Thank you.
That's a great question and a great initiative, in my mind. One of the things the provinces and territories have been working on for a long time—I would say in the last six years—is to deal with a lot of the preventable illnesses we see in Canada. You see the health indicators of Canadians and you look at what they are. Many of those are preventable, and one of the largest ones is childhood obesity.
On the partnership with the provinces and territories, in September 2010 there was an agreement to sign a declaration. For the first time in Canada, all provinces and territories agreed to endorse a declaration that would promote healthy living, prevention in the area of obesity, and curbing obesity.
The FPTs are working together to increase awareness, in terms of nutritious food. We're seeing more children with adult diseases as a result of obesity. We're providing recommendations through Canada's food guide, as an example, and through schools and working in partnership with a number of stakeholders.
As well, I should say that we also launched, a few weeks ago, a national conversation/dialogue on how to fight childhood obesity. That will be through face-to-face conversations and/or through submissions. That will all be collected, and the recommendations coming out of that will be presented to the federal-provincial-territorial ministers' meeting in November, to identify strategic priorities our governments will take to address childhood obesity.
Over the last five or six years, one of the things I've always said is that equally important to treating people when they get ill is keeping them from getting sick in the first place. Our whole health care system is so tilted to one side that we need to start curving it to keeping people out of the hospitals and out of clinics and keeping them healthy.
Where do we start? We start with childhood obesity. We start dealing with the issues around marketing of unhealthy foods to our children and the marketing of tobacco to our children. There are a number of initiatives we can take, collectively, to start curbing some of the trends we're seeing in this country.
I'm quite excited about the childhood obesity initiatives. All provinces and territories are onside. A number of other partners from the industy's side are coming on stream to start supporting initiatives to combat childhood obesity. It's quite exciting, and it's the first dialogue of its kind in this country.
Thank you.