Health committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to speak to you about the importance of supporting increased physical activity participation among Canadian children and youth. As I hear all the presenters, I am struck by the consis

Health committee  I have some practical responses to that, but at the end of the day, physical activity needs to be valued by our society. Parents should see driving their kids to school as socially unacceptable. Right now it's expected. If you walk your kids to school, people ask why you aren't

Health committee  How many schools have policies that prevent bikes or skateboards from coming to schools? I think that again it comes back to valuing the role that physical activity plays. We need to work with our workplaces to ensure that we have some employee policies that allow parents to mayb

Health committee  It's highlighted in Common Vision, under “Spaces and places”, as a key component, a key area of focus. What we don't have is an implementation strategy to work with our municipal leaders to make them aware of the opportunities to address these issues and then to work and facili

Health committee  Common Vision—and I think Mr. Peterson said this—is very vague, and it is meant to be vague. It's a national policy framework. However, we need now to put that policy into action, and I think that right now there's a bit of a gap in leadership between the federal and the provin

Health committee  We're a national non-profit charitable organization.

Health committee  About 30% of our funding is relied upon from the private sector and through other means. Currently 70% of our funding is through federal or provincial governments. With regard to that point, we're very, very pleased and happy that we were in the 2018 budget for $5 million. We al

Health committee  I am too.

Health committee  I think that in my role as CEO, I hear two things: First, where are Hal and Joanne? Are they still part of Participaction? Second, whatever happened to the Canada Fitness Award program?

Health committee  With regard to both of those things, I would say no, we're not planning to bring them back.

Health committee  The Canada Fitness Award program actually wasn't that successful. It actually turned more kids away from physical activity than it turned on. It was very performance-based. We are looking at other programs. With respect to Hal and Joanne, I think the media landscape has changed

Health committee  Well, actually, that commercial was probably the very first one that Participaction developed. Yes, it showed that a 60-year-old Swede was in better shape than a 30-year-old Canadian. We, as part of our report card.... As I mentioned, from a children and youth perspective, 48 co

Health committee  First of all, just to clarify, the $25 million that Participaction received is not just targeted at children and youth; it's all populations. The second question is interesting, and I mentioned in my notes that internationally we are looked upon for leadership. They take our id

Health committee  There is. I don't have it with me, but I can certainly get it to you. There are return-on-investment numbers. Certainly the Conference Board of Canada has done that for adults. The data isn't as vast for children and youth. This is maybe where we don't align with my colleagues h

Health committee  I'm not sure that we're lacking programs. I think there are lots of great programs, and I think the Public Health Agency has invested in significant programs that are demonstrating value. I think what we're lacking is an overall coordinated approach. We have a policy framework t