Let’s have a conversation about Healthy Places! Launching a Movement for Healthy Canadian Communities

Let’s have a conversation about Healthy Places!
Launching a Movement for Healthy Canadian Communities

Montreal, July 3^rd, 2019 - The Active Neighbourhoods Canada network (ANC) launches “Let’s have a conversation about Healthy Places” a non-partisan movement to talk about equitable access to healthy built environments in all Canadian communities! This initiative offers a free online tool to support Canadians who wish to have a dialogue with their elected officials and candidates in the context of an electoral debate, or other public conversation to raise awareness among citizens and policy makers.

Why talk about healthy environments?
The health of Canadians is influenced by the environment in which they live. Adapting the built environment can improve public health by promoting physical activity, and reducing the incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.

The federal government is increasingly involved in the development and financing of infrastructure in communities across the country. The period leading up to an election is thus a great time to discuss the development of our neighbourhoods. How can we ensure that the investments made by the federal government in Canadian communities are conducive to health? What information and data can we look to? How do we bring our concerns to electoral debates?

The tool, ‘’Let’s have a conversation about Healthy Places’’ includes four fact sheets that provide a synthetic review of reliable evidence on health, the economy, equity and the environment. It also offers ideas for targeted questions and inspiring examples of policy from coast to coast. Enough to fuel your next electoral debate or workshop on the theme of urban policies!

Rooted in research and our experiences in codesign across 16 Canadian communities, this tool is the latest addition to others on codesign and policy available at ParticipatoryPlanning.ca.

About Active Neighbourhoods Canada
Since 2009, the Active Neighbourhoods Canada has worked to develop, pilot, refine, and share innovative approaches allowing to collectively design green, active and healthy neighborhoods. The initiative is jointly created by the Montréal Urban Ecology Center (MUEC), The Center for Active Transportation (TCAT) and Sustainable Calgary (SC) and is made possible through the financial contribution of the Public Health Agency of Canada.