November 23, 2004
Check Against Delivery

It's good to be here at James Thompson - thank you for having us. I particularly want to thank you kids for being here today and for helping us to show off what Action Schools is all about because you've done something that's very special.

I've got a bunch of ministers from the government here with me today to watch you and to learn from you. Are you willing to teach them?

Tom Christensen is standing right next to you; he's the Minister of Education. Colin Hansen is with us; Colin is the Minister of Health. Geoff Plant is with us; he's the MLA for Richmond-Steveston, and he's also the Attorney General. Greg Halsey-Brandt is also with us; he's the MLA for Richmond Centre.

This sweatshirt is what we got when we went to Athens for the Olympics last summer. The Canadian athletes got to wear these. Since your school has been so good for all of us in British Columbia, I think I should give this sweatshirt to your principal.

I want to thank the principal for all the leadership he's shown. I also want to thank your teachers.

We want to thank the teachers particularly because they've put a lot of time into making sure that Action Schools works and that you all got a chance to take advantage of that. It's important the whole school works together on this program - all of the teachers and the principal and, most importantly, all of the kids.

We know the more active you are as a young person the healthier you're going to be as an older person. James Thompson was asked to be a special leader - we wanted you to show other schools what could happen with Action Schools.

We wanted to make sure every student had 150 minutes of active play each week. One of the things we want to make sure is that kids have a good time while they do it.

In Action Schools you were active 50 minutes more than other schools. That increase in activity led to 39 percent increase in your fitness.

Right now in most of our schools we don't do quite enough activity, 58 percent of our kids in schools aren't getting enough physical activity.

What we wanted to do is make sure our young kids, in all of their schools, and their teachers and their parents would be a little bit more active.

What I'm announcing today is because of what you have done. Minister Christensen and I have decided Action Schools will be in every school in B.C. within the next five years.

We're going to do some other things as well. We're going to work with your PE teachers, with your school boards, with Action School leaders. We're going to find out what some of the really fun things we can do for physical activity and PE. We're going to build a new physical education curriculum for kindergarten to grade 9. We want everyone in British Columbia to get more active.

In 2010 we're having the Olympics in B.C. When we bring all the world to Canada for the Olympics we're going to make sure our kids are the fittest kids in Canada. And if they're the fittest kids in Canada, they're going to be the fittest kids in the world.

We're going to have a rewards programs. We're going to make sure schools know we're encouraging them. We're going to make sure teachers get the training they need. We're going to make sure everyone in the province knows about Action Schools, and we're going to have a healthy schools forum January 14 of next year.

January 14 next year we're going to have all the school boards come together. We're going to talk to them about how we can make our schools even healthier places for all of us to live. The Minister of Education will be asking all of the school boards to provide a report on what they're currently selling in terms of foods so that we can provide some healthy options for food in schools.

By May or June of next year, we'll have developed a nutrition program for all of the schools in British Columbia with new guidelines for healthy schools. By September of next year we want to have new voluntary guidelines in place for the sale of foods. By September of 2006 we will be asking for updated reports from school districts on how they want to make sure they have healthy food and Action Schools - all the things we need to make sure our schools are healthy places for students to have a good time in and to learn.

It's an aggressive program to aim to have the fittest students in Canada, and we want to do that by 2010. We'd like to do it sooner if we can, and with your help we will do it sooner.

You've been a very big help to us so far. Because of what you've done in your school, kids in all the other schools of the province are going to benefit. All those minutes you put in, showing us what worked and what didn't, all made a big difference.