Thank you.
This is in reference to the UNICEF Report Card 16 that was published in 2020. Just to summarize, Canada now ranks 30th out of 38 countries with respect to children's physical health and 31st out of 38 countries with respect to children's mental health.
As recently as 2007, we were ranked 12th in a comparable ranking conducted by UNICEF, so our rankings have fallen. The scorecards are not directly comparable, but the pattern is clear, and the outcomes continue to worsen for many Canadian children and youth.
Just to give you an idea, with respect to mental health and happiness, almost one in four children report low life satisfaction, which ranks us 28th. Canada again has one of the highest suicide rates for adolescents, 35th out of 38 countries. With respect to physical health, Canada has an infant mortality rate of 0.98 deaths per 1,000 births, which puts us in 28th place. To comments by Dr. Feldman, I believe it was earlier, one in three children are overweight or obese in this country.
In almost every ranking with respect to physical and mental health, we are in the bottom third if not the bottom quarter of rankings of comparable international countries.
To a comment I made earlier, compared to our relative wealth as a nation, we would expect our outcomes to be significantly higher, especially when we look at the investments we are making and the outcomes that are tracking towards those investments.
It is an opportunity, I think, where not only would extra investments make a difference, but a broader strategy that incorporates both health and well-being metrics is overdue for this country if we're going to measurably improve the health and well-being of children and youth.