Health Committee on May 28th, 2019

[Adam Joiner]

Right now we're in three clubs across Canada. It's going to be positioned to go into 10 clubs this year, including one club here in Ottawa.

Essentially, at Boys and Girls Clubs, anyone is welcome. Most club members range in age from six to 18, and the focus is on giving them an opportunity. Here in Ottawa there are no fees attached at all to be a member, so if you want to become a club member, you just show up and we give you a registration form and you're good to go.

Obviously, our focus is going to be strategically on those kids who are dealing with trauma at home, and who have gone through situations that might have been very challenging, and to support them through those through physical activity.

I witnessed one program at the Okanagan Boys and Girls Club. I saw young people who, frankly, didn't take part in activities before because of trauma and being part of those activities really made an impact on them.

When we think of sport, we think it's just recreation, that it's just for fun, but it's so much more than that. It teaches life skills and competencies. It teaches people how to have resilience and perseverance. That's what the Bounce Back League is all about.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes, it's great to hear that. Part of the impetus for my bringing the motion to the floor was to make the connection between mental health and physical activity, and I think that program has highlighted that brilliantly. Keep up the good work with that. It's great to hear that those success stories are happening, so thank you for that.

The Canadian School Boards Association and Physical and Health Education Canada will intertwine on these questions.

It's clear that without a robust school program as one of the systems to ensure physical activity in youth, we're not going to get anywhere country-wide.

I'm not alarmed, because I was already aware of the numbers, but it's a bit disheartening to hear about the percentage of children who are getting the recommended 60 minutes a day.

I know that in Ontario, which is where I happen to be from, there are schools that don't teach phys. ed. every day, for sure. I think that's almost the norm rather than the exception, especially for the younger ones, as far as I am aware.

I'm wondering whether Physical and Health Education Canada has a position on what the appropriate implementation should be in the schools. Does the Canadian School Boards Association have a similar position? If it's different, what is the difference? What would be the recommendation for daily activity?

[Tricia Zakaria, Director, Programs and Education, Physical and Health Education Canada]

We have a position on what we call quality daily physical education. We recommend 30 minutes of daily physical education. We know that is not happening in the majority of schools across the country.

In Ontario for example, their guidelines are 150 minutes per week, but they are not mandated. It's up to schools and school boards to decide how they are implemented throughout. If there is a Christmas concert or something, then there is no PE that month or whatnot. Sometimes that happens throughout the year.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Do you have a recommended guideline for what should be mandated?

[Josh Watt]

We don't have a recommended guideline. The responsibility for the establishment of curricular frameworks and physical education requirements is determined by the provincial ministries of education. We believe that the consultations they undertake every time that the curriculum is renewed are likely informed by their colleagues and ministries of health. The curriculum and the compulsory credits versus the optional credits are determined at that level.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

We are scoring well in science, reading and math, as was indicated. We're not scoring as well as we should in physical activity. If it was the other way around, I think it would generate more activity to fix the problem than it is now. I think we have to continue to highlight the urgency of addressing the shortcomings of all systems—I'm not just going to blame the education system—in this regard.

My friends out there at Sport for Life, thank you also for your contribution.

There's the concept, of course, of physical literacy, which I think is generally accepted now by all the stakeholders. Obviously, Physical and Health Education Canada agrees with it, I think.

I look back to my days in phys. ed., and I was lucky to have some good phys. ed. teachers throughout. We would spend the first few minutes learning a new skill, such as, basketball, volleyball or badminton, if we were lucky to have that equipment. We would spend at least 15 or 20 minutes learning the basics, such as how to swing the racket or how to dribble or bounce pass. If you've never done the basic stuff before, you don't know what it is.

Is that missing today in the system? That's just a basic component of physical literacy, but kids need to know how to move to compete in the sports. Are our kids not being well served by how they are being taught now?

[Richard Way]

It's really hit and miss. It depends on whether or not there's a qualified physical education teacher within a school. In many jurisdictions across Canada, the majority don't have qualified physical education teachers delivering quality daily physical education. As you just mentioned, if you have a good PE teacher, then you're fortunate in Canada today. That's why we're advocating.

Obviously, it's critically important for the schools to have qualified PE teachers, but it really takes a village. It really needs that multisectoral approach. One of the projects that we're doing out here with the Ministry of Health in B.C. is called physical literacy for communities. Over two years, we're going into 27 different communities and creating partnership tables to collectively try to increase the physical activity and fitness through developing physical literacy across multiple organizations within communities.

It's that multisectoral approach and not having that dependence on one particular sector to achieve those goals.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Wonderful.

That's your time.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we'll go to Mr. Webber for seven minutes.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.

Madam Chair, I truly believe that we need to lead by example. For our witnesses here, you need to practise what you preach.

I believe that we need a body break. Everyone stand up, please. We're going to do 25 jumping jacks.

All right. Thank you, everyone.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Ben wasn't given the instructions on how to do it.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Now he has some wind to ask questions, I'm going to pass it on to Ben.

Ben, it's all yours.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks, Len. The defibrillator is out in the hallway.

I want to thank each and everyone for appearing today, and especially our witnesses on the west coast, who are up awfully early this morning to contribute.

I'm not saying this is the way I absolutely think, but I'm going to play the devil's advocate. Why should we depend so much on schools for physical education? Why should we depend so much on different groups for physical education? I'm not saying we shouldn't, but to play the devil's advocate, why can we not just rely on the parents? What's the parents' ownership in this?

I hear from public health nurses in my own community who say that more of the onus should be on parents getting their kids out. If you're a little kid, you can only do what your parents let you do, and if your parents don't send you outside, or they don't play, you have no chance.

I don't think I heard anybody talk about the parents. What role do the parents have in this?

[Melanie Davis]

The parents have a critical role. From a comprehensive school health perspective, it includes all stakeholders, including parents and students. They are at the table in those models. However, if we go back to the question of equity, not all parents have the means to provide physical activity opportunities for their kids.

If the parents are sporty or active, there's a high likelihood that the children will be active as well. For those parents who aren't physically active, that role model is there for their children. There's a legacy that gets carried forward.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Could I just interrupt?

I've done quite a bit of fundraising for the YMCA Strong Kids campaign. Part of the idea with the YMCA is to get those kids who are maybe marginalized by economics, but you still have to get the parents out of the house and to that program. That's really one of the points I'm trying to make here.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I see that Mr. Berman has a comment.

[Josh Berman]

Thanks very much for that comment. It's an incredibly important one.

I agree with the equity point, because we have multiple clubs around the country serving parents who have multiple jobs, are working odd shifts and can't get their kids to after-school programming. That's why many clubs, including here in Ottawa, bus kids in. We have walking buses that pick up kids at school and take them to clubs. We believe that we have an important role to play involving schools, after-school programs and parents.

We also run programs around the country that bring parents in to see what their kids are doing and to model that behaviour so we don't run into that intergenerational physical activity limit.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I was going to mention one other thing. I played a lot of sports when I was younger. I played varsity sports in the United States. The thing is, though, some of the sports we're teaching our kids—football, basketball, hockey, soccer, baseball—you don't play into your forties and fifties. You can play beer league hockey and what have you, but some of the other sports, cycling, yoga, hiking and different things like that.... Should we be more focused on sports and activities that will last your whole life, instead of learning how to play football and hockey?

I don't know. What do you think?

[Tricia Zakaria]

With physical literacy, one of the components is the ability to do multiple activities in multiple environments, so if you are playing football, soccer and some of those sports when you're younger, your motivation, confidence and competence in trying some of those other sports as you get older are better aligned, and you're more likely to do it. If you're not exposed to anything when you're younger, you will not try anything when you're older. That's one piece with physical literacy.

With sports in PE, we're now just working on e-learning around something called the models-based practice approach, so it's not just sports. There is sport education, but then there is teaching games for understanding, which is another concept that you can do. There's co-operative learning. There's teaching personal and social responsibility.

Those are models you can use to instruct, and then allow students, or kids, to experience different types of activities and build on those social and cognitive skills at the same time, and to encourage them to try multiple activities, as they grow older.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Okay, that's your time.

It is now Ms. Quach's turn for seven minutes.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their very informative presentations. The witnesses we heard from yesterday also brought up federal funding given that the federal government is currently studying the matter to see how the Public Health Agency of Canada can help.

What do you think the current needs are? The Public Health Agency of Canada officials who were here yesterday told us that the agency had invested $25 million in physical activity programming for people of all ages, not just youth. Nothing, however, had been set aside for rural communities, or vulnerable or underprivileged populations.

What would you recommend in terms of funding? How much do you think is necessary? We've heard some say that the cost of inactivity is as high as $6 billion and that, when it comes to physical activity, Canada gets a D- or C+. In fact, Canada ranks 17 out of 29. That's terrible considering what we know about how the lack of physical activity affects physical and mental health, not to mention the cost to productivity and the economy.

Given that inactivity costs the health care system an estimated $6 billion, what should the initial investment in programming and prevention be? What do you suggest we put in place? My questions are for all of you.

[Richard Way]

We're happy to answer that.

As presented, I think the two key things we would recommend are, one, creating that multi-sector approach at the community level so that we have everyone around the table, including parents, schools, recreation, sports and health services, and, two, developing physical literacy.

In Canada, we are global leaders in the work around physical literacy. Organizations like ours and PHE Canada have been promoting it. However, there hasn't been a significant investment in developing physical literacy, and now we see other jurisdictions, like Australia, New Zealand and Sweden, that are investing more and getting the change that they want and that we want.

So, developing physical literacy.... To invest in messaging around physical literacy and then to modify programs at the community level that deliver on developing physical literacy and our quality are really the two significant approaches that we would recommend.

[Josh Berman]

Just to build on that, it's our stance that the federal government can play an important role in caring for those children and youth who are most vulnerable. I spoke to that earlier. Many of the 200,000 kids that we serve annually come from low socio-economic backgrounds and/or are newcomers to Canada. The federal government can play an increasingly important role there.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is supporting the Bounce Back League program that we spoke about earlier. We believe that those types of evidence-informed, multidisciplinary programs that are not just tackling physical activity levels but also are improving mental health outcomes can play an increasingly important role for those vulnerable children and youth in Canada.

[Melanie Davis]

I have two linking points.

The first is to rally behind the common vision, a framework that's already in place and that was accepted last year about this time. It focuses on equity, and it focuses on bringing people together. It has a lot of jumping-off points that we can activate. That would be my first recommendation.

The second is about ensuring that there is, say, a parliamentary secretary for physical activity under the ministry of health. We need one point where we can connect to all systems within government, and with that, there can be informed decision on how to fund different projects. Right now, things are getting lost in the shuffle. By having that one point of connection to the government, we can help make the right decisions around funding.