Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about a missed opportunity in the federal budget, and that is, one of investing in a national children's food initiative to make safe and healthy food available to all of Canada's children.
The children's health and nutrition initiative calls for universal nutritious food programs to make breakfasts, snacks or lunches available to any child in Canada under the age of 18 in venues most appropriate, as decided by each local community. This would be based on a flexible, made in Canada community development model. This initiative would be delivered through existing programs, local organizations and communities and parents groups, based on community models that are proven. We know they work.
Any non-profit organization, parent council, principal or local government could start such a program, but the food would have to nutritious, with an emphasis on locally grown food. The federal government would provide $25 million to get this under way. The federal government would also set national standards to ensure we achieved healthy nutrition in every part of Canada.
This initiative would mean that no Canadian child would go to school hungry and would help working families address real concerns relating to childhood obesity and malnutrition.
Overweight and obesity doubled among the six to seventeen year olds between 1979 and 2000 and obesity tripled among Canadian teenagers. Many children's diets are poor and diet-related outcomes, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol are rising among Canadian children. Poor nutrition has been linked to low academic performance, classroom behaviour problems, low self-esteem, as well as long term health risks. More than seven out of ten children do not eat the recommended daily minimum of five servings of vegetables and fruit as recommended by Canada's food guide. Even more alarming is that a quarter of grade 4 students and almost half of grade 8 girls do not eat breakfast every day.
Health Canada estimates that diet related cases of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer among adults rob the national economy of $6.6 billion annually due to health care costs and lost productivity.
The sad truth is Canada is one of the few developed countries without a nationally funded child nutrition program. Child nutrition programs already operate in some parts of the country, but not all Canadian children have access to these programs and the continuation of these efforts usually is subject to fundraising and volunteer time.
Dramatic changes have been made recently in other jurisdictions. For example, the British government is spending an extra £240 million, that is $520 million Canadian, to subsidize healthy ingredients for children's school meals. However, we do not have that in Canada.
In the U.S., 29 million children participate in the national school lunch program through more than 98,000 schools and child care institutions. On a typical day, 59% of these kids receive free or reduced price lunches. About 9.6 million children also participate in the school breakfast program. The total federal funding for these programs was $8.8 billion U.S. in 2005. However, we do not have that in Canada.
In Italy 68% of school meals use organic products and many municipalities are emphasizing local and traditional food. The 140,000 meals serve every school day to children in Rome must include a healthy and organic snack and a warm meal based on traditional recipes. The government offers rebates to public sector caterers that purchase local and organic products.
The incentives help increase the production of quality foods, lower environmental impacts, because they do not have to fly food from different places, provide more sustainable local employment and support better child nutrition and health. However, we have nothing like that in Canada.
Today and tomorrow, children and youth advocates across Canada are gathered in Ottawa for a National Learning Summit on Middle Childhood. Breakfast for Learning, a national organization, will be presenting a paper on child nutrition, and children's health is very much on the agenda at this conference.
The benefits are clear, For children. It means better health and a better opportunity for learning. I saw that first-hand as a school trustee 20 years ago. If children are hungry, they do not learn. This is not just about hunger, or poverty, or undernourishment. It is about bad nutrition, about junk food, about obesity. If children are obese, they cannot participate in all school activities and they also have trouble learning.
We can think of the human toll on children and their families, but let us also think about the toll on society and on the health care system. Total health care spending was $4,548 per person in 2006, with more than two-thirds of direct health care costs being expended on chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer. These kinds of disease rob the national economy of $6.6 billion annually due to health costs and lower productivity.
If we do not do something about children's health today, it will get worse. It is already really poor. Bad eating habits can last a lifetime and can be passed on to the next generation. Therefore, this initiative is also good for the economy.
Having healthy children means better learning, better academic performance, reduced medicare costs and higher productivity for Canada. Also by emphasizing local and sustainable food sources, the initiative will support production of quality food, strengthening the local farm communities and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The need for this is very clear and so is the support from leaders in this children's healthy nutrition initiative.
We have a list of a broad range of groups that support this program, such as food writer, Natalie MacLean of Ottawa, James Chatto, Sasha Chapman, Liz Feltham and award winning chef Susur Lee, Sash Simpson, Chris MacDonald, Chris Wood, Winlai Wong, Ian Sorbie, Chris Klugman, Anthony Walsh and so on.
Therefore, food writers and chefs are all in support of this program. It is time for Canada to show leadership in children's health with a practical children's healthy nutrition initiative.
Good nutrition is vital to the health of children in Canada. Unfortunately, the Conservative budget has massive corporate tax cuts, but nothing to ensure that safe and healthy food is available to all Canadian kids.
It is not fair and it is a complete missed opportunity.