Thank you very much, Vice-Chair and members of the committee.
I'm very pleased to be here today along with colleagues from the health portfolio. With me is Kathy Langlois from the first nations and Inuit health branch; Diane Finegood from CIHR, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Claude Rocan, director general of the Centre for Health Promotion; and Janet Pronk from the health products and food branch, director in the office of nutrition policy and promotion. I am director general in the health promotion and chronic disease prevention branch in the Public Health Agency of Canada.
As I mentioned, I am very pleased to be here to discuss the government's response to the parliamentary standing committee's report on childhood obesity, “Healthy Weights for Healthy Kids”.
Your report provides an important assessment of the issue in Canada. It identifies many of the key determinants that contribute to excessive weight gain in children and youth, and highlights the implications of obesity for the health and well-being of young Canadians and, indeed, for the long-term welfare of Canada.
Through its analysis, the committee makes it clear that childhood obesity is a serious public health issue with links to a range of chronic diseases as well as premature death. Moreover, it effectively illustrates that halting further increases to Canada's overweight and obesity rates is a shared responsibility. It rests not only with the health system, including public health and health care actors, but jointly with players from across many sectors. As such, you call upon the Government of Canada, specifically the health portfolio, to provide leadership in raising awareness about the complexity of the issue of childhood obesity and in coordinating the efforts of diverse sectors, particularly those under federal jurisdiction.
In its response, the government highlights a range of key initiatives and actions already in place to address the problem of childhood obesity. These were organized under the six recognized core federal responsibilities in public heath, including leadership, coordination, and strategic policy, among others that you are familiar with.
While I will not go through the entire range of initiatives detailed in the response, I would like to draw your attention this morning to the following policy measures and initiatives that have been introduced by the government in recent months to help children and families live active healthy lives, namely: the children's fitness tax credit; the funding of the new ParticipACTION campaign; the revised Canada's Food Guide, including a tailored version for first nations, Inuit, and Métis; Canada's physical activity guides for children and youth; as well as funding for the initiatives of nine non-governmental organizations through the Public Health Agency's physical activity and healthy eating contribution program that specifically target children and their environments. These initiatives will help to reduce barriers and increase access to convenient, safe, and affordable opportunities to integrate physical activity and healthy eating into daily living.
The government's response recognizes the importance of information and evidence in helping to monitor the health of the population and evaluate policy objectives and interventions. To this end, investments have been made to support activities that enhance the health portfolio surveillance and research capacity, including the Canadian Community Health Survey, the Canadian Health Measures Survey, the Health Behaviours in School-aged Children Survey, and the Non-Communicable Disease Surveillance Infobase, as well as funding strategic university-based research across the country through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
As pointed out in the committee's report, the sharing of information on specific initiatives, including established best practices as well as promising practices, helps accelerate effective program uptake across the country. To this end, the government has established initiatives and mechanisms to share information with key stakeholders, including the Canadian Best Practices Portal for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention, the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, and the National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health.
In addition, the federal-provincial-territorial public health network provides an effective infrastructure that allows the two levels of government to share information and best practices and collaborate on public health issues such as childhood obesity. For example, in September of this year, the deputy ministers of health from all jurisdictions held a retreat that dealt with this issue in order to share successful approaches and identify ways of tackling the problem of unhealthy weights.
We understand that children living in lower socio-economic conditions are more likely to be obese than those living in families with higher education and income levels, and those living in rural or remote communities are also more likely to lack access to quality services for health promotion and related health interventions. The government response therefore notes key investments in several community-based programs, such as the community action program for children and the Canada prenatal nutrition program. These programs mitigate and improve the life circumstances of these children, as well as provide families, communities, and health professionals with access to the information and support they need to make healthier choices in the areas of physical activity and food selection.
The committee also draws attention to the issue of obesity and the overall poor health of aboriginal populations, which results from a complex array of historical, economic, and societal factors. The government response highlights the programs, services, and initiatives that respond to the unique circumstances of first nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. These include, for example, continued investments in the maternal and child health program, aboriginal head start, the Canada prenatal nutrition program, the aboriginal diabetes initiative, as well as other key initiatives such as the food mail program.
Further, new data is being gather through the first nations regional health survey. The next cycle of this survey will go into the field early in 2008 and it will collect important information on food security, physical activity, height, and weight. Collectively, the policies, programs, and initiatives, as outlined in the government response, provide an important foundation upon which to continue to build and inform our current and future actions, not only with respect to children but in all segments of the Canadian population.
In moving forward, we are taking an approach to overweight and obesity with an increased emphasis on the complex interplay of underlying factors and environmental conditions that influence the choices and behaviours of Canadians. We also recognize, similar to the approach taken to achieve the success demonstrated on tobacco control and smoking cessation, that counteracting obesity will require long-term, multi-sectoral efforts involving many of the key partners and stakeholders highlighted in your report.
The Government of Canada is just one player among many that must be engaged on childhood obesity. We are, however, in a position to provide a key leadership and coordination role, based on the foundation of work to date and our public health and related expertise. In this regard, we appreciate the need to work collaboratively within the health portfolio and, in turn, to engage all federal departments and agencies that can support efforts to enhance existing and potentially new policies, programs, and services.
I would like to highlight to the committee that we have created a new directorate within the Public Health Agency of Canada. This new capacity will advance action on the social determinants of health--those determinants that are fundamental to addressing overweight and obesity--and coordinate efforts to address this area as a core priority.
I am also pleased to report that since the tabling of the government response in August, we have continued to advance and build on the initiatives outlined in the response.
As you know, in June of this year, the Minister of Health announced that Health Canada adopted the recommendations of the Trans Fat Task Force and called upon the food industry to reduce the levels of trans fats in foods within two years. The minister also announced that if significant progress is not made in the next two years, Health Canada will develop regulations to ensure that the recommended levels are met. Health Canada is closely monitoring industry actions in this area via a trans fat monitoring program and will inform Canadian consumers of industry progress approximately every six months through the Health Canada website.
We recognize the importance of providing nutrition and healthy eating information to help support healthy food choices in an environment saturated by food industry marketing messages and confusing information. To help address this, the government is a partner in organizing a national policy consensus conference on the impact of marketing on the unhealthy weights of Canadian children and youth, scheduled to take place in Ottawa in March 2008. The results of the conference will be used by the government to address concerns about marketing to children.
In its report, the committee provided recommendations on front-of-package labelling. This issue is now being considered as part of Health Canada's public consultation on a modernized framework for health claims for foods, given that front-of-package labelling can be seen as a form of implied health claim. A discussion document on health claims has been developed, and face-to-face consultations will take place in six cities across Canada early next year.
Feedback from stakeholders as well as consumer research on this topic will guide the final proposed framework. This information will also be used as the basis for future targeted consultations on the issue of front-of-package labelling alone. Moreover, a healthy eating campaign, to be launched in the winter of 2008, will promote healthy eating concepts and encourage the effective use of nutrition information on food labels to enhance the ability of Canadians to make healthy food choices. This campaign builds on the TV ad campaign launched last winter, which promoted the revised Canada's Food Guide.
In addition, we have taken further actions consistent with the overall direction of the committee's report and recommendations. For example, to help foster the conditions that facilitate lifelong active living, we will be supporting implementation of the World Health Organization's age-friendly cities initiative in several communities across Canada.
One important focus of the project is changing the physical environment in communities, including the built environment, as a key factor that influences opportunities and/or creates barriers to physical activity participation. In addition, there is growing awareness of the impact of trade, particularly in regard to agricultural commodities and the increased availability of packaged foods as a possible factor in the escalating prevalence of obesity.
To further our understanding of these global trade dynamics and their impacts on children and families, the health portfolio partnered with the World Health Organization to host an expert forum in Montreal this past November. Specifically, the purpose of the forum was to synthesize current knowledge and identify opportunities to promote and develop sustainable and healthy policies and actions on the part of industries, governments, and other stakeholders.
In a similar vein, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes will in the new year bring together representatives from the food industry, health sector, ethics, marketing, and agriculture policy to build trust and work collaboratively to reduce obesity and identify potential solutions. As the committee and the government have clearly recognized, obesity, including childhood obesity, is a complex issue. Therefore, it is important to develop innovative approaches and a stronger base of Canadian evidence to address the drivers of this issue and ensure that we systematically learn from these.
To support this need, the Public Health Agency of Canada has created an innovations and learning strategy. This strategy will provide funding support to design and test inter-sectoral initiatives applicable to the underlying causes of overweight and obesity. For its part, the CIHR Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes has undertaken significant new work to improve the knowledge base in the area of childhood obesity. For example, in partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, CIHR recently funded initiatives in the area of the built environment and obesity, including studies focused on the features of the built environment in residential neighbourhoods that influence excess weight in a group of children at risk for obesity, and a longitudinal study of environmental determinants of overweight among children.
In addition, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have created a new type of funding opportunity that supports intervention research, including the study of programs, events, or policies initiated by others. For example, CIHR has funded two studies to assess the impact of the relaunching of ParticipACTION. This new approach demonstrates how the government is efficiently linking research investments to help evaluate the effectiveness of new policies and programs. The range of initiatives currently under way by the health portfolio and in collaboration with other stakeholders illustrates how we are continuing to take action and build the partnerships that are needed to address the causes of childhood overweight and obesity in Canada.
To conclude, the standing committee has been instrumental in helping to underscore the serious nature of the issue of childhood obesity in Canada, as well as the need to act. The government concurs with the committee that childhood obesity, and indeed obesity in general, requires continued attention by governments and other stakeholders. The foundation that has been created through existing and new initiatives and partnerships, as described in the government response and further clarified today in my remarks, positions the government to effectively move forward to address this very serious societal issue.
Thank you for the opportunity to highlight our continued and expanded work in this area.