Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome everyone.
I find this pretty discouraging. What I am hearing is that our children are in worse shape than we are. I would have thought the opposite. I want to find ways the federal government can fix this. There is talk of taxing sugar-filled drinks. To my mind, that would be a deterrent, and I hope it is.
Mr. Arango, you talked about a refundable tax credit, ideally. So it would only be for families who pay taxes. What about those families who are the least well-off, who are probably one of the major target groups for encouraging physical fitness. I am also on another committee that has studied child poverty, and I know that we have not eradicated child poverty in the past 10 or 20 years. These parents are certainly an important target group. I am trying to figure this out.
We also have advertising aimed at children. Our kids don't move anymore, and the Internet and computer games are partially to blame. So I think we need to get out there and work as closely with these people as possible. You talked about creating environments for physical activity in the neighbourhoods where these people live, and I see what you are saying.
In Quebec, we have Kino-Québec and many other initiatives that help to create these kinds of environments. Municipalities and provincial governments have a much bigger hand in this. Do you not think it would be easier to speak with people at those levels first, to press them for action, rather than the federal government? I am not at all opposed to hearing what you have to say. There are clearly things we can do, but I think that a society should also appeal to its more immediate representatives for family policies that integrate free physical activity and sports programs, and so forth. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
We are hearing about creating environments for physical activity, but that involves more than just developing and implementing programs. The first thing we did in Quebec was ask the people concerned what programs they wanted, what their needs were. That approach proved successful for us. Then we sat down with our partners and each of them figured out what their role in the program could be. They also incorporated that contribution into their individual action plans. That approach is one of the keys to success. It got schools involved in programs. It seems to me that some of the solutions are already available. I would like to hear what you have to say about that.