% of the DCCs go into leisure facility funds. Then what often happens--and I don't know how much discussion there's been at FCM, as I only spent one term as a councillor--is it goes into a much larger part that goes into building a four-plex, rink, or whatever, and doesn't help at all being able to walk to a park up the street. I don't know if you have run into that.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
I'm sorry, they're development cost charges that are charged to developers who are building subdivisions, and so on.
4:30 p.m.
Councillor, City of Winnipeg; First Vice-President, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
What a terrific question. It's hard to answer in such a contained forum.
4:35 p.m.
Councillor, City of Winnipeg; First Vice-President, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
When you talk about the development of a city, we always talk about how we fund our cities. Is property tax the best way to do it? We've been asking for growth-type revenues in terms of our provincial governments and how we work with them so we don't have to rely on property taxes as the main way of increasing revenues within our city. That's why you see so many cities sprawling all over the place; it's the easiest way for cities to access new revenue.
Your point is exactly right, but it's a difficult one for us to address here. We have seen cities develop in that way, where people can't get to certain places from where they live and they have to drive. That is a challenge that regrettably we have to go back to try to address now, to a certain extent after the barn door.... The horse is gone, at the very least.
We're trying to develop more progressive ways of raising revenue through things like the gas tax that will discourage sprawling growth so cities can grow in another way that doesn't involve us simply expanding the number of houses we build in the periphery of our cities. If this committee can lend any help with new revenue tools--not necessarily new revenue--that would help immensely.
4:35 p.m.
Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia
Thank you. I think it was said perfectly and I'm all set.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you to the committee.
Thank you to the panellists. Our first round is over. We will now bring the second panel forward, go through the presentations, and pick up the questioning from there.
You were very interesting, and I know other members wish they could have had time to ask questions, but we have the presentations. So thank you very much.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
We have with us Stephen Samis, from the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada.
You're the chair, and I think you'll be starting the presentation. Is that right?
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Then we have Jean Harvey.
Is she going to be presenting as well?
4:40 p.m.
Chair, Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada
She'll answer questions if necessary. I'll make the presentation.
