The National Summit on Sport

Speaking Notes
for
Allan Rock
Minister of Health

Ottawa, Ontario
April 28, 2001

As Delivered

Mr. Secretary of State, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

It is with great pleasure that I am taking part in the National Summit on Sport. There is no doubt that this event is a tremendous success. In starting, I would like to congratulate my friend, Denis Coderre, for having organized such an event and for the excellent work he has done since his nomination as Secretary of State for amateur sport.

It is entirely fitting that a Minister of Health should be at a conference talking about sport, physical activity and fitness. You know, I like to remind people that I'm Minister of Health, not the Minister of Illness. Health is where we should keep the accent and that is why my department puts such a tremendous accent on health promotion, on disease prevention, on finding new ways to inspire Canadians to stay healthy, by encouraging healthy lifestyles.

Let me just give you some selected statistics, as if further proof was needed of the connection between sport, fitness and health. First of all, we know that even moderate daily physical activity can significantly improve the health of Canadians and yet two-thirds of us do not achieve enough activity to have those benefits. Statistic number two: physical inactivity costs the Canadian health care system at least $2.1 billion annually in direct health care costs. It is also hard to believe that two-thirds of our kids are not active enough to become fully healthy. This is unacceptable. This must change.

Thirdly, we all know that, as we get older, things change. But one half - one half of the functional decline that occurs in individuals between the ages 30 and 70 is directly attributable to a lack of physical activity, not aging itself. So there is the secret to staying young. There is the secret to hanging on to our youth.

Let me also mention that one-third of Canadians are overweight and that obesity increases the risk of illnesses including heart disease and cancer. Type 2 diabetes has now become epidemic in our country. It is one of the fastest growing preventable diseases that contributes to 5,500 deaths in Canada each year. Lastly, physical inactivity past age 50 creates the same risk of premature death as smoking cigarettes. It is a major cause of mortality in Canadian adults.

So what further proof do we need that we are all in this together? We have to take the opportunity to increase awareness among Canadians of all these important connections that we are talking about. And nowhere is that more important than in the Aboriginal communities in this country where the health statistics are simply appalling and where all the trends I spoke of in the general population are that much more focused.

That is why we need to draw attention to role models, like Ted Nolan, like Phil Fontaine, to inspire young people in Aboriginal communities to adopt healthy lifestyles. I don't know if you saw last night what I did on the CBC national news. There was a fantastic feature about a community where the elders had put the focus on sport. They interviewed a 15-year-old kid whose life was changed when he discovered that he could put his energy, his focus and his ambitions into hockey. He wanted to become a player in the NHL and his life began to revolve around that. He focused on his health, he focused on his sport and on his team. He had a goal that he could work towards and, you know, the story was that that whole community was transformed.

Talk about the power of amateur sport. Talk about the power of activity! I can give my own modest story. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 13 years of age and I didn't quit. I smoked through school. I smoked into young adulthood. After I left school, I started to work and my job was sedentary. I wasn't active at all and, finally, when I got to that point in my life where I had married and we decided to have children and we were about to have our first, I looked at this package of cigarettes and came to the conclusion that it was standing between me and literally living a full life. I finally threw my cigarettes away and got on with my life.

I had never been terribly much involved in sports but I got involved in running and seven months after I quit, I ran my first marathon and every year after that for several years. Exercising has become such an integral part of my life that I can't imagine living without it. I try to share that message with others and it is important in this line of work not to be preaching. I'm simply here to say from my own modest personal experience how sport can make an enormous difference in life. It can make an enormous difference in the lives of so many Canadians.

The Government of Canada has to take responsibility for this issue. We have known for some time now that there is a real need for Canadians to live a more active life. At the federal level, we want active living to become a social value, a social norm. We want to better promote active living so that it becomes an important part of the lives of Canadians, so that they be inspired to stay active at all ages, to adopt a healthier lifestyle. This will also have a positive impact on the health care system.

Fitness is one of the many responsibilities of Health Canada and we work in partnership with Denis Coderre in meeting that responsibility. We know there is much more to do, but let me just tell you some of the things that we are doing together. We are working on social marketing initiatives such as SummerActive to urge Canadians to be more active and to facilitate their access to physical activity though various community actions. We also work in close cooperation with many individuals and organizations to promote the concept of active living. For example, two years ago, some 450 groups got together to create the Active Living Coalition for Older Adults. I understand that Flora Dell has made it clear that if we don't pursue that initiative, she is going to challenge me to one of those races up the stairs and I'm not so sure I would win. So, Flora, we will be sure to continue.

In 1998, we published Canada's Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living, which is meant to help inactive Canadians to make their first steps towards regular physical activity. This year, we will also publish special documentation for young people, school educators and parents. Provincial and territorial governments as well as some 50 national organizations have unanimously supported the publication of those guides.

We are also investing in research to broaden our understanding of the effects of inactivity and how successfully to motivate Canadians to become more active. We are constantly updating and marketing our food guide for health eating and recently we proposed regulations that will mandate nutritional labelling on all food products so Canadians will know what to look for when they are buying food products. We are carrying on an energetic battle against tobacco and I will have a few more words to say about that in a few moments. We are funding the Canadian Health Network which is a Web site that provides access to objectives and complete health information including in relation to activities.

We are setting targets. Ministers responsible for fitness have determined that by the year 2003, two years from now, acting together, we want to reduce by 10% the level of inactivity in Canada. Health Canada is spending millions of dollars every year to support community and provincial and national groups which encourage fitness.

What can we do in partnership? All of you who are in this room, you represent an enormous amount of energy and a great opportunity to put fitness and healthy lifestyles higher on the national agenda. Each of you can be an ambassador for fitness. Each of you can serve as a role model for youth and help us inspire the nation to live a healthier life. You can also help us achieve the goals of preserving our health care system. Everybody talks about the pressure on Canadian medicare. How are we going to be able to afford what we are providing as services as the population ages, as the cost of technology increases, as pharmaceutical products become more expensive? Two weeks ago, the Canadian Cancer Society distributed a news release and a physician with the Society said that we could cut in half - cut in half - the projected increase in the incidence of cancer in this country by changing the way we live.

Can you imagine reducing by one half the burden on the health care system in the course of the next 20 to 25 years? Isn't that one of the answers we should look to when we are examining the question of how will we keep health care sustainable into the future? Isn't that an objective which is worthy as a national goal and isn't that something we should work for together?

One of the things we have done this weekend, that Denis and you have done this weekend, is to create a momentum. All the groups have been brought together through the consultation process, to the regional conferences, and now to this summit. We have had the Prime Minister here, we have had a complete agenda of how we are going to organize ourselves, but that momentum has to continue. We have to drive it forward and take advantage of it.

That agenda includes making Canada a nation of excellence in terms of achievement and international sport. It includes providing opportunities to communities across this country, for boys and girls and men and women to engage in amateur sport. It includes money so that we can support the efforts that are required - whether it is equipment or premises. But that agenda must also include health. It must include physical activity for health and it has got to involve partnerships. Let me give you an example.

Ten days ago, we announced that we are taking aggressive steps in relation to tobacco. We have already got the strongest and the toughest tobacco act in the world. That was adopted four years ago and we have done some very valuable things in terms of advertising, sponsorship and labelling. But if we are going to reduce the level of tobacco use in this country - and it is public health issue No. 1, contributing to 45,000 deaths a year - we are going to have to do lots of things together. We need to enforce the Tobacco Act and include restrictions on advertising and sponsorship. We need clear labelling to warn the public about the dangers. We also need a smart and effective campaign to encourage people to quit smoking and to encourage kids not to start. Part of the announcement a couple of weeks ago was a significant increase in taxes because there is a correlation between the cost of cigarettes and the incidence of smoking among youth.

We also put aside up to $110 million a year from Health Canada to fund activities across the country to bring down the level of smoking. What better way to persuade kids that it is not cool to smoke than to have one of their sports heroes, one of the people they look up to, walk into their classroom and tell them that it is not cool to smoke? What better way to turn their attention away from the tobacco industry and towards us, towards health, towards achievement than to have someone they admire and respect speak that message?

I have got a 16-year-old daughter and two 13-year-old sons. They are at the prime age for victimization by the tobacco industry and I tell them my own experience and I encourage them not to smoke. But you know, that would be listening to their father and who listens to their father? Let alone who listens to the Minister of Health! But if athletes they look up to were to walk into their classroom and tell them, that would mean something pretty special. I think we have an enormous opportunity for partnerships, working together to put our energy in the same direction and to target kids just the way the tobacco industry does, except target them for good.

Can we do that together in the years ahead? I appreciate your enthusiastic support, and Denis Coderre and I will be working closely together to take advantage of your willingness to help. I believe that, working together, we can make Canada a healthier nation.

Thank you very much for everything you have done, and I look forward to working with you in the future.