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.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
That's right. I've withdrawn the motion that is on the table.
This is a children's health and nutrition initiative that I wanted to make the committee aware of. I will bring back a motion, but you can have a look at this. Some of you have talked to these people this week.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
That's just for the committee's information as to where it came from. Okay, fair enough.
Ms. Davidson.
February 14th, 2007 / 4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to all our presenters today. Certainly the more we hear on this subject, it doesn't become any less complex. I think it becomes more so each time.
I have maybe some random questions to ask to see if we can try to pull some of this together.
First I'll go to CAHPERD. You were founded in 1933. Is it correct that you are a charitable voluntary organization? Where do you get your funding?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
Yes. We receive our funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada. From time to time, we receive funding from Sport Canada. We also have a membership base, and we have a bookstore of school resources where we generate revenue for our innovations.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So most of your funding is national or federal funding.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
Yes.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
We've established a quality daily physical education program that defines what an ideal physical education program would look like. So it sets the key criteria that a school would strive for.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
And who uses that? Who uses those standards, or who recognizes them, or how official are they? Does every school get a copy of them and strive to meet those standards?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
Well, we advocate for the program across the country. CAHPERD is governed by a voluntary board of directors who are physical educators and health educators, at all levels, from across the country. They've established these programs.
The programs are promoted to schools. They also often serve as stepping stones or motivational programs to help them improve the quality of their programs. When they do so, we have the recognition award program, which recognizes quality programs that are in place.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So they're basically just there for somebody to use if they want to.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
Absolutely. Yes, that's right.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So they're tools, if somebody wishes to take advantage of them. If they don't, they don't have to.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
No, absolutely. It's completely voluntary.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Now I'll go to the Joint Consortium for School Health. It is federally funded.
4:55 p.m.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
It's jointly funded. But we contribute, yes.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
All right. Do you make use of the standards that CAHPERD develops?
4:55 p.m.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
We're certainly aware of CAHPERD's work and standards. It's a bit early to say we are making use of them, but certainly we're well aware of them, and they'll be built into the work we're doing as much as they possibly can be.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Just to help me understand, would you say that your basic role is to coordinate among the FPT and pick out best practices?
4:55 p.m.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
Correct. At this stage, it's between member provincial and territorial partners, and it's an exchanging of information. One of the early tasks is to take data from the federal side, which we're responsible for, and from all the provinces and territories, and do a big inventory of all the surveillance monitoring data that's available on students and schools across the country at the myriad of different levels, and try to put the pieces together and see what data is missing that would actually be helpful for improving schools. It is not for accountability but for what would actually make a difference to improve schools.
After we have finished our own inventory, we'll reach out to see who else is keeping good data that we can add, and we'll try to make sense of it all. We'll take everything, from what's collected at a national level for things like the health behaviours in school-age children, which is a WHO survey, down to some really good local surveys being done at the school board level. Then we'll see where the open ground is and where it is appropriate to connect some of the indicators and stats that are coming out so we get a better national picture of what's going on.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
So on one hand we have a group that is trying to work collectively with the federal government, the provinces and the territories, all on a voluntary basis, and we have another group that works nationally, to set up best practices. That is also on a voluntary basis.
So I'd ask each one of you how you see the best way to move this issue forward.
5 p.m.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
Related to...?
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
Director, Childhood and Adolescence, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada
From a joint consortium's perspective, it's predominantly having both sides represented, however they're organized in their respective provinces and territories, and bringing the health and education sector together in these first years.
They haven't always been working together in different provinces. This is a really significant step, to all agree that's where we want to go. I think that's first and foremost.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
But you don't have everybody on board, so is voluntary the way to go?