Health Committee on Feb. 1st, 2011

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

That would be someone else's mandate right here.

As you have said, schools are a very key setting to promote and support healthy eating and physical activity. That is certainly clear. And again, as you said, the responsibility for school health is really with the provinces, but that shouldn't be seen as an impediment to actually working with the provinces and territories to really move forward on this.

So what we have done certainly with respect to the school nutrition guidelines is that we've been in a process now for about a year and a half where I suppose one could say that we hold space and that sort of quiet leadership with respect to bringing together the provinces and territories to talk about school nutrition guidelines and to look for developing consistency in those guidelines from province to province. Those are, again, meetings that we have hosted, bringing together the provinces and territories, and we're working in a very collaborative way. So what we're trying to do is to improve the consistency of school food guidelines from province to province, which then makes it easier to make sure that you've got the food supply that can be used in schools and as well to enhance implementation efforts so that if there are lessons to be learned from one province to the next province, we can take those forward.

So our federal role there is really, I suppose, one could say, more of holding space, but actually to bring together the analysis of the guidelines that have been there.

The other thing that we've done with respect to school guidelines is to work with the World Health Organization, and we directly supported the development of the framework for school health. The aspect on school nutrition we supported from out of our office. The aspect on physical activity was supported from the Public Health Agency. So in some ways we were going straight up to WHO but we were reflecting the learnings and what the provinces had to offer. We worked with our federal-provincial-territorial group on nutrition to get the right types of recommendations that go into the World Health Organization.

So there are ways that we as federal government do have a responsibility in this as well. It's not that direct one; it's more through indirect means.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much for your answer.

Now we'll go to Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Ms. Elmslie, in your opening remarks you talked about decreasing marketing to children of foods and beverages high in fat and sodium, etc., and you mentioned it in the answer to your last question.

Last year I met with groups such as the Canadian Diabetes Association, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and they brought in great documentation showing that in Quebec French-speaking kids have lower obesity rates than kids in English Canada, but French-speaking kids in Quebec also have lower obesity rates than English-speaking kids in Quebec, and the links are directly about marketing to kids.

So there actually are rules in place with French media. You can't market to kids, and voila, the kids are healthier. So I'm wondering if the Public Health Agency is considering any regulations like those in Quebec, because they seem to work.

[Kim Elmslie]

At this point, we're looking at the Quebec experience. Those regulations were put in place in the early eighties in a broader context of reducing marketing to kids overall.

So we're aware of the evidence that's out there. Actually, there is more evaluation of the evidence going on as we speak. Studies have been commissioned to look at what's really happening and to analyze the contexts in which we're seeing positive changes. From that perspective, the Quebec model is front and centre in the work we're now engaged in with our provincial and territorial colleagues. We are looking at what we can do to make a difference in marketing and advertising to kids.

So, yes, it's definitely front and centre as we consider this matter.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Can I ask a technical question about how Health Canada is considering this? Are you considering it as a body that gathers information nationally, looks at best practices, and disseminates the information? Or is Health Canada looking at playing a central role in federal regulations?

[Kim Elmslie]

It's too early to tell. We're at the stage where we're looking at the evidence with our provincial and territorial counterparts. So we don't know yet where we will go with this. We are front and centre with them, though, in looking at Quebec and asking what has worked there.

In fact, on an expert task team that we have assembled to look at the policy approach to reducing marketing and advertising to kids, we have a representative from the Quebec government who's helping us understand how that works, what they've learned from their evaluations. The analysis is going to be completed fairly quickly: we're looking at about a six-month period of time. Then we want to go back to ministers, FPT ministers, and say, “Taken together, here's what we've learned from this”.

We know it isn't one thing. We know it's going to be a variety of things working together that will help us make that dent in childhood obesity and start the reduction.

But the Quebec legislation, and the experience in Quebec, is certainly one of the things we're looking at carefully.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

What's the name of the task force?

[Kim Elmslie]

It's under the Public Health Network Council. It's an expert task team established to look at marketing and advertising to kids. So under Public Health Network Council is the easiest way I can describe it. There's a bunch of other titles underneath, but if you're looking for how this is progressing, look under the Public Health Network Council.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

And you think the timeline is six months, around that.

[Kim Elmslie]

That's for the analysis.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

Mr. Hutchinson, you seemed to want to jump in.

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

This is part of the curbing childhood obesity initiative that we talked about earlier. I believe we have to go back to ministers in November with the proposals coming from the task group I'm in charge of, with respect to access and availability of nutritious foods, together with the proposals from the task group Kim Elmslie is leading, which has to do with advertising to kids.

So we're on a tight timeframe on both of those task groups. We need to come up with recommendations from across the provinces, territories, and the feds with respect to how we could move forward on our policy initiatives. But we're looking at all possible solutions.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's heartening to hear.

I'm wondering if there are any—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

As much as I'd love for you to keep on with this, your time is up.

Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I know we've covered a lot of this already today. I just wanted to go back a little more to some of the physical fitness aspects of healthy living. What interactions do we have between the Minister of Sport and the Minister of Health? What types of collaborations are occurring between those ministries?

I realize that there have been some successful initiatives. I love the fact that we had that physical fitness tax credit. What other physical fitness initiatives do we see coming from the collaboration of those two ministries?

[Kim Elmslie]

I believe at your meeting next week you'll hear more detail on physical activity and what we're doing in that regard. For now, suffice it to say that the ministers of health at the federal-provincial-territorial level work with their counterparts in sport, physical activity, and recreation.

They are working together and discussing how the health and recreation agendas come together. The mechanism that is advancing this is the joint consortium on school health. We have, I would say, a very powerful model in this country that's bringing together the health, sport, and physical activity dimensions and objectives we have, looking at and testing out what are the best ways that we can implement these things in schools, so that so they get incorporated into curricula in the right way, they're resourced in the right way, and we can measure and evaluate the impact they're having.

So ministers are working together on this, seized with the issue of physical activity as one of the elements of the childhood obesity agenda, but also, of course, as one of the elements of the overall healthy living agenda writ large.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I remember we used to have a “minister of fitness” in the eighties--

[Kim Elmslie]

Amateur sport.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

--yes--and they had that ParticipAction program. How has that program evolved over the years?

[Kim Elmslie]

Currently we are providing an investment in ParticipAction to ensure that the program, which has been, I would say, re-energized in the last number of years, is doing its job to raise awareness among Canadians as to the importance of physical activity. We can see ads on TV that ParticipAction has developed around physical activity awareness. That's one of the things they are prominent in, certainly, in terms of the overall country's agenda in improving physical activity.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I realize that a lot of this--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Brown, we will hear from ParticipAction next week, just for your information.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Okay, good. Good to know.

I realize that a lot of this isn't necessarily federal, when you think of recreation. I was on my city council for five years, and I remember looking at all the recreational opportunities. I realize that cities need to engage in that, but it's difficult given their constrained budgets.

I think it is a real challenge, though, with more and more people. I think of my younger cousins who love their video games; 15 years ago there didn't seem to be that same mentality. Take the price of sports equipment; 15 years ago, when you went and bought a hockey stick, it was $10 and it was wooden. Now you look at a row of hockey sticks and you can see the sticks cost $200 to $300. I imagine in most sports you can see that equipment costs have really changed. So that's a prohibitive factor as well.

I guess I just have an open-ended question to close my time. What ideas do you think we could do as a federal government to encourage physical fitness that we're not already doing? Are there any other things that we should be considering?

[Kim Elmslie]

I could start out on that.

To review what we're already doing...I think we just need to stay the course and do more of what we're doing. We're doing good research. We're providing good guidance on physical activity targets and on the ways in which families can support their kids in being more physically active. And because we're doing that across the country, schools and communities are getting good information about what they can do in their own communities. It doesn't mean they always have the resources to do it, which is another challenge, but at the federal level we're providing consistent, scientifically sound evidence that can be used in those communities. So that has to keep on going.

Public awareness through ParticipAction, and through the programs that Hasan talked about that we're collaborating on--those also have to continue. We have to stay in the public's consciousness around these as being priorities for individuals to make healthy choices. Even if it's just walking, that doesn't cost any money; we have to continue to put that in people's heads as a way that they can take control of their own health and live healthy lives.

The work that we do internationally is setting standards and is keeping healthy living on the international radar screen. Canada is seen as a world leader internationally in the work that we've done in health promotion. Over the years we've done a really good job in terms of not only the policy levers and policy approaches we've taken, but also in bringing to the international stage innovations.

So--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much, Ms. Elmslie. You've shown such enthusiasm.

This is great. You're like bookends there. You just spread the enthusiasm. That's quite wonderful.

I want to thank you for coming today. This is a very important topic, especially when we see what is going on in our nation with our youth. I'd like to offer all of you a special thank you.

Right now I'm going to suspend for a couple of minutes and then we're going into a very short business-oriented meeting. We're just talking about topics, not about the business itself.

I will suspend for two minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]