Health Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

[Lucie Granger]

The project is funded by Québec en Forme, as well as the Quebec government and the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon. The organization is currently carrying out this project.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

There are about 30 seconds, if you—

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

No? Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I think I'd like to talk to the Public Health Agency of Canada. I do want to commend you for the leadership of the government, because in the last few years we have seen the children's fitness tax credit, rink funding, in the fall the framework for action to promote healthy weights, Canada's Food Guide, investment in NGOs like ParticipAction. But I can't help but think Canada is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and I do recognize that some Canadians may have difficulty accessing healthy food. I look at the example of my own kids and how much personal choice and personal responsibility come down to it. I liked what Dr. Doig was saying, that she'd like to get rid of all these processed foods.

I'm one of those guys who actually shops, and, you know, you see five kilograms of rice is less than $10; a bag of oatmeal is $2.99; an apple is 50¢; a chocolate bar is $1. But you make these choices and the kids choose the chocolate bar. Water is free. Walking is free. I look at my own kids, who get up at 6 a.m., hop on the bus at 7:00, they're in school until about 2:30 or 3:00, they get home. Where are the opportunities for them to be active in their very busy lifestyles? Then parents come home and they throw something prepared into the oven. This is like a huge, huge issue, and I'm trying to get my head around it.

We recently heard from StatsCan that the physical activity levels, particularly for kids, are not even coming close to meeting the minimum guidelines. I was wondering, you mentioned the “Eat Well and Be Active” educational toolkit for educators. What kind of buy-in are you getting at the provincial level and the levels where educators have the kids in front of them for five or six hours a day? Are you getting a strong uptake with that?

[Judith Bossé]

I think it's a bit early, because we're starting to work with the education sectors. So right now it's uneven. It depends: there are some who are really sensitized and some we need to work with more. As you well know, the education sector is a provincial jurisdiction, so we're working through partnership with our provincial and territorial colleagues but also working through the joint consortium for school health as a way to promote better tools, better policy, better resources, so that the health policies are actually ingrained into our schools. But it's early days and a whole lot more needs to be done.

In terms of the part of your question on physical activity and how our kids can actually do it in their busy lives, that's the reality of everyone. We all have very busy lives. But I think what we're realizing is for kids, actually, let's say there are ways to design safe ways for them to cycle to school; let's say that schools are located in a way that it is easy for them to bike or even walk, walk in a way that is actually fun and entertaining. That's what we're looking at.

Some provinces have some pilots for active and safe transportation to school, and we're looking at it. We're evaluating how good it is. So far, the indication is that there are very good programs that are not just addressed to kids who come from high socio-economic backgrounds but also are addressed to kids with low socio-economic backgrounds.

Physical activity and an active lifestyle—it's about building an active life in the everyday, everything you do. Obviously, if you have the leisure time.... And that's why we're focusing on the after-school leisure time, as often kids finish earlier than parents, and they have all these hours when it's their most sedentary time, right after school before the parents get home. The question is, how can we, through mobilization of multi-sectors, get the kids to want to be active, to want to, through various activities and various involvements in communities, basically meet a little bit more of the moderate to high physical activity levels that we're aiming to get them to meet?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I hear what you're saying, and I agree with what you're saying, but to design communities like this at the municipal level, there are some communities that are taking that on. But again, I bring the example back to my kids. Up at 6 a.m., they're on a bus at 7:00, because they have to be bused, and the bus leaves at 2:35 or whatever, so they don't have time to do the after-school.... When I was in school, I played after-school sports. They're not even given that option out there.

How would the physical activity promotion help with the crisis? And are we getting a buy-in at the different levels? I think everybody's in agreement here that we should be doing these things. At a federal level, there are certain things that we're doing. As I said, I commend you for what's been done in a very short period of time, but a lot of these decisions are outside this jurisdiction. I was wondering, are you getting that collaboration and buy-in at this stage of the game?

[Judith Bossé]

Well, this is one of the reasons why we have funded PHE, the physical education...I forget the acronym.

[Jean-Marc Dupont, Acting Executive Director, Centre for Health Promotion, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada]

It's PHE Canada.

[Judith Bossé]

Yes, PHE Canada. It's basically to work with other NGOs to build more of a cross-sectoral effort in the after-school period, working with the schools and looking at how the school facilities could be better used to get our kids active.

As I say, it's early days. We're starting to focus on the after-school period with a myriad of actors, basically, with some NGOs, but also with some from the private sector, and we're looking at how we can entice kids to see that as a valuable investment of their time and to spend less time in those sedentary behaviours.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Do you have any statistics, in a range from kids to adults, on how Canada is comparing internationally on physical activity?

[Judith Bossé]

I do have some studies on physical activities. Canadian kids are doing relatively well compared to others internationally, but I would say, based on the newly released studies from Stats Canada--the community health measurement survey--that what we're realizing is that for kids as well as adults, because it's self-reported information, it seems that people tend to overestimate how much moderate to vigorous activity they do.

So in fact you're seeing 60% of the kids reporting that they do, but when you measure it, really you're seeing that there is about 14% or 7%, depending on if you go from moderate to high. We have a long way to go, because there's a misunderstanding of what “moderate to vigorous” is.

We need a whole lot more of the easily devised tools that people can wear and that would objectively tell you that you are doing the right thing--like pedometers. But Canada is a leader in that field, and internationally we seem to be a little ahead in the measurement, so--

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

Thank you.

We'll now go into our second round, with five-minute rounds starting with Dr. Dhalla.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you very much, everyone, for coming and for your insightful presentations.

I want to go back to something that Anne spoke about in her capacity as past president for the CMA and in regard to all the work they've done across the country.

When you spoke about nutritional labelling having a green, yellow, and red light concept, I can tell you from working with my mom to get her physically fit and active and trying to explain what calories and transfats are, from the upbringing that they had back home in India, it's been a huge learning curve. Now we've gotten her to a process such that when she goes shopping she's actually looking at the number of calories and the sodium count and so forth. But it was a bit of a challenge to ensure that the education part was there so that when foods were being purchased for the home, they were healthy.

When we had witnesses here a few weeks back, they were mentioning in regard to nutritional labelling that there was a regulatory process and that a number of changes are still pending. Had you brought forward your idea about the green, amber, and red light concept to the Public Health Agency?

[Dr. Anne Doig]

I don't think we have specifically communicated that. I'm looking at my staff members and Public Health staff on that; I'm not sure that we have specifically communicated this. It's an initiative that we're aware of that is happening in another country and we bring it forward as a suggestion.

The point of my suggestion was to make the information accessible and at a literacy level--

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

That people can understand, yes.

[Dr. Anne Doig]

When I'm saying literacy, I don't just mean reading. I mean literacy in the largest sense of that word: at a level so that people can understand the information. I mean literacy so that we can make the information very user-friendly and very useful to them in their everyday lives. Whether it's a traffic light system or some other kind of system, the idea is to bring information in a way that people can go, “Oh, gee, maybe I had better think twice about buying that”...whatever it is.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

What country has brought in this system that you're mentioning?

[Jill Skinner, Associate Director, Public Health, Canadian Medical Association]

The U.K.

[Dr. Anne Doig]

Yes, the U.K. I'm not aware of it being in use anywhere else. Most of the other nutritional labelling that I've seen is narrative and very dense. Even I can't understand most of it.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I think it's an excellent idea. Having a constituency that has a number of ethnic Canadians who have come from various countries where it is.... I don't want to say it's in fashion, but eating foods with a high sugar content is promoted, versus here, where you're trying to get them on a path of healthy eating and healthy living.

I think something like this that would simplify the labels would definitely be of benefit. As my mom said when I was first explaining it to her, “I need a dictionary to figure this all out, or I need to go to university for four years and get my degree in chemistry to figure out exactly what's going on in a label”. I think it would be a tremendous advantage and benefit.

[Dr. Anne Doig]

We used to say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. What I think we need to say now is if you can't read it and you can't pronounce it, then don't eat it.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

It's an excellent idea.

There's another thing I wanted to ask the Public Health Agency about as well. I know that Dr. Carrie was speaking about the buy-in from some of the programs.

What's going on with ParticipAction? I actually attended an event last month in my riding with Coca-Cola, whose headquarters are there. They have a really unique initiative of partnering up, not only from an industry perspective but also with organizations like ParticipAction, and going into the community to promote healthy living within some community organizations and with some vulnerable groups.

[Judith Bossé]

I actually would have to admit that I probably don't know about that specific you are talking about. When we're talking with ParticipAction, our work with them has been more on the social marketing aspect. Obviously you're aware that ParticipAction has received money from the federal government for this year and next, so they're actually initiating new programming, which at this stage I'm not familiar with in detail.

That being said, ParticipAction and ourselves are actually in dialogue and looking at, obviously, the framework for promoting healthy weight and the role of physical activity. We're looking at what they're evolving, their program, and at how in the whole engagement strategy the NGOs like ParticipAction and what they're doing could help communities. But I would not say anything on that particular program.

Do you want to say anything?