Health — Issue No. 6 — Tuesday, May 9, 2006 (HTML)

2006 Legislative Session: Second Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
MINUTES AND HANSARD

5. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Deputy Chair at 9:21 a.m.

Ralph Sultan, MLA
Chair

Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Clerk Assistant and
Committee Clerk

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
HEALTH

Chair:	* Ralph Sultan (West Vancouver–Capilano L)
Deputy Chair:	* David Cubberley (Saanich South NDP)
Members:	* Dave S. Hayer (Surrey-Tynehead L) * Daniel Jarvis (North Vancouver–Seymour L) * John Nuraney (Burnaby-Willingdon L) Valerie Roddick (Delta South L) * Katherine Whittred (North Vancouver–Lonsdale L) Katrine Conroy (West Kootenay–Boundary NDP) * Michael Sather (Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows NDP) * Charlie Wyse (Cariboo South NDP) * denotes member present


Witnesses:	Alan Callander (Ministry of Transportation) Graham McKay (Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts) John Mills (Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts) Mike Proudfoot (Ministry of Transportation)

R. Sultan (Chair): Good morning. This is yet another meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Health of the British Columbia Legislature. My name is Ralph Sultan. We welcome one of our many expert witnesses, who will be addressing the assigned topic of this committee by the Legislature of examining many dimensions of the public policy issue of childhood obesity.

Just to review the terms of reference of the committee to remind us all. In February the Legislative Assembly asked that this committee be empowered to examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to finding effective strategies to change behaviour and encourage children and youth to adopt lifelong health habits that will improve their health and curb the growing rate of obesity, and to achieve the great goal of leading the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness. In order to do that, we're empowered to conduct consultations and engage in special studies.

I would also remind us all, particularly the witnesses, that today's meeting is a public meeting which will be recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. A copy of the transcript, along with the minutes of this meeting, will be printed and made available on the committees website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt.

In addition to the meeting transcript, a live audio webcast of this meeting is also produced and available on the committees website to enable interested listeners to hear the proceedings as they occur. That audio webcast, of course, is available in all corners of the world, so you could say, indeed, that we're broadcasting to the universe this morning. An archived copy of the audio broadcast will also be retained on the committees website, so you can listen to it before you go to bed at night.

That is our mandate and the ground rules. I might also mention that this meeting will proceed from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. I have another unchangeable commitment at 9 a.m., so at that point our Deputy Chairman, David Cubberley, will take over the meeting and proceed from there.

We have three very interesting presentations today. I would like to lead off with the first in a moment. I would also point out that shortly before I leave, there will be a presentation by the Ministry of Transportation.

One of our committee members, the member for Delta South, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, asked me ten minutes ago: why on earth is the Ministry of Transportation coming to speak to the committee on childhood obesity? I had to remind her, since she comes from such an agricultural background and chairs the Agriculture Committee, that obesity is more than fruits and vegetables, Val. We'll be hearing about the transportation aspects later this morning.

Our witnesses this morning are John Mills, the assistant deputy minister for sport, recreation and volunteers division of the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, accompanied by Graham McKay, assistant director of the sport branch of the same ministry. I would ask our two witnesses to perhaps give us a brief bio sketch of themselves.

J. Mills: Thank you to the committee for inviting us to present to you this morning. By way of personal biography, both Graham McKay and I have been involved in the sport world for many, many years — Graham within government in the sport branch. I'm new to government, having joined as assistant deputy minister about three weeks ago, but I have a long history of involvement in sport and recreation. In fact, that's been my career. It's a pleasure for us to be here. I appreciate being invited.

Our division is part of the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, and we're here to give you some background on the sport and recreation system in British Columbia, our role in the system, and how this system contributes to addressing childhood obesity and physical activity.

In 2001 the sport branch engaged in a provincewide consultation that resulted in a B.C. policy on sport and physical activity that focuses on two pillars — one being participation and the other being excellence. Our focus has been on either of those two pillars.

I think you'll find some of the concepts in the material that was precirculated and which you'll see in the PowerPoint presentation. I don't intend to read from this. I think it's useful reference material for you. I'll try to add to the material if I can. But you see the provincial vision, and you see the concept of personal best and physical activity.

Further, we're confident that the vision and values and goals of our sport and recreation system are aligned very well with the government's five great goals for a golden decade, even to the extent that we believe literacy extends to physical literacy as well — understanding how the body works and how we all need to become familiar with how the body works and how we can improve.

Certainly being the healthiest jurisdiction, goal two, is something we feel we can contribute to extraordinarily. Furthermore, we can contribute, I think, to the aboriginal population, particularly assisting — as you'll learn later in this presentation — with some special initiatives aimed at them. We think that this can contribute to a sustainable environment and that physical activity, sport and recreation are also good for the economy and job creation. The document Moving Ahead, which we'd be happy to table with the committee later, is the foundation document for our thinking in this regard.

To give you some statistics about the system, you'll see the numbers there — the number of registered members, the number of annual visits. It is, frankly, staggering — 55 million annual visits to arenas, curling

rinks and swimming pools; the annual registrations through municipal recreation — obviously, multiple registrations by the people in the province. Sport, of course, is a huge part of the volunteer sector.

The challenge, of course, is that 38 percent of our population is not physically active and does not derive health benefits from physical activity, which amounts to being active 30 minutes a day more than half the days of the week. So 38 percent of our population is not achieving that goal, and that is the target, as you'll hear during this presentation, of some of our programming.

If you're ever having trouble sleeping, I recommend this diagram to you. I'm not going to explain it in any detail whatsoever, but it does give a thorough assessment of the complexity of the sport and recreation system — the ownership of facilities and the delivery of programs and such, ranging from international organizations such as the International Olympic Committee down to local sport and recreation organizations. We'll move quickly past this slide.

A slightly less complex and maybe a bit more colourful slide shows the theme that we've adopted with the other provinces across the country. You're probably all familiar with the concept of a sport pyramid — the broad base at the bottom narrowing to the very best, the high performers, the Olympic champions at the top of the pyramid. If you think of the light-coloured triangle to the left as being the progress an athlete might make but the horizontal axis across the bottom as being the population of the province…. Our goal is to have all of the population physically active, some of whom may be proceeding towards excellence along the left but transitioning during the course of their career — either partway through or at the end — into a lifelong stage of physical activity. It supports the two pillars I referred to earlier of keeping everybody active and involved and of providing the opportunity for those with talent to achieve Olympic dreams and achieve excellence.

Moving along to the next slide, just to give you a sense of where our resources come from. The budget which we operate with is just under $14 million. There is annually about $20 million available from gaming revenue to local and provincial sport organizations. Legacies Now has received one-time funding of $25 million to be expended over the next three years. The new SportsFunder lottery product is expected to generate about $20 million over the next six years. Most of the funds are generated at the local level through municipal recreation — people buying memberships in community centres and such. That amounts to roughly $800 million of expenditure at the local level.

Certainly, other ministries make investment. I believe the Ministry of Transportation, which you referred to earlier, is responsible for developing trails and cycle paths and such that do contribute significantly to physical activity.

The key initiatives that we are attempting to address are a unique sport-participation initiative in partnership with Sport Canada that's equally funded by the province and Sport Canada; Aboriginal Youth FIRST program; the SportsFunder, which I mentioned a moment ago, and I'll expand on it in a few minutes; and our provincial recreation strategy.

Many of us grew up outdoors playing games, climbing trees, riding bikes and such, while our parents were inside enjoying new technology like television and so on. What we find now — the reverse — is that our generation is going to work with their gym bags and are exercising or at least being concerned about physical activity. But it's the next generation that is spending hours and hours in front of technology. In fact, research tells us that the average child today has four hours of what they call screen time each weekday and seven hours of screen time on each day of the weekend. That amounts to either television or Internet access and so on, which we believe is a huge problem.

We need to turn the tide. We need to get these children out playing and being physically active. These initiatives are targeted at children who might not otherwise have the opportunity to register or participate in sport and recreation activity. This is not about the children who currently exercise three or four times a week and trying to get them to exercise five or six. This is trying to address those children that are not exercising at all.

Expanding on the sport-participation initiative, this is a concept where the budget is applied for by all of the organized sport organizations but with the goal of targeting markets — elements of the youth group who currently are not part of the system. A number of examples include the Steve Nash youth basketball program; Cycling B.C.'s Youth on Wheels, which is teaching youngsters how to ride their bicycles; and wheelchair sports Bridging the Gap. There are currently 31,000 children who have participated in one of these programs.

The goal is to provide them with the skills that will allow them to maintain their involvement in physical activity beyond the duration of this program. It will be teaching them something — biking, running, throwing — so that they will be able to more easily enter into a life of physical activity. It's very cost-effective. It's costing somewhere between $10 and $20 per person to provide them with these tools that we hope will lead to a more physically active lifestyle.

There is some pretty creative activity on the part of the sport and recreation organizations bringing forward concepts that are creative and appeal to this market of children that we have been unsuccessful in drawing into the traditional sport and recreation market — or activity.

The Aboriginal Youth FIRST is a suite of programs that have been piloted over the last three years, supported by partnerships with federal governments, local governments and aboriginal communities. We have certainly seen the potential for sport and recreation being a positive intervention in their lives, but it's more than just sport and recreation. Fifty percent of aboriginal youth live in an urban environment.

A contract with the Urban Native Youth Association has piloted a program which gives aboriginal

youth in Vancouver a place to go after school. By providing sport programs and lifestyle counselling, the urban program is helping to prevent the migration of youth to the downtown east side sex trade and brings these youth into an environment that teaches positive health and social habits through recreation.

A further observation was that there was a disproportionate amount of drownings amongst aboriginal youth than non-aboriginals. The majority of aboriginal communities are along waterways, so an outdoor leadership program, a Junior Eagle program and a municipal aquatics program have been teaching leadership skills and employable skills such as lifeguarding, swim instruction, scuba diving and back-country guiding.

The aboriginal youth are now earning certification. We graduated the first aboriginal in North America to receive his PADI scuba diving certification. They're taking these skills back to the communities, teaching others and in some cases actually obtaining employment in the marine industry and of course creating a much safer environment in that more of our aboriginal youth have learned swimming skills as a result of this program.

The SportsFunder program is a change in approach. It's one of the first times in many, many years that the B.C. Lottery Corp. has dedicated funds to a specific cause. It's estimated that it will generate about $20 million in the next six years. I'm going to comment on one particular component of where those funds will go.

The KidSport program is operated by Sport B.C. and provides small grants in the amount of $100 to $150 to offset the costs of registration in sport and recreation programs. The support from the SportsFunder program will double the resources currently available to children from low-income families and will permit their registration in programs of physical activity that they might not otherwise have been able to approach. We estimate that this will be an additional 2,000 to 3,000 children each year who will be introduced to sport and recreation programs as a result of the SportsFunder program.

The last part of the program piece is a provincial recreation strategy that is now underway. As I mentioned earlier, most community recreation is delivered by the municipalities. We have contracted with the B.C. Recreation and Parks Association, which represents all of the professionals in that industry, to identify gaps and opportunities in the municipal recreation system where the province might be able to be of assistance. This strategy is expected to be completed in the coming months.

The challenges that we're facing are significant. One is sustainability. We need to make sure that the current system continues and that we don't experience any erosion in our current system. There are rising costs out there, as we're all aware of. There is limited capacity. We're very concerned about the volunteer base of sport and recreation in British Columbia.

The trend is for a decrease in volunteerism. You might have noted that volunteers have been added to our ministry as an area of responsibility. We are very concerned about trying to maintain the level of volunteers but also to grow it, because we will need greater volunteer capacity if we are going to do two things: maintain what we have now and try to grow programming for these children that don't currently have access.

We do think that the Olympics provide a powerful brand for us, and it can break through the clutter, if you like, of Xbox and PlayStation and so on, which are commanding a lot of the attention of our young people. The Olympics is a powerful brand that can break through.

We are experiencing aging infrastructure. Many of the facilities that we're using now were constructed between 1965 and 1985. I don't have to tell you that many of our arenas and facilities are centennial facilities that are now reaching the end of their life cycle; 75 percent of our recreation facilities are 25 years or older. It is a looming capital liability that we need to be mindful of. It's probably the biggest single impediment, I would say — our aging infrastructure.

I'd be happy to answer questions about that a little later, but I don't think I'll go into the detail of the infrastructure. I think we all understand from our own homes, however, that if we don't pay attention to things and don't reinvest, these facilities just become less appealing and less able to deliver the service that is required from them.

In terms of addressing the inactive population, one of the concerns we have is our difficulty in measuring success. We call this a bit of an invisible epidemic, as you'll see in bullet three. It's difficult to measure success. The impact of what we do today will not be seen for decades. We are trying to explore and we would encourage your committee to consider finding ways to develop better baseline data on where we are today.

Using that 1950s analogy of kids outside and the parents watching television, you'll recall the Nielsen families. That was the recordkeeping of what people were watching on television. The entire television industry was based on the results of those Nielsen ratings, and we wonder whether some sort of Nielsen families for fitness might be some means of determining whether in fact we are becoming more active. Can we measure select portions of the population to determine the actual level of physical activity that's occurring today, what the impact of our programs might be and whether or not we can actually create a positive impact?

You're certainly aware of the huge investment that has been made over the last 25 or 30 years in an effort to reduce the use of tobacco. It's having results. Where 25 or 30 years ago, I believe, the statistics were that approximately 50 percent of the people smoked, we're now down to…

J. Mills: …16 percent to 17 percent now. So there has been impact. What we need to do is create that same level of urgency around physical activity, so that in fact being physically active is the norm and not the reverse.

I'd encourage you to recommend research analysis that provides the industry with some important baseline data and to keep in mind, too, the fact that if we are going to have people swimming, if they're going to be skating, if they're going to be exercising, they need places to do that. We need to make sure that our infrastructure is suitable and can accommodate what we sincerely hope will be a growing demand in the times ahead.

I think it's probably time that I should conclude my remarks and ensure that you have a little bit of time for some questions. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to present.

R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, John, for a very interesting presentation. We would indeed hope that we could have ten minutes or so of questions from the committee.

M. Sather: With regard to encouraging children to become active in sports, there's a lot of, as you know, competitive pressure in sports. Oftentimes it's the parents that are hoping that their son, most often, will become a $5 million sports hero or perhaps an Olympic champion.

But in the wake of that, a lot of kids become discouraged, because they may not be that athletically inclined. Does your ministry have any on-the-ground kind of ideas of how we can encourage coaches, schools, families, parents to get all kids involved in sports so that it's an encouraging experience for them and not something where they feel that "Well, I'm just not good at sports"?

G. McKay: If I might just make a quick response to that. We have a program we introduced a few years ago called SportSafe, which has a coaching component to it. It has, if you will, an ethics component to it. It's based on making sport and physical activity a nurturing environment, ensuring that the individuals who are working in that industry recognize that and providing them with the tools to make it a nurturing environment.

We know that children drop out at certain ages in sport. We need to identify why and provide types of programs that will allow them to be retained. I think part of that goes back to the lovely square that we showed you with the new system, Canadian Sport for Life, that we're moving towards, which shows that if individuals learn physical literacy early on, if they know about balance and know how to throw and know how to run and those fundamental things, they're more likely to be active and to be involved later on.

There's nothing worse than showing up to go out and play with your friends and not having that sort of coordination, but that can be learned. It can be learned early on, and it needs to be put into a nurturing environment by the appropriate coaches and the right system.

A couple of questions. One is about the volunteers. You were talking about not having enough volunteers. You know, I've been involved in many organizations before getting involved in politics. I think that if we can do more to recognize the work the volunteers do, then we can have even more of them participating in the system.

The second question is: what are you doing about the middle income? Are there some incentives for those kids to get involved? Many times I hear that there are a lot of programs for people of low income; it's the middle income who are probably the working poor — they're called. After the taxes not enough money is left for them to participate in or get involved in recreational activities.

J. Mills: Your first question, about volunteers. This is a new area for us. Our initiatives are under construction, I guess would be the way to describe it. I think your point, though, of providing recognition…. I think that certainly people who volunteer — most of us who volunteer — would like to know that our work is valued, that people believe it's making a contribution. We see that as a very important part of our volunteer strategy.

With respect to middle income, I would say the solution in that area is probably a capacity issue, and probably a facility and facility access issue, that would be the impediment to many of those families ensuring their children are involved in sport and recreation. One of the things, too, that I do want to just add is: this is not purely about putting kids in uniforms and playing sports. That is one way.

One route to physical activity is participating in sport. But there are a great many ways that people can be active in a non-competitive way, and we're addressing those. When we say sport and recreation, we do have the sort of non-competitive, physical activity side of it in mind as well.

D. Hayer: We have a rec centre in Fleetwood, and my kids have a membership there, but it's very expensive — the membership. So I'm not talking about going into sports. Even if you want to go on a regular basis with the kids — go exercise and do different things…. It's a very good facility, but when I go there, I notice many of the parents complaining. They say it's getting very expensive. Is there some incentive to get the kids involved there after school hours?

G. McKay: If I could maybe just add one comment to that as well. You only need to go out on a weekend and have a look at the Galloping Goose Trail that runs through Victoria to see how a very low-cost facility has huge activity levels on it and a variety of people who are actually training and other individuals who are just out walking the dog or taking their children for a walk. It's a good solution. It doesn't have to be competitive sport.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): It's segued into where I wanted to go, a little bit. I was interested in the comment that you made, which I agree with, about

developing the same level of urgency around physical activity and the challenge of inactivity that we have around smoking and tobacco use, although you may want to hitch yourself to a different example of intervention, because we have tapered off to a relatively low level of intervention around tobacco currently. I think around $6 million a year is being spent on tobacco control, which is not a high level of activity.

You're at a much higher level of activity, already, around the promotion of the sport side and recreation side. You want to go further, is what I presume. You may want to consider hitching yourself up to something that has a higher potential.

One of the things that I wanted to have some comment on is…. In the case of tobacco, part of the appeal has come through extensive media campaigns that have deglamorized smoking. One of the things that has been very, very effective is that the threat of death, disability and disease is well modelled for tobacco. It's something which people have been able to see, come to understand, and it has corrected their course or has become a force within their life, pressing them to correct their course of action or not to take up smoking because of a linkage to an imminent threat.

One of the problems I see with physical inactivity is the lack of perception of imminent threat in terms of the ways of reaching people and using, in particular, media-type promotions linked to behavioural change programs. There would seem to me to be a significant challenge in finding the trigger that gets people off the couch. It's not going to be the same as tobacco, I would assume.

I would invite some comment on that and some comment in the direction of the non-sport pathway, because I do believe that the market we have to get to is resistant to engagement in competitive activities.

J. Mills: I can give you some not-well-developed thoughts that we've got on it at this stage. Most people, when they measure their physical activity or health, do it in just one of two ways: their weight or their waistline. We think there are lots of other ways that people can measure their health, whether it's their heart rate and its recovery after physical activity…. People can make great progress in their improved health and not necessarily see significant, immediate changes, at any rate, in their weight or their waistline.

I think we all respond to different triggers, and some people may respond to that objective data around heart rates and such. Most of us in this room probably still remember the 78-year-old Swede who…

J. Mills: …we believed was healthier than we were, and was a source of motivation.

I think we do need to tell some stories — accurate, truthful ones — about people making changes in their lifestyle through increased physical activity. It isn't going to be the people we see in those infomercials advertising the Ab Roller, who already have, apparently, the perfect body.

It's an area that we're studying, and the experts in this area really are our colleagues in municipal recreation, who deal with it on a regular basis. I take your point on the notion of creating a threat or a trigger point, and we'll pass that on to the people that are doing the research for us.

If we keep the questions and answers brief, we'll have time for the two remaining committee members: Katherine Whittred followed by Dan, who'll have the last word.

K. Whittred: I'm following up on what David said. To go back to what I think was your second slide about the goal of this whole program, it's really lifelong activity. The goal is not to be an Olympic athlete.

My question really gets to that disconnect that sometimes I feel in terms of the attitude in the public. I'll give you an example. I have an 11-year-old grandson who is an enthusiastic athlete, but he definitely is in the recreational category. He's currently playing baseball. I found out the other day that this is the last year he can play, because from this age on — and he just turned 11 — it then becomes where you are picked for the team. You can't go out and just play baseball.

There's something wrong, you know. To me, recreational athletics and elite athletics are like chalk and cheese. I have raised an elite athlete, and I have worked as a volunteer administrator in an elite athletic organization, so I'm pretty intimately acquainted with some of the differences. Could you just respond to that, which I see as a disconnect in the image that is out there in the population.

J. Mills: I'll make a comment and then give Graham an opportunity if he wants to follow up. The situation you describe speaks in some measure to the volunteer nature of sport delivery, where the people who do volunteer tend to be the parents. The coaches tend to be parents, and they also tend to follow the goals, I suppose, of their children. That's a strength and a weakness. The weakness in the system, as a result of that, is that there is streaming at certain points, where kids who aspire to the elite stream go there with their parents as coaches.

For those who simply want to play, there isn't a volunteer. There isn't somebody who wants to organize more of a recreational program. There are some out there, but you're quite right that most sports, as children enter their teens, tend to stream. The effort goes into the elite side. The result is that there are far fewer opportunities than there should be for youngsters to continue playing something they enjoy, knowing full well that this isn't going to lead them to an Olympic podium but is simply something they enjoy doing and want to continue doing.

I'm hoping that we can approach this from two perspectives. One is by increasing our volunteer capac-

ity. The other — and this is very important — is increasing the number of sport facilities, whether it's ice, fields or gymnasiums. Access to those facilities sometimes is aligned with the passion. The passion is often for high performance on the elite side, so the use of those facilities is absorbed by the elite side. We need to increase our volunteer capacity to provide more recreational sport programming, and we need to make sure that we have enough facility capacity to accommodate that need.

G. McKay: One sentence. I'll throw in two or three key words, then, if I may. One is "options," and two is "independent sport versus team sport."

There are other options. We need to let people know that it's a physically active lifestyle, and a lot of children today don't necessarily want to be in a uniform or be part of a team. But they will be active, and they'd like independent activities — be it skateboarding, cycling or other such things. We have to be aware of that change in our traditional approach to sport as well.

D. Jarvis: With regards to the challenges point up there, the retention and sustainability of declining volunteerism, although it's not quite your baby…. I know six people, for example, who reached out to be volunteers for the Olympics and have never heard from anyone in the last two years or so.

Do you leave it up to your local areas, like districts, to contact these volunteers or stay with the volunteers in the sport system that you're involved with? How do you keep up that incentive?

J. Mills: We do want to work with Volunteer B.C. and with the local volunteer organizations whose business is to try to match the interests of volunteers with the needs in the community.

As I indicated, it's an area where we are just now trying to determine what the province's role is going to be in doing that. We certainly observe the same thing. There is enthusiasm in the community for many projects and a difficulty in determining how those individuals can plug in, whether it be the Olympics or minor baseball in their community. That's our goal — to try to make it easier for volunteers to connect with activity in their community.

D. Jarvis: Years ago I was involved in an association. We had something like 600 to 800 kids involved when I was the president. Our biggest problem every year was getting people to coach and volunteer.

This runs down into the streamlining end of it. Only those parents who thought their kids were really good or did show some excellence at the very start were the ones who stayed with the programs all the way through. For your house league type of players, you're grasping for people.

R. Sultan (Chair): I think I'm going to call this session to a close — and a very interesting session it has been, John and Graham. We thank you for coming and explaining some of the complexities. I have dozens of questions which arise from your presentation this morning, but we will have to go into those more fully at another time.

I'd like to thank the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts for making you both available this morning and assisting us in grappling with this complex problem of childhood obesity.

I would now like to turn the chair over to my colleague the MLA for Saanich South, David Cubberley. He will introduce our next expert witness.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk Assistant and Committee Clerk): I just wanted to take a moment to review the materials that we distributed to each of you today. As you saw, we did have the Ministry of Tourism presentation up top, including two documents that they submitted: a sport branch policy framework and another document that was referred to during their presentation, Moving Ahead — From Policy to Action.

Following those materials we have a copy of the next presentation by the Ministry of Transportation. The next document after that is actually a copy of a presentation that the committee received last week from Dr. Michael Hayes. I know that there was at least one request to get a full copy of his presentation, so that is included.

We also received a follow-up e-mail from Ann Britton of the agricultural program from the Ministry of Agriculture — a list of the schools that are participating in the school fruit and vegetable snack program. She e-mailed that information along to us. That's included in your package.

The final item in your package is a summary that Jonathan produced of last week's meeting, Thursday, May 4, where he summarized the input that was received. I would draw the committee's attention to the second part of Jonathan's summary where he itemizes the responses from the Ministry of Health to the committee's 2004 report, The Path to Health and Wellness. As you know, that is a key part of the committee's present terms of reference — to do a review of the status of those recommendations. Jonathan has included that information that was provided by Dr. Ballem in his summary as well. Thank you.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): Our next two presenters are Alan Callander, who is the manager of municipal policy with the Ministry of Transportation, and Mike Proudfoot, who is the executive director of the Gateway program.

I'm going to ask each of you two to give the committee a brief bio so we have a sense of what you're doing and then to jump into your presentation. Welcome to both of you.

A. Callander: As David said, I am the manager of municipal policy. I've been with the ministry for ten years now, and working on the cycling portfolio probably half of that. For the last couple of years I've been on a management development program in which I've been bouncing around the province at different jobs, including being an operations manager in Saanich and working in the south coast doing program managing.

Bringing that experience back to my current role in municipal policy has given me a good understanding how to implement cycling a bit better than it was in the past. You'll be seeing this through some of the activities that are starting to happen out of this.

M. Proudfoot: My name is Mike Proudfoot, executive director of the Gateway program, currently responsible for the development and implementation of a series of road and bridge improvements throughout the lower mainland, the South and North Fraser perimeter roads and improvements along the Port Mann–Highway 1 corridor.

In my previous life I was the director of the Lions Gate Bridge rehabilitation program, which included some very substantive cycling infrastructure upgrades. Prior to that is a series of positions throughout the province working for the Ministry of Transportation.

A. Callander: I will start our presentation off by giving a general overview of the ministry's cycling program — telling us how it meets the provincial great goals and promoting health and wellness in youth. I'll give a bit more detail on each of the elements in the program, and then Mike will provide details on our most exciting cycling infrastructure work, the cycling component of the Gateway program.

What is our cycling program? It's a three-cornered approach. At the top we have the ministry's cycling policy. To support the policy, we work with our partners and then invest in infrastructure.

Our policy was developed in 2000 with extensive input from all stakeholders, including cyclists. We had a great one-day workshop that finally came down to the wording. The goal of it is to encourage cycling. Providing safe, accessible and convenient bicycle facilities is our key goal, and it's to encourage cycling.

How do we do this? Well, working with our partners. We consult with our partners. We set up a provincial advisory cycling committee. Out of that, we've actually spawned a south coast cycling committee, because there are some issues in the south coast that needed some direct engineering consultations. We consult on our construction projects extensively — and our maintenance contractor. We encourage them to talk with local cyclists to get their needs.

The second part of this is the project that is just starting up. In the throne speech this spring there was a commitment made to work with the Union of British Columbia Municipalities to build bicycle paths that are safe and enticing for cyclists. To do this, we're going to go out and consult with UBCM and other stakeholders to find out what the best way to do this is. What are we doing today? What changes do we need to do to make it better? We're going to come up with a document at the end of the day that will give us some strategies and develop some roles for each level of government.

The final part is support for non-ministry programs. The one we like to support, of course, is Bike to Work Week. If you've seen the posters for this year's, it happens to be our minister on the poster, on his bicycle — avid cyclist.

The final part of the program is highway investing in cycling infrastructure. This is what we do best. This is our main focus. How do we do this? Through our day-to-day operations in highway improvements and investments, through the cycling infrastructure partnership program and through major projects. I'll get into more details on that in a little while.

How does the ministry support the great goals? Well, there are two great goals directly supported by cycling. They are: leading North America in healthy living and physical fitness, and the other one is the environmental management one. So how do we do it? We provide opportunities for citizens to participate in physical activity and, at the same time, reduce traffic and associated greenhouse gases by providing cycling infrastructure.

How does this link to health and wellness and youth? Cycling is an excellent healthy activity which youth can participate in and enjoy for many years. It's not competitive. I've heard from the presentation before us that some kids get weeded out. You can bicycle for your whole life — right, David?

Highway improvements investments. These are our day-to-day operations. How do we improve the highways? We add extra shoulder widths. A prime example of this is the Pat Bay Highway, which was just paved last summer. We made sure that we had extra shoulders added. When B.C. Ferries added an extra lane at Swartz Bay, we had many meetings to ensure that extra shoulder width was provided on the shoulders and upgrades to the Lochside Trail were done.

We also provide lighting, guide signs and warning signs. There is a project on right now to put warning signs on the tunnels in the Fraser Canyon to alert motorists that there is a cyclist in the tunnel. And through our maintenance practices of sweeping the shoulders, clearing brush and improving sight lines….

Working with our partners. We invest in local cycling infrastructure through the cycling infrastructure partnership program. The program is delivered

through the local government. It's a very popular program. It's been around for about three years; each of these years, it's been oversubscribed by local governments. We can't fund all requests.

This is telling us that the local governments like it, and it needs to be looked at further — if there is enough money going into this or not. Are we targeting the right cyclists? This will be part of the UBCM project as well. We'll be looking at CIPP and seeing how we can tailor that.

The goal of the program is to promote physical activity, reduce traffic congestion and help the environment. We say transportation cycling, but this includes commuting, which also includes youth commuting to and from school or other activities.

There are certain criteria we have developed to ensure the province is getting value for its money. For a project to be eligible, it must be part of an adopted bicycle network plan. That way we're encouraging local governments to do some planning before applying, so they're looking at the total picture of cycling in their community.

Currently the program is limited to construction projects. Again, we're going to look at that as part of the UBCM project. Some examples that have been done include projects all around the province — Prince George, Vernon, Vancouver. Locally, we've done quite a few in Saanich — the Galloping Goose Trail. As you know, Minister Falcon is a big supporter of this program. There he is riding his bicycle.

Now on to some major projects. Just a quick highlight on a couple of ones, and then Mike will go into more details on our most exciting one.

The Sea to Sky project. Cyclists will be helped on this one by highway widening, straightening and improving sightlines and other design innovations and measures to reduce hazards along the corridor.

The William Bennett bridge. We will ensure that cyclists are allowed onto this bridge. Project staff are working with the Kelowna Area Cycling Coalition to develop the design plans on how to get them off and onto the bridge.

The Lions Gate Bridge. The improvements included on this one: a new cycling ramp at the northwest quadrant and better route indication, using a combination of coloured pavement markings, new street lighting and signage.

Now I'm going to pass the presentation over to Mike, who will talk about the Gateway, the largest cycling investment in British Columbia's history.

M. Proudfoot: This map outlines the three main corridors of the Gateway program: the Port Mann–Highway 1 corridor in blue, the South Fraser perimeter road in red and the ministry's portion of the North Fraser perimeter road shown there in purple.

Throughout the Gateway program there are a number of congestion reduction measures that we're looking at. These include the introduction of transit service across the Port Mann Bridge, the extension of high-occupancy vehicle lanes through to Langley as well as park-and-ride facilities and better connections to the main SkyTrain terminals. Over and above that, we are looking at a significant investment in cycling infrastructure to promote cycling as an alternative to the single-occupancy vehicle and providing better connections to many of the current cycling destinations that are compromised by the heavy traffic along the Highway 1 corridor.

In a nutshell, we're looking at a $50 million investment in cycling infrastructure over the three corridors I mentioned. In addition to that, there's an additional $10 million allocated to enter into cost-sharing arrangements with municipalities to develop adjacent or supporting cycling networks to fit their local plans.

As far as the on-corridor improvements, we're looking at adequate widths for cyclists along the entire corridors of the South and North Fraser perimeter roads. As currently established, there would be no specific cycling along Highway 1 between Vancouver and Langley, although we would have provision for access at the Port Mann Bridge, particularly, connecting to the regional system on either side. So at the end of the day, there would be the ability for cyclists to cross the Fraser at the Port Mann, but again, due to the heavy traffic volumes and the weaving movements at the interchanges, cyclists would be encouraged to use the parallel adjacent systems, such as Canada Way and Lougheed.

In addition, throughout the corridors, South Fraser perimeter road and Highway 1, particularly, there would be provision for cyclists on all of the reconstructed or upgraded interchanges along the route. Currently, as you can appreciate, there are many congestion points. A really good example is at Willingdon, where there are many cyclists who would like to use Willingdon, going from BCIT back and forth to their homes, but the congestion on Willingdon overpass makes that very challenging. A good example there is to add additional width on the overpass reconstruction to assure that cyclists are accommodated safely and efficiently.

The $10 million that we've set aside for cost-sharing with the municipalities would be modelled similar to Alan's program under the cycling initiatives. Details are yet to be finalized, but we'd be looking at investment with the municipalities to undertake investments that would complement the improvements that are under consideration for the Gateway program corridors.

In our discussions with many of the municipalities, they have some very high priorities, and we'd be working with them over the coming months and years to determine just which priorities are the best candidates for this funding.

This slide shows the locations where the cycling infrastructure would be. The red dots indicate, specifically, the interchange locations where widening or connectivity to the local cycling networks would be best enhanced. The purple outlines show you the Pitt River Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge, which will both include cycling infrastructure connecting to the regional system on either side.

I'll now talk briefly about each of the projects. At the Pitt River and Mary Hill interchange project, which is the first key component of the Gateway program to proceed, we're currently in the tender process and anticipate award of this important project by the end of this year. It will provide facilities for cyclists travelling along the Mary Hill bypass and Lougheed Highway with particular facilities on the new Pitt River Bridge crossing.

An interesting point here is the very focused public consultation process that we go through on all of our projects. When we first brought forward the concept for the new Pitt River Bridge to the community, we had envisioned a two-way cycling facility on the north side of the river that would provide connections to the highway but also to the recreational cycling network. The cycling groups specifically indicated to us that they expected more. They were looking for cycling accommodation east-bound across the river as well.

We went back to the drawing board and had a good close look at this. The east-bound facility is now included in the design concept and will be available for the commuter cyclists who are more comfortable dealing with highway operating conditions. The two-way facility has been retained on the north side and will serve all other users very comfortably and safely.

On the South Fraser perimeter road this 37-kilometre route would have cyclist facilities throughout the entire corridor, pretty much from the Tsawwassen ferry terminal, running along the south bank of the Fraser River, clear on through to 176th Street and the Golden Ears Bridge. This route connects to all the other major corridors along that section including Highway 91, the Pattullo Bridge, Highway 99, the Port Mann and 176th to the border crossings. For cyclists as well as motorists, this would provide connectivity to all of these other major routes and, as with the Highway 1 corridor, extra width on interchanges and specific accommodation at many of the ramps to assure that there is smooth and efficient cycling activity throughout the route.

I touched on most of the Port Mann–Highway 1. A specific facility will be constructed as part of the new twin Port Mann Bridge that will serve two-way cyclists and pedestrians between the banks of the Fraser River, direct connections to the local cycling networks on either side. It would be, of course, barrier-separated from traffic. With the improvements along the corridor, cyclists will no longer see Highway 1 as a barrier to the municipal travel that they're trying to do.

This is an artist's rendering of what the cycling facilities on the new twin Port Mann Bridge would look like: again, two-way facilities separated from traffic. This also shows you the introduction of transit service across the new Port Mann Bridge for the first time in 20 years, with additional health benefits through the reduction of single-occupancy vehicles and congestion-related idling.

A. Callander: Thank you, Mike. I'll just summarize everything up now and complete the presentation.

Cycling, be it recreational or transportation-related, is a healthy activity which people of all ages, including youth, can participate in and enjoy. For providing the opportunity for individuals to make healthy lifestyle choices, the province is developing healthier citizens, which lowers our health care costs.

Does the Ministry of Transportation cycling program assist in providing these opportunities? Yes, it does. By working with our partners, we are able to provide infrastructure that promotes cycling in youth and in people of all ages. This is done through cost-sharing with local governments to assist them in developing their cycling networks and through investments in the province's infrastructure.

On behalf of myself and Mike Proudfoot, we thank you for inviting us here, and we open the floor to questions.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): I want to thank you both, Alan and Mike, for the presentations. The committee, I'm sure, found those interesting. I have a question from Dave Hayer.

D. Hayer: First of all, a very good presentation — very informative. I have met you, Mike, many times when you are presenting information to the community, showing them all the programs you're doing.

Many times people used to talk to me about cycling. He said: "Is safety going to be considered, especially when you're beside Highway 1 and heavy trucks and all that?" You had already said you had considered the safety of that in your design and program.

Now, on Highway 1, Port Mann Bridge, when they're crossing, are people going to be able to walk through that too — if somebody wanted to have walkways there for long lengths there? Some of the people I know walk six or eight hours a day, especially in nice weather.

M. Proudfoot: Yes, Dave. The facility on the new Port Mann Bridge will be available to both cyclists and pedestrians. It'll be an adequate width to accommodate both those users.

K. Whittred: Just a couple of questions. One, I couldn't tell from your map, in terms of the site of your bike trails…. Is the Second Narrows Bridge included in…? You mentioned the Lions Gate. What about the Second Narrows? Is there a bike path on the Second Narrows?

A. Callander: Currently there is a bike path on the Second Narrows Bridge. I'll be honest with you. We've been working with the cycling groups to improve the connections at the south end of it. It's awkward for them. It's a two-way cycling facility on the east side of the bridge, and when you come off, you have to loop underneath to go in a certain direction. We're working with them to improve that, currently.

I know that the city of North Vancouver has worked very diligently, and they have a bike path, an extension of the roadway up to the edge of the city boundary, but that does not extend from there to the bridge. This would be on the north side.

Are you working with the municipality? Is that project underway or not? Or do you know?

A. Callander: I was at a meeting last Friday on this, actually. The ministry is redoing some of the highways in that area for a new development that the native band is doing in that area. There will be improvements made for cycling at that time. It's in the design phase.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): If I could give a question from the Chair, with a little bit of introduction. The cycling infrastructure partnership program is a refurbishing of the old cycling network program, which began in the '90s and essentially operates on the same principles but with some changed parameters for the upper limits of funding in projects, if I understand it correctly. You can now co-invest in a more expensive project than you could under the old cycling network program.

The program is obviously aimed at retrofitting urban environments to enable more cycling to occur. There's a recognition that the environments, as constructed, typically don't support or entice the level of cycling that they would if they were retrofitted. The program is attempting to offset design flaws, for lack of a better term, in the urban environment.

You indicated that the program is chasing the demand, that it's oversubscribed. I believe that was the case throughout the '90s as well. It has stayed at a $2 million program since its inception, essentially.

I guess the question is: is the ministry actively looking at expanding the program? Obviously, it's working. Is the ministry actively looking at expanding the program to begin meeting or perhaps leading demand, given the appetite for it? Given the new interest — which has been there episodically — in investing in trails as a specific form of cycling infrastructure, is consideration being given to creating a parallel envelope to fund retrofitting of communities with trail infrastructures?

A. Callander: Underneath the CIPP program, we do trails. As part of the UBCM project that I'll be undertaking this summer, we're going to look at the whole cycling infrastructure partnership program — all of its criteria. Is it directed, first of all, to the appropriate type of cyclist? Should we expand it to include recreational cyclists? Right now you have to be a transportation cyclist. What we're going to do is go to the local governments and ask them: is this program targeted to the right places? Which way do you want it tweaked so we can improve cycling?

If the recreational part comes up or if a trail system says no, we should be doing more trails…. We're going to listen and make recommendations based on that. Those recommendations should be going forward to the minister this fall, and they will include funding levels.

As you mentioned, the upper limit for the amount of funding for any one project has risen. But with the cost of construction, it may not be high enough right now. It may have to go up even more. I know, especially in the lower mainland, some of their projects…. They're not getting 50-cent dollars because their projects are so huge. They can only go up to $250,000 on any one project. Maybe it should be $350,000 or $400,000.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): I would strongly urge that kind of review. I think, particularly in relation to trail projects but to a lesser extent highway projects as well, where you have to retrofit an arterial with an expensive piece of infrastructure…. The current cost-sharing limit won't allow municipalities to lock on and say: "We will do that project."

You know, for trail projects you can't build an overpass structure using that program without multi-year applications, which are a difficult thing to go through. Of course there's a lot of delay.

I would just urge two things. One, when you do your review, you don't wind up allocating a portion of the $2 million, which is already inadequate, to trail funding, but that you look at incremental funding. From what I have seen in communities across British Columbia, the demand and the appetite are there. The latent demand for cycling is enormous. This is helping to bring it on stream. There's a potential there for injecting additional resources.

The other thing — and I think Katherine's question headed in this direction, if I recall properly — is: is there a linkage in the program, or potential for a linkage, to school environments? We are interested in the problem of childhood obesity, and the school is the agent of socialization for children and the place they go five days a week, if not more.

Is there a potential — and I'm leaving this with you more as a thought — to create or privilege, at some level within that program, investments in retrofitting school environments to support cycling and walking to school? That's just a thought.

A. Callander: When you're talking school environments, are you talking actual school grounds? Are you talking bikes, bike lockers and things like that?

A. Callander: Okay. One of the criteria we do use for when we're deciding our projects each year is the trip generators, and schools are a no-brainer for us. It's

a good trip generator. We've done a lot of projects to elementary schools, to secondary schools. But we may change the focus more to make it worth even more in the criteria.

D. Hayer: I understand the $50 million investment is the largest investment anytime that government has done in bicycle improvement. I didn't know about this other $10 million. What is the other $10 million for? That makes it a $60 million investment in the bicycle paths.

M. Proudfoot: That's correct. The $10 million is available for cost-sharing with municipalities on some of their cycling infrastructure priorities. We'll be looking at receiving applications on how that funding could be best addressed and complement many of the investments that we're making throughout the Gateway program.

We're currently engaged in the public consultation process, as you know. On completing that, we'll be moving forward with the environmental assessment application and then subsequently receiving applications for how this funding could best be disbursed.

D. Hayer: I just want to say on behalf of Surrey residents that you guys are doing a great job. The Gateway project looks very positive. It's very strongly supported in my community. I think I almost have unanimous support for your project. You're doing a good job by going to communities and listening to them, holding those consultation meetings. So keep up the good work. Thank you.

D. Jarvis: For example, Lions Gate Bridge. What is the usage of that per day? Do you monitor it, and who monitors it for you?

A. Callander: Cycling counts are difficult to take, and we have no data collection for cycling counts. I know that during the reconstruction of the Lions Gate Bridge there was a large outcry. We actually set up a shuttle service where we would put the bicycles into a trailer, and a van would pull them around the Second Narrows and drop them off on the other side. It is that popular to do. It was worth us….

A. Callander: Oh, 30, 40, 50 — it would just depend on the day, the time of year. It really varies. The Lions Gate is one of the most popular bridges to cross, I guess.

M. Proudfoot: No, it's actually…. Dan, I think, echoing some of the earlier comments about the investment being ahead of the demand, the work that we did on Lions Gate…. As you recall from the earlier structure, there was basically zero accommodation — just a very skinny shoulder there — for pedestrians and cyclists. It was really quite dangerous.

M. Proudfoot: With the rehabilitation of the project, we went as far as to make those sidewalks as wide as they could possibly be under the engineering standards, and while I couldn't recite the actual numbers, absolutely, the cycling activity has increased manyfold since the rehabilitation project was completed. The shuttle service Alan referred to ran throughout the construction period, but it's fair to say that we were warmly congratulated by the cycling community with the completion of that project. Now with the additional investment in the connectivity on the North Shore, it's definitely a success story as far as….

D. Jarvis: Do you monitor it to see if it is? How do you know it's expanding?

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): If I could venture a comment. It's one of those intriguing situations. I know municipalities are required both to monitor the estimated demand prior to an approved project and to monitor it afterwards. I know they filed those reports, because my municipality does. But it sounds as though the province doesn't monitor its projects after it has completed them.

Alan, you were mentioning that you are looking into whether or not you should expand your mandate into recreational trails and that sort of thing. From a very self-interested point of view from the mountain bike capital of the province, I wondered: does that include trails for mountain bikes, or is that in a different category?

A. Callander: It's all up in the air right now. We're just going to go out and see what the municipalities want to do and then make recommendations. Then decisions will be made on those recommendations. But if local communities say: "Yeah, recreational trails should be on…." You've got to remember that our minister is a mountain biker. He enjoys his mountain biking. We'll leave it at that.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): Yeah, that's a broad definition of a recreational trail — mountain biking. That's very catholic.

Are there any further questions? Seeing none, thank you to both of our presenters. That was a very useful presentation. We would like to have opportunities to follow up with you, and we will do that. Thank you.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): It appears that there was some miscommunication around our next scheduled presenter, Dr. Eduardo Jovel from the UBC Institute for Aboriginal Health. He is unable to be with us at this time, so we will reschedule that part of the hearing. I'm going to suggest that we close the hearing for today.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): I wouldn't characterize it that way. I'm sure that there are other things for you to do. Thank you all for your participation. This committee stands adjourned.

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CONTENTS

		Page

Presentations		61
	J. Mills
	G. McKay
	A. Callander
	M. Proudfoot

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
HEALTH