Few Ottawa Children Go To Welcome Queen

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28936, 2 July 1959, Page 11

Few Ottawa Children Go To Welcome Queen

(Rec. IX p.m.) OTTAWA, July.l. After watching the 100th running of the Queen’s Plate at Toronto’s new Woodbine racecourse, the Queen and the Duke were greeted at Ottawa last evening by a crowd estimated at 8000 in warm weather at a flag-bedecked Royal Canadian Air Force base.

Some spectators had been waiting for about three hours. The Governor-General (Mr Vincent Massey) and the Prime Minister, Mr Diefenbaker, were among the first to greet the Royal couple The streets along the route into the capital were only thinly lined in places by crowds. During a 13-minute stop on the way at Lansdowne Park, a football stadium which can seat 20.000. only about 5000 children greeted the Royal couple. Twenty-two thousand tickets had been issued to schoolchildren.

“It is perhaps a wee bit disappointing.” Ottawa’s Mayor (Mr George Nelson) said, when questioned about the smallness of the crowd of children at Lansdowne Park. But he suggested that the ending of school yesterday was a factor in the gaping areas of empty seats. In Toronto the deputy to the Duke as president of the Can-

adian Medical Association said last night that C.M.A. members were "all digesting” comments yesterday about the physical fitness of Canadians

The Duke, the first lay president ever to head the C.M.A.. told an association luncheon: "There is evidence that dispite everything people in Canada are not as fit as they might be.” He said doctors had a duty to remedy this position. Dr. Kirk Lyon, who will carry out the Duke’s presidential duties, said in an interview that the state of fitness among Canadians was already known to doctors and was taken up by the association more than a month ago. The CJMLA. planned to continue study of the problem. After reviewing on television the coverage of the activities of the Queen and the Duke in Toronto yesterday, Dr. Lyon said: “I feel that the Queen’s Plate is perhaps more important to the people of Canada than physical fitness."

The Duke urged Canada’s doctors to tackle “with all seriousness the problem of sub-health and fitness as one of the most urgent problems confronting the medical profession in the modern world.” He said evidence showed Canadians were not as fit as they might be, and made four suggestions “to change this state of affairs”:

Proper physical education in

schools. Adequate recreational facilities for all ages and sections of the community. Extension of the work of youth organisations both in scope and age. An organisation to popularise sports and recreational activities and to encourage people to take part in them.

He told the doctors: “1 want you to make your own inquiries into the state of health of the nation and I want you to give every encouragement and support to those organisations which are working for better health and fitness. “Further, 1 expect you to give a lead in this matter by making a wholehearted effort to reverse the trend of the statistics which at present only show more beds, more mental cases, and more unfitness in children and adults. “One thing 1 beg of you—don't go away from here saying ‘this has got nothing to do with me and anyhow I’m fully occupied with curing disease.’ because you know it isn’t true.

“You cannot afford to ignore the facts and still maintain that you are in the least bit interested in health.

“Strong words, perhaps, but you took the risk; you asked for it when you invited a layman to be your president,” the Duke said.