Evidence of meeting #147 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was activity.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Now we're going into our second round of questioning.
We'll start with Mr. Lobb for five minutes.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you, Ms. Gladu.
Ms. Damoff brought up something that I've been thinking about for quite a while. That goes around the planning with cities and smaller communities, and with the massive growth in the suburbs I think you would want to say that's the way they're planning. You would certainly know from your communities, just in the way they've exploded, that oftentimes you're left in a bit of a gap.
The education system is slow to react to the growth in the population to have schools the right size. You see a lot of trailers, or portables, or whatever they want to call them. In addition to that, there are parks and in some cases rec centres and so forth. They pay development fees; every developer around pays development fees. Of course, once the homes are built there's a ton of tax revenue coming in.
This is a federal committee. This isn't a provincial planning committee, but is there anything in this report or motion that should speak to that as the development process? Is there anything you think we should include in that?
10:15 a.m.
Representative, Canadian School Boards Association
I believe, if you look at the brief that CSBA submitted, there was a recommendation that the federal government continue to invest in local recreational facilities. Here we're talking about capital infrastructure, because that has been done in the past. Through federal commitments especially, we have been able to realize important expansions or renovations as well as retrofits to community-based recreational infrastructure, so that certainly is important.
To the other point about the response time of school boards to building capital, what you would find in most provinces is that indeed it is a provincial responsibility. In Manitoba as an example, the provincial government is uniquely responsible for capital construction and infrastructure, so that does mirror the situation in other provinces as well. It is a matter of multisectoral and multi-jurisdictional conversation about how best to meet need.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I do agree specifically around the federal funding component for recreational facilities. I think back years ago to the rink program. There were a number of communities in the area I represent that were able to build new facilities, or retrofit facilities, etc. I can think of one community in Clinton, my hometown. They built a new arena, and they have a walking track that's free for everybody to walk on. It's things like that.
In infrastructure, a lot of times you go community to community and there's a different community centre set up for each different place. I'm wondering if we shouldn't provide a standard. For example, for a community of 10,000 people, the rink could look like the following three displays, and there's a level of excellence, walking track, gymnasium. I know even from going county to county, there are different set-ups. Is that something we should look at too?
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Physical and Health Education Canada
I was just going to talk about roads, quickly, in regard to active transportation, the role of the federal government and the role of the provincial and municipal partnerships.
It's very important that those standards need to be set to ensure that active transportation routes are safe for our youngest citizens. It's not good enough to have them on the side of the lane with no barrier for a three-year-old to learn to bike or to get to school. Only one in three is walking to their destinations, whether it's school or their clubs. It's really important that there be some leadership in regard to those active transportation routes.
10:15 a.m.
Director, Research and Public Policy, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada
I appreciate your bringing up infrastructure, because we believe that the federal government can play an important role.
There is variability across organizations like Boys and Girls Clubs and after-school programs in terms of the infrastructure that we utilize. Here in Ottawa they have dedicated large centres. Across the country, it's the same. But in some more rural locations we're in church basements, or other basements, and looking for opportunities to grow.
One of the biggest barriers to expansion within the Boys and Girls Clubs movement is locations and infrastructure. I believe that the federal government can play an important role in helping us set that stage and getting some infrastructure set. We've shown the ability over more than 100 years to work with partners municipally, locally and provincially to build sustainable business models and keep these types of programs moving.
To go back to your question, it's always nice to have the federal government provide some guidance in terms of what communities need based on size, but I do believe that communities have a very good sense of what they need, and look for opportunities to grow that as they continue to move forward.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
10:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sport for Life Society
I concur with my colleagues in the messages they have shared.
I want to go back to our opening message around the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We see infrastructure programs going into renovating rinks and facilities.
However, I think we have to remember that grade 5 student in Oakville who wanted a small space near him so he can be active. We tend to have federal infrastructure programs that renovate and rebuild facilities that we have to drive to, while we don't invest in small spaces near the kids who want to play.
I think we have to look at things a little differently and not just reinvent what exists, if we want to change those numbers that are so startlingly poor. Just consider that in terms of infrastructure programs, please.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Adam, I want to follow up with you. You're in a unique situation, and I thank you for sharing your good, positive story with us.
Then, maybe Josh your colleague can answer my research specific question.
What research have you been able to see that shows the mental health benefits of physical activity in youth? Is it fair to say that's a growing field of research?
10:20 a.m.
Director of Programs, Boys and Girls Clubs of Ottawa, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada
I can talk anecdotally to the impact I've seen with our 4,500 members in Ottawa.
Starting at age six with kids who are engaged in physical activity, their self-esteem and their ability to participate in different activities and programs is exponentially higher than a young person who never develops those physical literacy skills. It's that confidence piece that is so hard to attain if you don't have the space to get those skills and to have a role model to give you those opportunities.
The mental health piece could be as simple as resiliency. It's as simple as learning that it's okay to lose an activity. It's sportsmanship and all of those things we take for granted, but they're all things we use in our day-to-day lives for our work. Anecdotally, that's the piece, and I think a longitudinal study on that would be important at some point. As service providers, we can see the impact and difference it makes.
May 28th, 2019 / 10:20 a.m.
Director, Research and Public Policy, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada
To add to that, we're building off the multidisciplinary research of academics and practitioners around the country and the world. We monitor and evaluate each one of our programs.
As Adam mentioned earlier, the Bounce Back League is being piloted in three locations across the country. Through those early evaluations, we'll improve the program, fix what hasn't worked perfectly and look to do more training with staff so that, as we expand those programs, they can be even more evidence-based and even more impactful.
We're increasingly focusing on monitoring and evaluation, not just of our outputs but of our outcomes, and I think there are lots of opportunities to continue to build that in partnerships around the country.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sport for Life Society
Just quickly, I would direct you to a research article, “Physical literacy of children with behavioural and emotional mental health disorders” by Catherine Fortnum and a number of other researchers. In that case, the conclusion was that, broadly, children with mental health diseases have lower physical literacy than children without. So research is being done connecting mental health with developing physical literacy.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you for pointing that out to us, Richard.
I have a question for everybody.
When I was drafting this motion last fall, almost a year ago, and reaching out to a lot of stakeholders, I heard a lot of common themes. One of them among others was that so many organizations are doing a lot of good work. They're not necessarily aware of each other, or they're not necessarily collaborating.
Part of it, as some of the stakeholders pointed out, is that we have created almost a competitive environment where there are limited resources, so the organizations that have the same goals and the same modus operandi are competing with each other to get the available federal resources. Do you see that as an obstacle to achieving what we need to achieve?
Melanie.
10:20 a.m.
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Physical and Health Education Canada
PHE Canada, along with five other organizations, started the Canadian Alliance for Healthy School Communities two years ago. Healthy school communities are the ones with students who are physically active, with nutrition programs, where the environment is conducive to health and so on.
When we first came together as a group, we did this test to measure the level of collaboration between individuals. On the one end, you have turf and competition, and on the other end, you have integration and collaboration. When we first charted where we were, we were in that competitive turf space. Two years later, we are now moving toward this collaboration model.
The people around this table are in education, recreation, health and are at the municipal, community, federal and provincial levels.
It is possible to change that, but it has absolutely—you're right—defined the past 10 years of how we've been working. There is change afoot in regard to that. Going back to the common vision, it's very much linked to ensuring that we no longer work in a place of turf or competition but that we're working to collaborate.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
We've talked a bit about the diet that Canadians have. I'm guessing that in the last 20 years the diet has slightly changed, and I guess that's evolution.
Again, I'm going to go back to the parents. I'm not picking on the parents, but I'm going to go back to the parents again. I'll go to McDonald's for coffee. I'll either go in or I'll use the drive-through. I am amazed at the lineups, both in the double drive-through and the little kiosks that they have to order from, and the bags and bags of food that are going out of there all the time. I'm not just picking on McDonald's, because there are a lot of other fast food places around, and I know it's not all healthy food that they serve.
What do we do to try to curb that a bit? I'm not guessing that everybody eats McDonald's every night for supper, but what do we do? Parents know that a Big Mac is not a healthy option, but still, it is ordered. They know that chocolate milk is not necessarily healthy. It's good, but it has a lot of sugar in it—or a pop.
What do we do? That's as much of the problem as the lack of physical activity.
Do you have any thoughts?
10:25 a.m.
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Physical and Health Education Canada
I can speak to that.
With McDonald's particularly, around the world, there are examples of healthy menu options at McDonald's. One, at the federal level, we can say to organizations like this that they need to start providing more healthy options.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
But we know that you don't go to McDonald's to order a salad. We know that.
10:25 a.m.
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Physical and Health Education Canada
Yes, so that's one part of it.
The second part of it is education, so ensuring that young people know what is healthy and not healthy. They have a tremendous impact on their parents. If we know that 95% of the kids are attending school and we teach those lessons there, that's what they take home.
My daughter, for example, learned something about sugar, and for weeks, she was “zero sugar, no sugar”, and that's what came home. Targeting the young people to educate their families to show them what is healthy and what isn't healthy is a really great strategy for changing those habits.