Good morning.
I will use our remaining time to highlight several areas that require further investigation and resolution to support children's health. It's important to note that the causes of most childhood cancers are largely unknown, and modifiable risk factors usually have little to no effect on most of them, but it is important to recognize that teaching healthy lifestyle choices and preventing certain environmental exposures in childhood may reduce cancer risk much later in life.
We would be pleased to discuss each of these recommendations further during our question and answer period or provide further information in writing should committee members wish.
First, the overwhelming majority of people who smoke begin as underage youth. Far more needs to be done to reduce youth tobacco use to help achieve the goal of under 5% prevalence of tobacco use by 2035. Canada is currently faced with a dramatic increase in youth vaping, leading to overall increase in youth nicotine addiction. Among high school students in Canada in grades 10 to 12, youth vaping increased from 9% in the 2014-15 school year to 16% in 2016-17, to 29% in 2018-19, tripling over a four-year period. It is essential that the government take further action to reduce youth vaping, in particular to finalize regulations restricting flavours on e-cigarettes.
Research shows that as much as 90% of food and beverages marketed to children for processed foods are high in sugar, salt and/or saturated fats. Food and beverage marketing has an impact on the foods that children eat, from their food preferences and beliefs and the food they beg their caregivers to buy, to rising rates of childhood obesity and increased risk factors for chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer. There's a clear need for the government to fulfill its commitment to restrict the commercial marketing of all food and beverages to children and youth.
Everyone in Canada needs better palliative care options, regardless of age, gender, income, race or sexuality. Significant work is required to give families who need palliative care, particularly for a child, the support they deserve, including improving education and training for health care workers, addressing equity, supporting children struggling with grief, establishing standards, and improving the quality of care through better research and data collection. There's considerable space for the federal government to lead here, in addition to the necessary improvements to care delivery by the provinces and territories.
Canadians, and especially our children, should also have equitable access to life-saving drugs that play an essential role in treatment and can greatly improve health outcomes and quality of life for people living with cancer. As the government provides further detail on its pharmacare commitment, we would encourage the government to improve access to drugs, accommodate and accelerate approval and funding for innovative cancer treatments and clinical trials, and remove unnecessary administrative barriers to ensure children with cancer have equitable access to the cancer drugs they require without financial hardship on their caregivers, regardless of where they live and where the drugs are taken.
Finally, we know that federal, provincial and territorial governments are due to discuss the state of health funding transfers. From our perspective, ensuring that governments are properly funded to address the critical issues facing Canadians is paramount. While governments may debate the funding amount needed and the funding conditions, what we want to see is taxpayer dollars focused on improving health outcomes, measuring those outcomes, and supporting vital inputs like health research that give children a better chance to live and have a healthier and higher-quality life. Because of investments in world-leading research and clinical trials, we now have a better understanding of childhood disease and treatments that are helping children live longer. We will continue to invest our focus and our dollars to support this work, and we encourage the government to do so as well.
I want to thank the committee again for having us here today. We look forward to your questions.
Thank you.