Health — Issue No. 18 — Thursday, November 23, 2006 (HTML)

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

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

R. Sultan (Chair): Good morning. I will call the meeting to order. This is possibly the last meeting of this Select Standing Committee on Health, working on the charge from the Legislature concerning childhood obesity.

We will consider the logistics of final sign-off on this report at the end of this meeting in public session. It depends in part how we do today in proceeding through the material and the close-to-final draft, hopefully, that's been prepared by the committee and its researchers.

I think at the end of this discussion this morning we would entertain a motion to adopt the report, subject to certain conditions. But the Clerk will suggest the appropriate motion at the end of this morning's meeting.

Also, members should be aware, if they are not already, that the public release of this report is now scheduled for 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 29. We pushed that forward one day — delayed it one day, to be more precise — to accommodate the conflict of our original release date on the 28th with the Assembly of First Nations and the wish of the government to try and maintain an uncluttered communications environment for that event. So we accommodated them in that regard.

We have a somewhat more polished version of the report to go over with you today. I would suggest that we go into that discussion in camera, if somebody wanted to make a motion.

R. Sultan (Chair): We are back on the public record with the Select Standing Committee on Health examining the childhood obesity report. Now, we have had a detailed discussion of many aspects of the report, which has come along rather well. I would entertain any motion.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): I would move that the committee adopt the report as amended today, subject to minor editorial revisions agreed to by the Chair and the Deputy Chair.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): Mr. Chair, I also move that the Chair present the report to the House at the earliest possible opportunity.

R. Sultan (Chair): Subject to the constraint that we don't really revisit confidential matters, would it now be appropriate to hear from our communications consultant on her thoughts on the future of myhealthyspace.com?

C. Shore: We have discussed reviving the site, as it were. We revised it slightly at the end of consultations at the end of October just to reflect the fact that the consultations were closed and therefore the survey couldn't come through and no more contest entries would be accepted.

I now would like to go back. When the report becomes public, I would like to then use myhealthyspace.ca to report back, as it were, to the youth with whom you consulted. My suggestion is that we do minor revisions to things like the video just so that it reflects the fact that consultations are closed and the report is out; that we use the myhealthyspace.ca website to link to the full report; that we post up a youth-friendly summary, as it were — essentially, I'll take what text we have in the introduction and the conclusion and just craft it in language that's slightly more plain language; and then, that we use the blog to post articles discussing the various recommendations.

I don't know how much feedback we're going to get from students at this point, but I think to close the loop, it would be helpful to go back and use the blog for another month to invite discussion or at least to look through many of the recommendations to reflect back to the students that we heard from to say, "This is based on what you told us," or: "This is why we made these discussions."

I don't expect that that many youth are going to want to go in and read the full 80-page report, or whatever it is. I'm not suggesting that we rewrite anything other than to just change some of the language.

C. Wyse: I think the suggestion is wise, in the sense that it closes our loop. We did very specifically go out to talk with youth and invite their involvement, and I think this provides us an opportunity to close the communication loop with them.

J. Nuraney: Mr. Chair, may I ask a question? Do we know how many hits we had on that website and the number of inputs?

C. Shore: I don't have the final numbers compiled. I know in the month of October there were about 20,000 hits, which worked out to about 2,000 unique visitors. We had over 230 surveys submitted and over 320 contest entries. I think those are the prime statistics I have.

I should also mention that I intend to post the winners of the drawing contest on the website — as

many of the finalists as we can get up there. The ones that we intend to display in the Legislature — I'd like to also display them on the website with just a first name and a grade and a city, certainly not identifying anyone by last name.

R. Sultan (Chair): Carla, have you had any, shall we say, professional feedback on the website?

C. Shore: I've had nothing but positive professional feedback. I'll say for the record that I and my team that put it together are immensely proud of what we were able to accomplish with this site. I have every intention of entering this website into as many professional contests for communicators or technical people as I can find, because I think it is very award-worthy.

R. Sultan (Chair): Well, I think we share your pride. Thank you for a job well done.

V. Roddick: I'm assuming that this report and then your suggestion of rewording it so it's in young people's language — that you send it out to all the participants, all the ones that did the survey, all the ones that did the artwork, all the schools that were visited, that sort of thing…. They're the ones that are apt to reply, and if they reply, then it might encourage others.

C. Shore: Yes, Kate is indicating that that is definitely something that the Clerk's office can do. I will also ask the B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association — which was very instrumental in helping us publicize myhealthyspace.ca at the get-go — to intervene and send something to their membership, which is most of the principals and vice-principals, to let them know that we've amended it and posted it up with the report.

R. Sultan (Chair): Before we adjourn, perhaps I could just ask the Clerk to give us a brief synopsis of the distribution plan for the report.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk Assistant and Committee Clerk): We will be ensuring that sufficient print copies of the report are made available on Wednesday morning to media, who will be attending the report release. In addition, we have a plan to send at least ten copies to each of your constituency offices. We will also be forwarding a print copy to all of the adult witnesses, if I can describe them that way, who gave advice to the committee throughout the process since last November.

I would be very interested to hear any further suggestions you might have if you want a broader distribution of the report. I think at one point we had discussed the benefits of circulating them to schools in the province, as an example. I'd be pleased to take any ideas you might have along those lines.

D. Jarvis: I thought it was a good idea, especially those schools that appeared before us.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Committee Clerk): Oh, very much so. That's right, Dan. The students at those schools will be receiving the other materials that Carla described, helping them find their way back to the website and encouraging their continued interest in the topic.

D. Cubberley (Deputy Chair): Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could just have a little sense of how the event on Wednesday is planned at this point. I ask because we on this side are going to have some constraints on us. We have a caucus meeting, unfortunately, in Vancouver that day as these things happen. We'll have to try to seek leave to be part of the event. We had been planning around the original release date, so there are some challenges there.

As early in the day as possible is likely the best. If you could give us a sense of how it's planned.

R. Sultan (Chair): Right. I think we should have a discussion of the mechanics of that press conference, and we will. But I would suggest that rather than having all of that on the record, we should move to adjourn. And before we do so, because this will be the last meeting of this select standing committee in this session….

R. Sultan (Chair): On this report. I would like to compliment the members of the committee on the many, many hours and disruptions to their regular lives that they've cheerfully shouldered to produce what I think will be viewed as an excellent report.

The other part that I think we should all share pride in is that this is a unanimous bipartisan report in a political environment which doesn't always necessarily encourage a common approach. Clearly, the members of this committee have submerged their partisan ambitions to the betterment of the future of the children of British Columbia. I think that's something that we should be proud of and that all British Columbians should take pride in. So thank you for all of that.

C. Wyse: Thanks, Chair. My preference would have been to have spoken before you, because what I wanted to acknowledge was your leadership, which was demonstrated at this committee level, I personally believe. I'm sure that my colleagues around this table recognize your sensitivity and your leadership and the skills that you've brought to contributing to a report that I believe has the possibility of addressing very serious concerns in the province. So if I may be bold, on behalf of everyone here, I'd like to acknowledge you. Thank you.

D. Hayer: I just want to say thank you very much to all the committee members and the staff for doing a good job. Travelling was difficult, especially over the

long routes, spending a lot of time in the air away from your family and constituency office. Without saying much more than that…. I think everybody has said that. When it comes to this submission, I would like to say: can you please make sure all the small community newspapers also get the press release, including the newspapers from different cultural communities — there are many of them — so that they get access to this report, because this is very important report. I think it will go a long way.

R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you. And in the same vein, let us also concede that we could not have done this job without the superb guidance and advice of Kate Ryan-Lloyd, supported by Jonathan Fershau and the very skilful members of Hansard staff. We thank all of them as well.

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CONTENTS

		Page

Committee Report to the House		283

Committee Staff:	Jonathan Fershau (Committee Research Analyst) Carla Shore (Committee Consultant)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
HEALTH