House Finance Committee cites Canada 2020 work on inequality

The House Standing Committee on Finance has published its report on income inequality, citing Canada 2020′s work, research and thought-leadership.
You can download it in full here (jump to page 40 for the committee’s recommendations).
The report was set in motion by Liberal MP Scott Brison, whose motion to study the effects of income inequality in Canada received cross-party support in the House of Commons in early 2013.
The report features testimony from Canada 2020′s Diana Carney, as well as Dr. Miles Corak, whose Canada 2020 paper Public policies for equality of opportunity and social mobility in Canada is essential reading for Canadian policymakers.
What is abundantly clear is that concern about income inequality will continue to persist the longer substantial policy solutions are not enacted. Indeed, income inequality has dominated global politics this year – with everyone from President Barack Obama to Pope Francis calling it the defining challenge of our time.
The Committee’s report is a good step for Canada’s federal policymakers. In particular, Canada 2020 welcomes its call for investments in early education and care in order to increase social mobility, particularly for lower income areas.

Canada 2020 joins the Evergreen CityWorks Infrastructure Leaders Council

Canada 2020 is pleased to announce it has joined the Evergreen CityWorks Infrastructure Leaders Council, beginning in 2013 for a two year term.
The council, comprised of forward-looking organizations and partners, will advise Evergreen on the development of a new “New Deal” for cities in Canada. This means thinking through major urban challenges with a new lens of innovative, sustainable solutions.
Said Tim Barber, Canada 2020′s Co-Founder: “Canada 2020 is incredibly proud to join the Evegreen CityWorks Infrastructure Leaders Council. One of Canada 2020′s core mandates is to think past the here and now, and project forward  10, 20, 50 years the major policy challenges and opportunities that require strategic planning today. And as we think about Canada’s future, it is unmistakably going to be an urban one. The Infrastructure Leaders Council will provide the exact kind of forum needed to test drive new ideas.”

Why cities?

From Evergreen:
“Between now and 2030, McKinsey estimates that $57 trillion in new urban infrastructure investment will be needed globally. Almost 180,000 people move into cities each day. And cities cover only 2 percent of global land area, yet they account for 70 percent of carbon emissions.
We can no longer afford to leave important infrastructure under-utilized, nor build expensive projects in the wrong places at the wrong time. And we cannot build the next 100 years of infrastructure using the concepts and methods of the past 100 years.”

What is the Infrastructure Leaders Council?

The CityWorks Infrastructure Leaders Council is an invitation-only group that will allow your organization to engage with other leaders in promoting the tactics and techniques that will help our urban centres take the steps needed to compete and thrive in a global economy.

More from Canada 2020

Canadians want federal leadership on climate change: new Canada 2020 poll

Download the results and view interactive maps at canada2020.ca/climatepoll
November 6, 2013 (Ottawa) – The Canada 2020/Université de Montréal National Survey of Canadian Opinions on Climate Change, released today, reveals that 84% of Canadians believe the federal government should take the lead on combating climate change; 76% of Canadians believe Canada should sign an international climate agreement even if it means doing so before China and the U.S.; and 71% of Canadians believe that climate change should be a top priority for the Conservative federal government – while only 16% of Canadians believe it actually is a priority for the government.
The nationally representative telephone survey interviewed 1502 adult Canadians during the month of October, yielding a margin of error of +/- 2.5 per cent, in 19 out of 20 samples. The study, run concurrently with researchers in the U.S. highlights a stark contrast between the leadership Canadians want on climate change, and the kind of leadership they are getting. And with the United Nations Climate Change Conference happening in Warsaw, Poland from November 11– 22, the survey offers a compelling look into what Canadians think should be done about climate change and, most importantly, who they think should take the lead.
“Canada 2020’s results confirm what many Canadians already know: there is a leadership vacuum when it comes to fighting climate change in this country,” said Diana Carney, Associate with Canada 2020. “From signing international agreements to the uptake of renewable energy, all across the board Canadians are waiting for the federal government to take responsibility and lead.”
Added Tim Barber, Canada 2020’s Co-Founder: “When you dig into Canada 2020’s data, you realize how much further along Canadians are than our American neighbors; whether you’re talking about installing a carbon price, making smart use of our pipelines or paying more at the pump, Canadians don’t see a trade-off between having a healthy environment and a thriving economy.”

Major highlights from the survey include:

  • 76% of Canadians (versus 59% of Americans) are either ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ concerned about global warming ;
  • 84% of Canadians ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ believe that the federal government should take primary responsibility for addressing global warming;
  • 71% of Canadians believe climate change should be a top priority for the federal government – while only 16% believe it actually is a top priority for the current government;
  • 84% of Canadians (versus 57% of Americans) either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ believe that rich countries such as Canada and the U.S. have a moral obligation to show international leadership by reducing GHG emissions;
  • 76% of Canadians (versus 56% of Americans) either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ agree that Canada should sign an international climate agreement – even if it means doing so before the U.S. or China sign one;
  • 60% of Canadians either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ support the expanded use of pipelines to transport oil and gas;
  • A majority of Canadians support putting a price on carbon, with support actually increasing when told it could increase fuel or home energy prices by a specific amount; and
  • Furthermore, in regions where carbon pricing systems are in effect, like B.C. or Quebec, support increases substantially.

“Relative to respondents in the U.S., Canadians are more convinced that climate change is occurring, more concerned about it, and more willing to pay to address the issue. Canadians are also more likely to support carbon pricing than Americans, particularly when provided with information on costs and how revenues are used. A lot of our findings challenge commonly held assumptions in Canada regarding the political feasibility of climate policy and the question of when to act,” said Erick Lachapelle, Professor at the Université de Montréal.
Canada 2020 will discuss the poll’s results and implications at a highly anticipated public event this evening, Wednesday November 6th in Ottawa. The event, The politics of climate, and the climate of politics will take place in the Château Laurier Hotel’s Laurier Room from 4:30 to 6:00 PM.
The event will feature a heavy-hitter panel of environmental and political experts, including David Jacobson, Vice Chair of the BMO Financial Group and former U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Scott Vaughan, President of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, David McLaughlin, Strategic Adviser at the University of Waterloo, Erick Lachapelle, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Montreal, Chris Borick, Professor of Political Science at Muhlenberg College in the United States, and Canada 2020’s Diana Carney.

– 30 –

Editor’s notes:

1) To download the poll results, and view interactive maps, visit canada2020.ca/climatepoll
2) Our event, The politics of climate and the climate of politics can be livestreamed at 4:30 PM ET at canada2020.ca/live

About the poll:

The Canada 2020/Université de Montréal National Survey of Canadian Opinions on Climate Change was designed by Erick Lachapelle (Université de Montréal), Chris Borick (Muhlenberg College) and Barry Rabe (University of Michigan).
The survey was administered in Canada by Léger to a nationally representative sample of 1,502 Canadians (aged 18 and over). All surveys were conducted via telephone in English and French from 10 October to 20 October 2013. Calls were made using both landline and mobile phone listings. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.5% in 19 out of 20 samples.

The Canada-China relationship – how we keep up the momentum

The CCCE, in partnership with Canada 2020, held an event titled “Canada-China Relations, Keeping up the Momentum”. At the event,Wendy Dobson of Rotman presented her book, Partners and Rivals:  The uneasy future of China’s relationship with the United States. She exhorted Canadians to anticipate the future, when China will move up the value chain in sectors such as rail, advanced manufacturing and clean teach and look for innovation partners. Canada can play in this space. Dr. Dobson noted Canada is seen positively but not strategically in China.
Thoughtful views from Ralph Lutes of Teck, and Bruce Simpson of McKinsey, brought out the key business opportunities and importance of China to Canada’s economy. Mr. Simpson challenged Canada to think about helping China get its cities right – we have three of the best cities in the world in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. If current trends hold, by 2025 China will have 221 cities with one million–plus inhabitants, says McKinsey. Canada has the expertise to help China get its cities right.
Premier Brad Wall set out his vision for Saskatchewan’s engagement with China, driven in large part by agriculture and energy products.  Given the huge opportunities for Canada, what we need, in Premier Wall’s view, is a long term vision.
What might that long term vision for deeper Canada-China engagement entail?  Here are five thoughts:

  1. Create a Strategic Partnership at the leaders’ level, as Australia has done.  Our PM, of no matter what political stripe, could engage on a yearly basis with his counterpart.  This is a matter of smart geopolitical and economic management. In a multipolar world, and with such a solid base in Canada’s relationship with the USA, we need to think about a similarly high level, complex, and regular series of “top to top” engagement with China.
  2. A Team Canada approach to China to match our competitors.  Government and business need to work together to create opportunities for Canadian firms.  This is especially important for aerospace and energy. Choose sectors where Canada is a winner and align with Chinese needs.
  3. Ensure we have open trade and investment regimes.  Taking the next steps in our trade relationship with China – either through sectoral agreements, free trade negotiations, or encouraging China to join TPP – is important to keeping up the momentum.
  4. Encourage as many student exchanges, cultural visits and two-way tourism as is possible.  Our people to people ties are essential for understanding one another, and deepening public awareness and engagement with China.
  5. Think about the skills of the future Canadians will need to take advantage of China and Asian growth markets.  Then act to improve them.  Language skills, cultural awareness, team problem solving, STEM skills to help China build great cities and a better environment.  These skills need all of our education systems – JK to 12, colleges, universities, think tanks, skilled trades – to be partners.

The CCCE and its member companies will continue to build on the knowledge developed during our 2012 conference, Canada in the Pacific Century, to engage Canada in discussions on the opportunities Asia’s rise provides.
Ailish Campbell is Vice President, Policy, International and Fiscal Issues, at the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

CIDA could only exist in an ideal world

Thursday’s federal budget marked the end of an era in Canada’s approach to foreign aid with the merging of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) into the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). To some this might seem like just another bureaucratic shuffle, meaningless in the broad scheme of things. To others, in the NGO community in particular, who rely on CIDA funding to do their jobs, this move represents the end of the world as they know it.
For the public servants who have to execute this merger it will be a bureaucratic nightmare that makes major corporate takeovers pale by comparison. The new ministry will likely take years to jell into an effective organization.
The last big bureaucratic merger Ottawa went through was the post-911 attempt to create a Canadian version of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, when the Martin government established Public Safety Canada by merging the Department of the Solicitor General and its associated agencies, with the Border Services Agency and the Office of Critical Infrastructure and Emergency Preparedness. That new super ministry took years to come together effectively. Some claim it still has teething problems a decade later.
The last time a shotgun marriage of this scale was attempted in the foreign relations machinery was in the early 1980s when Trade, Immigration and External Affairs were merged by the Trudeau government to create what was popularly known as the Three Headed Monster.
It is a truism that smashing together big bureaucracies does not make for snap efficiencies — the new organizations can take years to deliver on the promise of their architects. This is particularly the case when you are dealing with departments or agencies with strong cultures, rigid ways of doing business, and vocal clientele groups, all attributes that apply to CIDA.
From the time it was founded as an independent agency in 1968, CIDA was always a horse of a different colour. It was mandated to work multilaterally outside the traditional strictures of foreign policy. The president who saw CIDA through its formative years in the 1970s, Paul Gérin-Lajoie, nurtured a very different — practically monastic — culture from that of the traditional Ottawa foreign affairs apparatus. Whether as a Crown agency or reporting through a minister as it did in later years, CIDA always staked the claim that it defined Canadian development interests. The fact that CIDA was parked across the river from Fort Pearson reinforced its independence from the mother ship.
The CIDA culture and mandate may have been high-minded in the best “soft-power” tradition, but this was always a roadblock to getting the agency focused on the same objectives that the prime minister and the foreign affairs and defence ministers might have been pursuing. In the post-Cold War period in particular, when Canada has been involved in numerous international peace and security operations, foreign affairs and defence ministers often saw CIDA as a critical instrument of broader foreign policy that needed to conform better to their priorities. CIDA frequently resisted this.
During the early years of Canada’s involvement in Kandahar, for example, the tension between CIDA and DFA/DND priorities became increasingly clear. Afghanistan was not initially a top priority for CIDA, even though it was the government’s central foreign and defence policy preoccupation. The CIDA minister often clashed with the foreign and defence ministers, as a result. The Afghanistan fault line might have marked the beginning of the end of an independent CIDA.
There is an inescapable reality now that runs contrary to CIDA’s culture and history. Namely, when your soldiers and diplomats are heavily and routinely involved on the ground in failed and failing states, they more often than not need money delivered quickly and efficiently to aid and reconstruction projects in those countries — so-called high-impact projects — to maximize Canada’s effectiveness. That is what that tired old “3-Ds” (the integration of defence, diplomacy and development) notion is all about. Unfortunately, neither DFA nor DND have discretionary budgets or authorities for this purpose. CIDA is the only existing pot of money for such things, even if it really isn’t set up for that purpose.
In an ideal world, CIDA would be left to its own devices to fight global poverty, and Foreign Affairs and National Defence would have a separate fund they could tap to advance Canada’s broader foreign interests, particularly in places where the Canadian Forces are deployed. That ideal world has never existed, and it certainly doesn’t exist in the age of austerity. And that is probably one of the central reasons for the government’s decision to merge CIDA with Foreign Affairs and thereby bring a 45 year experiment in Canadian foreign aid policy and administration to an end.

Employment-Focused Roundtables: Summary Report

Download the Full Report
In October 2012, the Commission for the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario published its final report, Brighter Prospects: Transforming Social Assistance in Ontario. Between January and May 2013, the Ministry of Community and Social Services held six roundtable meetings in Toronto with a group of some 30 stakeholders and clients from across the social assistance and disability communities to hear their perspectives on employment services and to discuss with them the options for reform. This report provides an overview of the process and a summary of key points and ideas discussed.
Download the Full Report

It’s not unemployment, it’s underemployment

There are a lot of different ways to describe the period after a young person graduates from their schooling, but increasingly in Canada, one word sticks out: underemployed.
That’s underemployed.
It’s a somewhat slippery concept, and an even harder one to prescribe policy around, but efforts have been made by various banks and other international bodies to track and measure underemployment. The OECD has assigned it a relatively formal taxonomy: visible underemployment, where an individual is working less than they would like; and invisible underemployment, where an individual is not working in a field or position that matches their capabilities or skills.
But the more compelling story goes like this: As short as 20 years ago, our combined attainment of education, work experience, and connections would place us, and many other young Canadians, on a secure career track that would allow us to pay back our loans, save for a house, and contribute to the overall productivity of this great country.
Today, that’s more or less not the case, and an increasing number of young Canadians are caught in a veritable limbo state: educated enough to work a skilled job given the opportunity, but either not working as much as they want, or nowhere close to the field that would exploit their full potential. The glibber among us call it the rise of the B.A.rista
Now typically when we talk about policies for youth, the conversation focuses on unemployment – on ensuring everyone at least has a job. And that’s understandable, if mostly unrealistic: new job numbers released last week by Statistics Canada tell us the youth unemployment rate sits at 13.9%, double the overall unemployment rate. Furthermore, job creation for Canadian youth is slowing to a halt, less than 1% of jobs created since 2009 were for this demographic. And while that’s nothing to be proud of, it is actually an improvement from other post-recession periods – where the unemployment rate stood at 19.2% in 1983, 17.2% in 1993.
We feel the more telling story lies elsewhere. In the pre-recession hey-day of 2005, the CGA Association of Canada found that 24.6% of young Canadians were underemployed. We must ask why.
This is not to say that youth unemployment is not a problem. It most certainly is. And it is also not to sound entitled, selfish, or declare a war on hard work – all criticisms routinely lobbed at millennials.  But we need to start asking better questions about the work today’s youth doing, and the skills they acquire: if you have a job, is it a good job that matches your skills? If you do not have a job, how can you get past survival and into the right job?
Concern about opportunity for Canadian youth is bubbling up in some form or another across the country:  individuals not yielding a sufficient enough return on their education, students caught in low-quality job traps, skilled graduates taking unpaid internships well into their twenties, firms coping with skilled labour shortages and mismatches, parents generally fretting their children will be unable to build a better life on their own, Gen-Yers feeling resentful towards older generations, and baby boomers looking on young generations as entitled and lazy.
As this mixture of tension and unease brews, real labour market problems are taking root. A young, underemployed Canadian will never make up for lost earnings and stunted career growth, will struggle to repay student debt, save for a house and prepare for retirement. That’s not to mention the impact on the Canadian economy of weaker consumer demand, loss of tax revenue and a slower housing market.
Although the policy options may not be very different to unemployment, we must make sure that they are inclusive of young Canadians facing underemployment.
A good place to start is focusing on tactics to better inform young people about the opportunities available to them. The U.S. has made some headway with President Obama’s new college scorecard initiative through which colleges must disclose information about value, affordability and career placements of different majors.
Second, employers must invest in young graduates that are stuck in the vicious cycle where they have no job because they have no experience because, again, they have no job. The Conference Board of Canada found that Canadian employers have reduced their investments in training by 40% since 1993. Higher education does not necessarily equate job readiness and employers are needed partners on the bridge from education to employment.
In the long run we must face the daunting task of restructuring our education system. Higher education institutions must be more in tune with the needs of students, employers and the labour market. When it was deemed Canada should embrace a “knowledge economy” in the 90’s, thousands of Canadians pursued higher education. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, with calls for Canadians to rush skills trades, most certainly flooding colleges and apprentice programs. Our policy approaches have been overly reactive, sewing consequences generations down the line.
Yes, many young Canadians can get a job – but do they have the right job? As young Canadians trying to succeed, to contribute, and be productive members of society, we do not think it sounds entitled to simply ask.

Industrial policy is back — except in Ontario

Industrial policy — government interventions to grow and improve the competitiveness of select industries — is back in fashion, according to a new paper by John M. Curtis and Dan Ciuriak published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP).
In fact, industrial policies never really went out of style, except in the Anglo-American democracies. For the past three decades governments in the Anglosphere — regardless of the party in power — have shied away from industrial policies and embraced the notion that state interventions to promote specific economic sectors usually do more harm than good. This is allegedly because governments don’t have the necessary information to “pick winners.” The market, according to this view, is always far superior at allocating resources than any government ever could be.
Under this paradigm, the best thing governments can do to promote investment, industrial development and economic growth is to get the so-called economic fundamentals right and let the market — that supreme and venerable vehicle for the efficient allocation of resources — take care of the rest. In practice, the prescription calls for low taxes on capital and income, balanced budgets, low debt, low and stable inflation and a light regulatory touch. These are the necessary ingredients that will permit the market to work its magic on the economy.
Governments in this country have by and large bought into this mainstream view for over two decades, and have implemented this policy agenda, to varying degrees. Successive governments in Ottawa, for example, have rarely missed an opportunity to brag that Canada has the best economic fundamentals in the G8.
In the context of this conventional wisdom, the industrial policy light has barely flickered in this country.
But now, according to Curtis and Ciuriak, industrial policy is resurging, even in the more skeptical Anglo-American countries. They argue this is due to the global financial crisis/recession, and the slow and uneven economic growth that has followed. Governments are increasingly looking for some way — any way — to get growth back onto a decent trajectory, and in particular to regenerate manufacturing industries that were hit very hard during the recession.
This marks a big shift in attitude. For decades, governments in this country wouldn’t utter the phrase industrial policy for fear of being labelled economically illiterate by the high priests of mainstream economics and their apostles in the business media. Today, however, the competency of the economics profession is in serious question given its role in creating the intellectual foundations for the policies that brought on the global banking crisis of 2008-09 and the worst recession many countries have experienced in 80 years. Not to mention the fact that mainstream economics’ remedies to the crisis have produced scant growth in most countries thus far.
We might now, therefore, be on the cusp of a new economic policy paradigm. As Curtis and Ciuriak claim, it is those countries with robust industrial policies — especially in Asia and other emerging markets — that have seen superior growth performance post-recession. Those are the kind of facts — as opposed to theory — that tend to catch the attention of governments struggling for an economic narrative to put to citizens in a slow-growth and relatively high-unemployment context.
Canada is no exception. The Harper government, on paper the most free market administration in living memory, is adopting a more industrial policy-friendly mindset. There is evidence of this in policies to promote extractive industries, but also with significant new initiatives in the aerospace and defence sectors, both of which are well-known candidates for industrial strategies in almost all advanced countries. The relatively new Federal Economic Development Agency for Ontario is also to a degree an industrial policy instrument.
Curiously, though, the one government in Canada that you would expect to be embracing industrial policy seems lukewarm to it. Ontario has experienced the most alarming economic transformation of any Canadian province in recent years. Its manufacturing sector lost 255,000 jobs over the last decade. The province’s share of Canadian GDP fell from 41 per cent to 37 per cent over that same time period. For three years now, Ontario, traditionally the milch cow of Confederation due to its powerhouse industrial economy, has been officially a “have not” province, receiving billions of dollars in equalization payments from Ottawa annually.
Yet we seem to see more enthusiasm for industrial policy in blue Ottawa than in red Queen’s Park, which still emphasizes deficit reduction as the key to Ontario’s economic prosperity. While the Wynne government is pursing an aggressive transit agenda, it seems less enthusiastic than its predecessor in developing “green” manufacturing to offset some of the decline in the auto industry, and shows little interest in policies aimed at other sectors that offer promising growth opportunities.
Now is probably the time for the Ontario government to embrace the industrial policy paradigm and advance an economic agenda for the province that works in practice but maybe not so well in theory.

Searching for Canada’s Michelle Obama

“Mom, I should eat broccoli because Michelle Obama says I should eat broccoli.”

What music to the ears of parents and policymakers!
A week ago, Canada 2020 hosted the fifth and final panel of the year in our signature speaker series, The Canada We Want in 2020. The topic was ‘confronting the crisis in public health’, specifically how we can come together to combat obesity and related chronic diseases.
One of our panelists was the dynamic and accomplished Melody Barnes, former White House Director of Domestic Policy to President Barack Obama, and chair of the administration’s task force on childhood obesity. Melody was also heavily involved in the First Lady’s Let’s Move! campaign aimed at persuading Americans to embrace healthy living.
Canadians are up against the same public health challenges as our American neighbours. According to recent data published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, 25% of the Canadian population is estimated to be obese.  Obesity rates here in Ontario are above the national average at almost 29% and, on the current trajectory, an estimated 70% of Ontario’s current kids will enter middle age obese or overweight.
Rates are already higher in other provinces and amongst particular social groups (aboriginal Canadians and those from lower socio-economic groups, especially disadvantaged women). In some Atlantic provinces obesity rates already exceed 35%.
Childhood obesity is a particular problem: research shows that early onset obesity increases the risk factors for a range of chronic diseases – including diabetes, coronary heart disease and atherosclerosis.  Obesity in females during late adolescence is also associated with psychosocial behavioural abnormalities in adulthood.
If we are to change this trajectory, we need to consider evidence-based policy approaches that have successfully improved obesity-related health outcomes. The following are some of the key messages and insights that emerged at our event:

  1. Promote healthy living without demonizing different body types.
    The body-mass index is used to estimate overweight and obesity rates amongst different populations.  However, in our efforts to address the growing obesity epidemic we should not be concerned with the final output (weight) but rather the inputs (sedentary lifestyles, eating food of poor nutritional quality, etc.) that affect our health outcomes. Obesity is simply a proxy measure for increased disposition to myriad chronic diseases that will lead to soaring costs of healthcare delivery and a diminishing quality of life in years to come.
  2. We cannot educate our way out of this crisis.
    Two of our panelists, Melody Barnes and Alex Munter (President and CEO of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario) repeatedly emphasized this point.  It is imperative to educate individuals about the importance of healthy eating and active lifestyles so that they can make informed choices. However, information alone is not sufficient: Canadians also need better access to nutritious lunches at school cafeterias, grocery stores that stock fresh produce at affordable prices, safer parks and recreation facilities and other health-promoting infrastructure. This is where governments have a particular role to play. With their support, the healthy choice can become the default choice.
  3. Improving health outcomes is not just the responsibility of individuals but also of the collective ‘us’.
    Confronting the crisis in public health requires different (and sometimes opposing) forces including government, industry, NGO partners, health practitioners and individuals to act together. There is no magic bullet, no one miracle program and no single player that can succeed on its own. The programs and initiatives that deliver results have two things in common: they are uniquely tailored to address the specific issues faced by a given community and they are supported by multiple stakeholders.

In Canada, certain corporations stand out for their efforts to address the issue of obesity.  For example, Coca Cola Canada has recently announced that it will make nutritional information more transparent by featuring calorie counts on the front of all packages.  The company’s new marketing guidelines include a self-imposed ban on buying advertising space in media directed at audiences comprising more than 35% children under the age of 12.  In addition, Coca Cola is supporting physical activity and nutritional education programs, such as Breakfast Club of Canada. Loblaw is also making concerted efforts to bring in more nutritional information through its Guiding Stars program and its in-store dieticians.
Hopefully other companies will follow this lead. But it is also likely to take regulation (such as that proposed in Ontario’s recent Healthy Kids Strategy) to make sure that young children are not subject to junk food advertising and, thus, that parents are better able to control the nutritional messages reaching their children. Such regulation has already proven to be very effective in Quebec where the ban that has been in place since 1980 is estimated to have reduced junk food consumption amongst children by 13%.
Certainly, governments have an important role to play, and not just in the direct area of health promotion. As Alex Munter noted, the government of Ontario is addressing two key social determinants of health with its focus on poverty reduction and mental health and addiction. And the federal government is increasingly moving towards being a facilitator of partnerships and an enabler of best practice.
The First Lady of the U.S. has provided a very visible rallying point in that country – people respond to her sheer force of personality. Children look up to her; they want to eat their vegetables for her. That’s not a policy lever, but no one can say it’s not effective.
Here in Canada we do not have such a figure, but, encouragingly, we do have a federal government that is becoming more active in this space and that has demonstrated, in its recently released 2013–2016 Preventing Chronic Disease Strategic Plan, that it has a good understanding of the challenges it must address. It sees itself as an information hub, willing to fund partnerships and to act as a catalyst in the prevention of chronic disease, much of which is attributable to obesity and overweight.
As Alex Munter reminded us, “public policy always lags culture, and the culture on healthy eating is changing fast.” That bodes well for the future, but we should not underestimate the sustained effort that it will take to change the trajectory of ill-health into which we have fallen.
Aqsa Malik is a research associate at Canada 2020, an Ottawa-based think tank on the role of the federal government, and PhD. candidate in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. Diana Carney has just stepped down as Canada 2020’s Vice President of Research.
For more information and to watch a video of this panel or read the full background paper, click here.