Sure. I get asked that question quite often. ParticiPACTION believes strongly that--
By the way, I come from the private sector. I left the private sector because I'd like to go and change the world. I believe the only way to do that is for the not-for-profit sector to be arm in arm with the private sector, the public sector, and their partners in the not-for-profit sector. That's just a fundamental philosophy that I personally have and that ParticiPACTION adopts.
We have several partners in the private sector--again, because if we want to translate the issue into a solution, we need to have all of those partners arm in arm.
In the very specific example of Coca-Cola, I believe that demonizing any one private sector organization is wrong and that in fact if you want to talk about private sector organizations, there are almost none that would be okay private sector partners for the not-for-profit sector. If you think about water organizations, there are environmental issues. If you think about Nike, there are labour practice issues. I've taken lots and lots of private sector organization sponsorship prospects to my not-for-profit tables, and they all have issues.
So Coca-Cola, I understand, has been demonized and is one that is most spoken of in terms of private sector organizations. My belief is that if you are on the same side of the table having conversations with Coca-Cola, you have an opportunity to influence them. They are arguably one of the most successful and effective global corporations and they have an opportunity to influence a great deal in our country and around the world. If we can pull them onside...and I would tell you that our partnership with them has been over the last two years. In the last two years--and I won't suggest that ParticiPACTION's influence is responsible for all of these changes--policies around marketing have changed and policies around packaging have changed. Marketing practices have changed as a result of this. So I will just kind of give you that as the philosophy.
In terms of our relationship with them, we wanted to tackle youth. You heard earlier from Andrea and from me that only 7% of Canadian kids meet the daily physical activity guidelines. As kids get older, their physical activity levels decline, so teenagers are the most vulnerable population in our country, and we didn't know how to get at youth. If you partner with an insurance company, for example, youth aren't going to be drawn to that particular brand.
So now we have an opportunity to use a brand that kids will find relevant, and if we can use it to do good and not evil, we can make a difference. In the last two and a half years, we have gone from zero teenagers in our program to almost 20,000 kids--youth, teenagers--in our program, who are more physically active today than they were two years ago. The whole idea is about youth leading youth. Youth inspire youth. They've now been able to build and create a momentum or a movement--a funny little word in my world--around physical activity. There were 1,300 of our kids who carried the torch in the 2010 Winter Olympics, so obviously Coke came with the magic of the Olympics.
The contract between Coca-Cola and ParticiPACTION took longer to negotiate than any.... I've bought and sold eight companies in my career. It took longer to negotiate that contract because it's a wildly responsible contract in terms of how they can use our brand, where they can use our brand, and the expectations of them in that relationship.
Coca-Cola creates lots and lots of products, not just the soft drinks that my colleague was talking about earlier, so we're helping them to promote those healthy choices as opposed to the unhealthy choices. That's the rationale behind that decision from a ParticiPACTION perspective.
I'd also offer you this. If you want to go out and change the world, we need to be there with the private sector. I'd also say that there isn't enough money in our sector to make change without private sector dollars, so I wouldn't tell you that we did the deal just for dollars, but they did deploy $5 million to youth over the five-year period of the program. That's a substantial amount of money.
My belief is that they're authentic partners. They want Canadians to move more. We use their resources and their marketing expertise to do good and we continue to do good.