Health Committee on Feb. 10th, 2011

[Kelly Murumets]

More and more, given the economy, businesses aren't donating moneys as much as they used to. They are always thinking about the return on their investment. So when businesses think about getting involved in physical activity and making Canada a healthier country, they're doing it with an economic perspective. So having an opportunity to partner with the federal government is always important. No matter which organization I go to speak with, they ask if they get funding from the federal government and from which ministry and how they might be able to parlay that into a relationship for themselves.

The second area is if they can sponsor an initiative that makes Canada healthier but helps them drive revenue, drive margin, drive their image as a good corporate citizen, drive bottom-line profitability, and at the same time, for me, get Canadians to move more, they're open to those conversations. We really go in through a marketing door, and we help them to market their business. At the same time, our overarching objective is to get Canadians to move more.

One, they deploy resources and expertise, but two, they're actually reaching out then to their employees in the workplace, to their distribution, and to their ultimate customer. So we have an opportunity to hit 30 million Canadians if we partner with the private sector, and I think through sponsorship. But then the workplace is a huge piece of that sponsorship, so just within their own employees around their making changes, and helping to change the world, actually.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Arango.

[Manuel Arango]

Currently, on the food industry's voluntary initiative to reduce the marketing of unhealthy food products to kids, they have committed not to use third-party cartoon characters—for example, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc. However, they still use their own company-generated cartoon characters, such as Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, etc.

One way they could make healthy choices more attractive is to not use them on unhealthy food products but to use them on healthy food products. That's one recommendation I would make.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

Because healthy living and obesity are very complex and they require action across various sectors, I was wondering how you engage with both government and non-governmental organizations. Maybe we can ask the Heart and Stroke Foundation that one.

It's not an easy thing. I've been trying to get my head around it here. I think I saw some recent statistics where the only country in the world, in this article, that was doing well as far as getting obesity levels down was North Korea. We all know the government controls the amount of food. They control every single thing that happens in that type of society, whereas we live in open societies and we have to all work together to get to that goal.

How do you find working with the government and these NGOs? How do you find pulling that all together?

[Linda Piazza]

Well, here we are today. There's a high degree of collaboration, as Kelly pointed out earlier. We work closely with CDPAC. When Manuel is not volunteering with CDPAC, he's working for the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

There are a lot of global initiatives to try to combat obesity--research in particular. Canada is in the forefront of research on the risk factors. The big INTERHEART study identified nine risk factors for cardiovascular disease, with obesity being high among them.

Everybody is collaborating. There are different roles, and the multi-pronged approach is key, as we learned in the tobacco experience. I guess we know from tobacco that it takes a while. We're trying to change behaviour. We know that 80% of cardiovascular disease can be prevented by known behavioural and pharmaceutical interventions, but it's not easy to get people to change behaviours.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Do you have any other examples of successful policies and practices you've seen implemented, even around the world?

[Linda Piazza]

There's consistent evidence that taxation of sugary beverages, combined with subsidies for fruits and vegetables, can be effective as one part of a comprehensive approach. In the U.S. they've had some success in that area. It's definitely worth exploring. That's what we're bringing today.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Do I have time for another question, Mr. Chair?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

You don't, actually. I was waiting to cut you off.

We will now go into our second five-minute round.

Dr. Dhalla.

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

Such a good chair we have.

I want to first of all take the opportunity to thank all of you for coming, and for some of the great work you are doing within your community groups and organizations. I think it's absolutely tremendous, and you're making a difference in the lives of people...two organizations I've had a chance to work with that have done a tremendous amount of work on the ground.

To the Heart and Stroke Foundation, you are to be commended for your work in reaching out to the ethnic diaspora, in particular the South Asian community, to educate them about cardiovascular diseases and prevention. There's a gala held by a number of young professionals every year in conjunction with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and it has made a real difference in reaching out to people. So thank you.

To Kelly from ParticipACTION, I know you left a private sector job to come in, and you're doing great work. Just hearing your passion is really inspiring.

I want to touch on something with ParticipACTION in regard to healthy living. My colleague Ujjal mentioned your collaboration and partnership with Coca-Cola. I was at the event, because it was in our riding of Brampton—Springdale. You spoke really passionately about reaching out to young people. I think it would be of benefit to the committee, not so much to hear the rationale and reasoning behind your partnership, but to hear a little bit about the program, how you are engaging young people, and what the money Coca-Cola provided you with has done to help promote healthy living in terms of both exercise and diet.

The second thing I want to touch on is that when I was growing up, ParticipACTION was deeply respected and promoted within our schools. We don't see it in the schools anymore. What resources does your organization need from the government to assist you in reaching out and getting young kids active and healthy across the country?

[Kelly Murumets]

The program on which we partnered with Coca-Cola is called Sogo Active. “Sogo” means nothing. Kids made it up. We did it all with a focus group of teenagers, and they made up the name, and they designed the protocols for Sogo Active. It is, as I mentioned, peer-led, youth inspiring youth to become more physically active.

Going back to Colin's question, we worked with one provincial-territorial coordinator in each of the 13 provinces and territories. At the same time, by the way, we were creating an English program as well as a French program. So we didn't translate the program. We created one with French Canadians, and we created one with English-speaking Canadians, and then we used our provincial-territorial coordinators and their networks in their provinces and territories to deploy the program like that. So within two and a half months, we had 10,000 youth involved in the program.

We get youth to define what physical activity is, and youth defines how to motivate kids to be more physically active, and they define how to communicate it. They told us that if it's not online they won't participate, so everything is online. It's a very cool program. You can go to sogoactive.com and have a look at it. We used our network of not-for-profit organizations to make that wildly successful.

ParticipACTION is tiny. There are 12 of us, so the way we deploy programs is through collaborative work with several of the organizations that are at this table today and those that are right across the country, in all 13 provinces and territories.

The second question you asked was about getting to all children and youth in the country. PHE Canada and ParticipACTION have actually been working for a couple of years with scientists from CSEP to design a school-based program. This, I think, is world-changing. It is bringing back the Canada Fitness Awards and the flexed-arm hang, but it's not having kids compete against kids, which can be the worst day of their lives for some children--I know. It actually involves a child starting at the beginning of the year and measuring their progress. So we can have a couch potato getting the award of excellence and we can have an elite athlete getting the award of excellence.

That's a program we would like to deploy right through all of the schools. We know how to do it. We've been working with scientists. We know how to evaluate it. It is ready to go, but it needs funding. And it needs at least $1.5 million a year, with a three- to five-year commitment to it. We're ready with the not-for-profit partners around the table and the researchers to deploy this thing. We know how to do it. We just need some funding. It's difficult to get private sector funding for this--I think Colin asked about that--because it is very difficult to have a private sector organization in schools. Schools are obviously very discerning. There are almost no private sector brands allowed in schools, so this does need the support of the federal government so that we can then work with provincial-territorial governments and have it in all 13 provinces and territories.

That is of my heart and soul, and I am determined that we will get that implemented at some point.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

And thanks to each of you for being here today.

I don't know if you have been following the presentations as they've been given, but earlier this week we had quite an array of witnesses here as well. It seemed that everybody was more or less on the same wavelength. As Dr. Duncan said, probably most people know what they need to be doing, but they're not doing it. We sort of know what creates a healthy lifestyle, but getting there is something else.

One of the presenters on Tuesday had indicated that the fun seems to have gone out of physical activity. Do kids have fun anymore, or do they have to belong to organized sports? Of course not everybody can do that. Is there still just fun in being active?

I want to go to Dr. Hicks and talk about your physical activity guidelines. In relation to that, I see where you indicate different guidelines for the different age groups, and you explain the intensity and so on. You also indicate how parents and caregivers can help on the children's one, and I guess on the one for teens, too. And you describe different ordinary, everyday things they can do.

How do you get that message out? Where are these distributed, and how do kids and caregivers and families and seniors and everybody find out about these?

[Dr. Audrey Hicks]

They're new. They just came out on January 24. Anybody can go to our website, ParticipACTION's website, or the website of the Public Health Agency of Canada and get the same materials.

There was a media release associated with the guidelines. We'd fully appreciate any campaigning on the part of the government to direct people to the appropriate places when they get inquiries regarding how to get information on the new guidelines. That's something we really want to emphasize: to follow Canada's physical activity guidelines, you don't have to join a team or join a gym, because doing that isn't feasible for all Canadians. We want people to know that the guidelines are perfectly attainable just by doing things in your own neighbourhood, in your own backyard.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Are they distributed through public health agencies? We all have a local public health unit, or whatever they're called.

[Dr. Audrey Hicks]

We've certainly done the outreach to all the public health agencies ahead of time, just in the weeks leading up to the guidelines release. Again, they don't have the materials yet. It's been a major problem, resources, in order to be able to provide the appropriate tool kits and guidebooks and everything that Canadians like to have distributed by their schools or their doctors or the local health units.

They don't have those materials unless they go to our website and download them themselves.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

So they're available electronically—

[Dr. Audrey Hicks]

They're available electronically, but our goal is.... Our initial plan, had the funding been sustained, was to move right on to disseminating the appropriate tools.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Are there any plans for the future to do any of this?

[Dr. Audrey Hicks]

There are definitely plans for the future if we get support form the government to help us--

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

So right now you're waiting for the budget, are you?

[Dr. Audrey Hicks]

Yes, we're waiting for resources, that's correct. And we're working with partners, too. We're looking to a number of partners to come up with ideas and strategies to develop the appropriate tool kits and guidebooks and everything that makes it easier for the average Canadian to see what the guidelines mean to them.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

So there's no pocket at Health Canada, no envelope, that's funding this on an ongoing basis?

[Dr. Audrey Hicks]

No, and that would be wonderful. That is one thing we would strongly recommend to this committee, that there be an ongoing, stable amount of money. We had some funding to do the research, to examine the evidence, to find out how much physical activity was necessary for health benefits, but then the funding ended. So we've developed the guidelines, but now there needs to be funding to make those guidelines attainable to Canadians in terms of seeing what they have to do.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

The original funding got them as far as development, but not distribution.