Evidence of meeting #39 for Health in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was school.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Susan Kadis Liberal Thornhill, ON
Thank you.
Very briefly, I understand that with the Kelowna accord there was to be one school board for the first nations that could have helped set standards and best practices for healthy living for our children. Is there anything happening now to make that happen?
Director, Chronic Disease Prevention, Community Programs Directorate, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Department of Health
From that announcement, no. What is happening now in the schools, without setting standards, is happening through the initiative for diabetes, where diabetes workers in the communities will try to get into the schools to implement nutrition policies or promote physical activity. But there is no work on standards.
Director, Education Planning and Policy, Education Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
With respect to first nations education, the department right now is in the process of renewing its authorities for April 2008. As part of that comprehensive renewal of its authorities, certainly we're looking at having an approach and a funding formula that enables first nations to make decisions that are best for their communities. I would assume that will include physical education and health.
Conservative
Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for your excellent presentations to this committee. We have spent an awful lot of time studying childhood obesity. It's an important topic and we look forward to rendering our report.
I will make a couple of quick comments and then I have a brief question. It will probably leave about three or three and a half minutes for responses from whoever chooses to respond.
This issue, for me, starts in the home, with parents urging their children to eat properly, to get the proper amount of exercise.
Mr. Dykstra and I were just talking about when we were kids. Our parents were pretty adamant about what time you turned off the television and computers were just starting at that point, and video games. There was time to get outside and run around. I think it starts with that.
It also starts with public education, education from general practitioners, education through Canada's food guide, education in schools, through what I think were called the Canada fitness awards, which everyone remembers, where you got gold, silver, or bronze awards of excellence.
There are two main pillars that have been stressed over and over again to this committee, and that is, activity in schools, mandatory physical education, and also the availability of healthy snacks and meals in schools.
The problem we have as the federal Parliament is of course the provincial and territorial responsibility of education. I guess I shouldn't call it the problem. Our challenge is that this is outside of our jurisdiction. It falls within the jurisdiction of the provinces. Of course, they are responsible for education. So what can we do as federal parliamentarians to take action regarding childhood obesity other than simply say in our report that we strongly recommend that the provinces do something? The creatures of the provinces, of course, are the school boards. We're really drilling down to school board politics, where we're urging that this be part of the curriculum, etc.
Given the level of government that we're at, what can we do as parliamentarians to address this childhood obesity crisis specifically? Maybe there are points that weren't raised here today. I did appreciate the comments about better statistics through StatsCanada. There's one example. Specifically in our schools, regarding mandatory physical education and healthy snacks, what can we really do, other than simply make a recommendation to the provinces?
Principal Investigator, Action Schools! BC; Professor, University of British Columbia; Director, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
First of all, we addressed the parental responsibility earlier. I think that's only part of the solution. Again, I think physical education is only a part of the solution. So again, that belongs to the provinces, but resourcing around these larger models that involve the community, first nations and others, is not just a provincial responsibility.
Education alone does not change behaviour. The data are in on that. My telling you what you should be doing is not going to change what you do. There have to be opportunities for you to change at every turning point. So, again, it's about leaving the door and having an opportunity to make these kinds of choices--that's about a larger community--as well as having the opportunity to engage in physical activity or physical education within the schools.
It would be nice, but otherwise I think we would have seen some success. Well, maybe not, because we haven't had physical education, but again it's beyond physical education, I think.
Senior Director, Office of Health Promotion, Sport and Recreation Division, Nova Scotia Department of Health
I was in education for many years, and the federal government helped in education with technology and with French language in schools. So there are models where the federal government has put funding into education, in partnership with provinces and territories. Why would this be any different? I think it's a matter of our all talking to each other and all realizing that we have a common problem, and it's the health of our nation. Let's get over ourselves and find a way to make it work.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
I think there are a couple of opportunities on the federal side that I can see, certainly from the Public Health Agency. Certainly, in the middle, we're working with provinces and territories, but on the other side we play—and I would like to think we do play, maybe not enough, but certainly we do play—a role as a catalyst funder, awareness raiser, kind of a clearing house. We have a number of physical activity, healthy eating, healthy weight campaigns that are going under the healthy living and chronic disease strategy throughout the year to try to provide some sort of federal leadership, some kind of encouragement. And it's an activity that we, again, would do with our partners, provinces and territories, but the leadership would come from us. Some of those things seem to be bearing quite good fruit, and certainly they will be evaluated.
At the other end of the spectrum—and I've been in front of this committee before—we've talked about our national children's programs, which is an area where we do have federal responsibility and we do have money out in communities. In that case, with our prenatal nutrition program, our aboriginal head start program, both ours and also that of the first nations and Inuit health branch, and the community action program for children, we offer, in varying degrees, depending on the program, nutritional support, food security, support for parents in planning and preparation of food, teaching moms how to make healthy meals for their children, and dads as well for that matter, and physical activity, so that these children, when they're in their formative years, before they get turned over to the provinces and the territories and the schools, have the best chance that they can to succeed, in terms of their schooling, and that they're in a good, healthy state when they move forward.
We do feel federally we have some responsibility to get these particularly vulnerable children on the right road, and we use our programs to do that. And we employ all of these themes that we're talking about here to that population group—the vulnerable population group, at-risk children--particularly where we have a pretty far reach from the federal perspective, along with our partners out in communities and the provinces and territories that participate with us. We can reach a lot of families before these children get into school.
February 14th, 2007 / 5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Colleen Beaumier Liberal Brampton West, ON
Thank you.
Perhaps what I'm about to say is going to sound a little simplistic, but we've spent all this money on obesity, childhood obesity, and what makes teenagers fat and what makes older people fat, and I think we all know what that is. It's when your caloric intake and the energy that you spend on using this up is greater than your exercise.
I'm wondering if one of the issues when I think why are kids.... I ate quite well when I was a kid. I ate a lot of food that I probably shouldn't have, as well as good food. However, the level of exercise was greater. We didn't have school buses. We would maybe walk a mile and a half to school. There was compulsory physical education. There were after-school programs, which I don't think are as prevalent today, with volunteers from teachers needing to head up the basketball teams and the other sporting activities.
We're talking about healthy snacks at school. Now, perhaps if we're talking about preschool children or children in day care, where you're teaching them habits, that may be effective. I eat my salads and I eat my fruit, as well as a whole bunch of other stuff afterwards. I think the key is physical activity, even more than healthy snacks.
Now, the other thing that caught my attention was when Ms. Lamarche said we're trying to get into the schools. These are federally funded schools. What's the problem in getting into them?
Director, Chronic Disease Prevention, Community Programs Directorate, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Department of Health
I don't know if my colleague would want to answer that too.
The responsibility for the schools is transferred to the communities, so it's the aboriginal communities that lead their own schools. In the aboriginal diabetes initiative, for example, I'll give money to a community, while the federal government gives money to a community to deliver diabetes prevention programs and--
Director, Chronic Disease Prevention, Community Programs Directorate, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Department of Health
What I can do is encourage that they go into the schools. We actually provide training programs to the diabetes workers to give them tricks, and to give them policies that they can adapt for schools on nutrition, on physical activity, and stuff like this.
You're talking about preschool also. The head start programs on reserve, which reach 19% of first nations kids before they get to school, provide them with a lot of physical activity, they get nutritious snacks, and for aboriginal people it's quite important, because it's sometimes the only good food they get during the day. Also, as part of head start, what is very neat and more comprehensive in terms of an approach is it also reaches the parents. Their parents receive the education. They get cooking classes. They get some education to tell them to perhaps not provide as much TV for their kids. It's a setting where you can do a lot. Unfortunately, it only reaches 19% of these kids.
That's probably a place where--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much. That was a very interesting question with regard to why we can't get into our own schools that we fund. Nonetheless, we'll take that up another day.
Mr. Malo.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mesdames, thank you for coming to meet with us this afternoon.
I understand from your remarks this afternoon that, apart from new structures, you need funding to enable each of the provinces to put in place programs and projects that meet the needs of the communities in the various locations. What Nova Scotia and British Columbia are doing is headed precisely in that direction.
Ms. Gabbani asked how new funding could be obtained. I recommend that the amounts related to the Canada Health and Social Transfer be restored to a level that would enable the provinces to meet their obligations, particularly with regard to health.
It's not necessary to set up new structures and new strategies to share information, since, next Monday, we'll be teleconferencing with people from the United Kingdom to share information on ways of combating juvenile obesity.
I have two brief questions to ask. The first is for Professor McKay. I imagine you have had to work to put Action Schools! BC in place. You're currently conducting a longitudinal study to determine whether that program meets the various criteria for success and how to improve it. Am I mistaken? No.
Do you share your research findings with your colleagues from other universities in Canada, North America and around the world?
Principal Investigator, Action Schools! BC; Professor, University of British Columbia; Director, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
Thanks for your question.
Yes, the results that I presented to you today were the results of our pilot study, so that was really just to give us the evidence we wanted to explore as to whether to go forward. We're now spreading out across the province of B.C. and measuring 1,500 children. We don't have those data yet. The idea is that once you have a model that you know works in a contained environment and it's thrown out there, it's going to be interpreted in a hundred different ways by thousands of different teachers and schools. We are in the process of doing that with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funding. I'd be happy to come back and share those results with you.
I've left summary sheets with you. We have 17 publications and scientific journals containing the results of the pilot study, so you can Google them, or me if you like. This is published in the scientific literature. I present around the world a lot, and I represent some of the things we're doing in Canada, especially in British Columbia. I've presented on all continents. I've been to the U.K. So yes, I am sharing the results, and there is great interest in what we're doing here.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Mr. Chair, my second question is very brief and is for Ms. Stone.
I'd like to know where the consortium's operating funding comes from.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
The Public Health Agency contributes $250,000 a year for a period of five years, and I believe the rest of the provinces and territories together contribute $220,000 or thereabouts.
Is that correct?
Senior Director, Office of Health Promotion, Sport and Recreation Division, Nova Scotia Department of Health
They also pay the salary of the health coordinator who is hired in each province. It's jointly paid for by the departments of education and health promotion.