Thank you for that question.
Dr. Chan was in the House today. A year or two ago she said that the next global epidemic would be obesity. I think some of the illnesses we're seeing in our system today directly relate to the lack of activity and obesity. When you're dealing with diabetes, heart disease, and knee and hip replacement surgery, they all relate to obesity.
Canada has made important gains in how we can encourage Canadians to be more physically active, particularly our young people. Our government believes that physical activity is a shared responsibility with the provinces and territories and a number of stakeholders, such as municipalities, with parks and walking trails; the school systems; and parents. What can we do to provide information to parents so they can make informed decisions on the importance of physical activity or eating healthy food?
Our government also said we would invest in the fitness tax credit for Canadians to promote physical activity, recognizing that we need to start with this generation. All the statistics today indicate that our children will not live to be our age--and it's this generation--based on obesity. We need to start tackling that issue.
I believe our government has made significant investments. The commitment in the declaration we signed in Newfoundland last year with the Public Health Agency of Canada is the first agreement in Canada on keeping our people healthy. As opposed to saying, “Here's more money for when you fall ill”, it shifts the thinking to, “Here's what we can do to keep our children healthy”.
I am very encouraged when I hear someone say, “It's not up to you as my doctor to keep me healthy; it's up to me as an individual, but here's what you can do to help me”--shifting some of that kind of conversation. So how do we support that? I believe the commitments made by the provinces and territories in the initiatives they're now undertaking within their own jurisdictions are very encouraging.
On the second part, I told you we signed a declaration at the UN with global health ministers on what we need to do to deal with chronic diseases, and many of them stem from obesity, as an example.
I think we can be proud of our record in working to shift that thinking, and working with jurisdictions that are doing things to keep you out of the hospital in the first place. So it's quite encouraging.
This week in Halifax we'll be able to update Canadians on where we're heading with the work we did over the summer.
Thank you.