Government of Canada Invests $764,000 in Healthy Canadians and Community Fund

For Immediate Release:

January 19, 2023

GOVERNMENT OF CANADA INVESTS $764,000 IN HEALTHY CANADIANS AND COMMUNITY FUND

Guelph, ON – Lloyd Longfield, Member of Parliament for Guelph, announces funding for the Healthy Canadians and Community Fund in Guelph.

It is important that everyone living in Canada, especially those who are socially and economically marginalized, have the support needed to adopt and maintain healthy behaviours. Today, the Government of Canada announced $764,000 to be awarded to the University of Guelph over two years to develop interventions that address major factors for healthy eating at the individual, interpersonal, and community levels. The project will be led by Dr. Jess Haines and focus on unhealthy eating and physical activity among low-income residents in a local Guelph neighbourhood.

This funding will help improve health and quality of life for priority populations in Guelph by addressing common risk factors for chronic disease.

PHAC’s Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund invests approximately $20 million annually and leverages additional funding from partners to support projects that focus on behavioural risk factors, including physical inactivity, and less nutritious patterns of eating as well as tobacco use that are associated with the major chronic diseases of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The Government of Canada will continue to work with community partners to ensure that everyone in Guelph and across Canada can access the resources needed to lead a healthy life.

Quote:

“It’s important everyone in Guelph and across Canada have the ability to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle regardless of social or economic factors. Through partnership with the University of Guelph, this funding will improve the quality of life of those across our region and I look forward to improvements around access to healthy food for people in Guelph regardless of their age or circumstances, in alignment with Canada’s first ever Food Policy we developed a few years ago.”

- Lloyd Longfield, Member of Parliament for Guelph

"We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work together with Onward Willow residents to co-design actions to improve food access. Food Uniting Neighbours (FUN) aims to create place-based actions focused on reducing systemic barriers, increasing access to healthy foods, and skill-building opportunities to promote healthy eating."

- Dr. Jess Haines, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor, Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition

Key Facts:

• Research shows that 44% of adults in Canada live with at least one chronic disease, such as heart disease, hypertension, cancer, or diabetes.
• Obesity rates have been slowly increasing over the last 20 years for both male and female youth, and physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption have been decreasing.
• Funding announced today is being distributed through the Public Health Agency of Canada's Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund (HCCF) which supports projects that aim to lower Canadians' risk of chronic disease by tackling common modifiable risk factors, namely unhealthy eating, smoking, and physical inactivity.

Contact:

Lianne Cassidy

Executive Assistant to MP Lloyd Longfield

Lianne.cassidy.432@parl.gc.ca