If you missed out on the day-of presentation, not to worry. We’ve made it accessible below.

Please note: Audio issues were experienced during the start of the recording. The speakers are audible during the first 14 minutes of the video but the audio sounds crunched. The audio stabilizes 22min into the video and remains stable for the remainder of the video.

Speakers:

Larry McDermott A member of Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, Larry McDermott served as an Ontario municipal politician for 28 years including as the first national rural chair of FCM. He is currently Executive Director of Plenty Canada, a non-profit organization devoted to environmental protection and healthy communities, and Co-chair of the Canadian Environmental Network Biodiversity Caucus. He served as a commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission from 2009-2016.

Pat Mooney has more than four decades experience working in international civil society, first addressing aid and development issues and then focusing on food, agriculture and commodity trade. In 1977 Mooney co-founded RAFI (Rural Advancement Fund International, renamed ETC Group in 2001). He received The Right Livelihood Award (the “Alternative Nobel Prize”) in the Swedish Parliament in 1985 and the Pearson Peace Prize from Canada’s Governor General in 1998. He has also received the American “Giraffe Award” given to people “who stick their necks out.” The author or co-author of several books on the politics of biotechnology and biodiversity, Pat Mooney is widely regarded as an authority on issues of global governance, corporate concentration, and intellectual property monopoly.

Lauren Baker, PhD, has over 20 years of experience working on food systems issues. Her experience ranges from researching agricultural biodiversity in Mexico to negotiating and developing municipal food policy and programs. Lauren has consulted on farm to fork initiatives and food systems policy development across Canada and globally.Lauren’s expertise lies in sustainable food systems, food systems policy, food security, city-region food policy and planning. Lauren has worked with diverse clients to develop strategic plans, feasibility studies, undertake research, program planning and evaluation, and advise on policy development

Dr. Donald E. Buckingham is the President and CEO of The Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI). He has been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1988. In his career, he acted as a private lawyer, government lawyer, law professor, author and consultant in the areas of agricultural law, food law and international trade in agricultural products. Dr. Buckingham’s previous roles include Chair of the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal. He also worked as Legal Counsel at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). Dr. Buckingham taught courses as a law professor at three universities and conducted research on agriculture law, food law, constitutional law, administrative law, international law and tort law. For the past three decades, Dr. Buckingham also provided legal counsel to both federal ministers and civil servants grappling with legislative and regulatory matters in the industry, as well as being a lawyer with the Halifax firm of Patterson Kitz.

Discussant:

Catherine L. Mah MD FRCPC PhD is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University. She is also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Dr. Mah directs the Food Policy Lab, a multidisciplinary program of research on environmental and policy determinants of healthier consumption, with a focus on health-promoting innovations in the food system. Her current research is supported by CIHR, the SSHRC-funded FLEdGE research partnership led by Wilfrid Laurier University, and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council-funded Healthy Stores 2020 project led by Monash University. She is a former member of the Toronto Food Policy Council and was a founding member of the St. John’s Food Policy Council.

Co-hosts:

Peter Andree, PhD, is Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Political Science at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University. Prof AndrĂŠe’s research focuses on the politics of food and the environment. He practices, and teaches, community-based participatory research methods.

Diana Bronson joined Food Secure Canada as Executive Director in March 2012 and has worked to strengthen FSC as the national voice of the Canadian food movement.  Diana is trained as a political scientist and sociologist and has a professional background in journalism (CBC radio) and international human rights (Rights & Democracy) as well as international climate and technology negotiations at the UN (ETC Group.)

Montreal, May 4, 2017

Food Secure Canada and its members have been campaigning for an integrated and forward-looking food policy for years. In 2011, FSC published , and in 2015, the mobilized thousands of Canadians to dialogue with candidates for office about food policy. This new discussion paper, which includes input from dozens of organizations, offers some perspective and ideas on this historic opportunity.

Diana Bronson, Executive Director of Food Secure Canada and Community Co-lead of CFICE’s CCE Brokering working group.

“The federal government is talking a great deal about innovation, and clearly Dominic Barton’s focus on agriculture and agri-food as a prime sector for economic growth has caught the imagination of some,” said Diana Bronson, Executive Director of Food Secure Canada. “But right across our food system, there all kinds of innovations that deserve public support, ranging from urban agriculture, to small- and medium-sized enterprises focusing on local and sustainable food markets, to healthy school food programs and sustainable fisheries.”

Food Secure Canada is calling upon all Canadians concerned with hunger, health and sustainability to get involved in the government’s national food policy consultations as soon as they are announced.

“It is vital that we hear not only the voice of industry, but also of family farmers, young people who cannot afford a healthy diet, experts in sustainable agriculture, Indigenous communities rebuilding their traditional food systems and others. We are all eaters and we all have something to say about our food system,” said Bronson.

High rates of food insecurity and diet-related disease, coupled with declining numbers of farms and growing concerns over climate change, point to the many contradictions and persistent challenges that need to be addressed in our food system. With a patchwork of government policies, programs and strategies, within multiple departments and in various jurisdictions, the current approach is inadequate. The discussion paper points to the need to prioritize healthy and sustainable food for everyone in order to make Canada a true food policy leader.

For more information:

Francois Zeller: (438) 401-1733, communications@foodsecurecanada.org

Diana Bronson: (514) 629-9236, director@foodsecurecanada.org

Peter AndrĂŠe spoke from his position as both an Associate Professor at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, but also as the President of the Wakefield Farmers Market. He focused on the importance of developing a national food policy for Canada. His comments are below.

“I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you, and extend my thanks also to Dougal Rattray of the Quebec Farmers’ Association for the invitation.

I am here not as a farmer, but rather as a citizen of the Pontiac and a long-time supporter of local farmers.  I wear multiple hats, including being President of the , which I work on with Charlotte. I am also a professor of political science at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University in Ottawa where I teach courses in agri-food politics and environmental policy.

I am here today to talk about the need for a more integrated approach to agri-food policy. What I mean by this is a whole-of-government approach that seeks to achieve multiple win-wins across sectors – health, the economy, and the environment – through carefully thought out food and agriculture-related policies and strategies.  As part of my research, I have hosted high-level meetings on this topic between organizations like the , the , the , , and the .

I was heartened when I read your mandate letter from Prime Minister Trudeau in October 2015. You have been tasked with the development of  “a food policy that promotes healthy living and safe food by putting more healthy, high-quality food, produced by Canadian ranchers and farmers, on the tables of families across the country” (Trudeau, 2015). My understanding is that since then two inter-departmental committees have been struck – chaired by your department – to move this process forward, with public consultations to begin this year.

I’d like to make three main points today about all of this.

First, I want to acknowledge that developing a cross-departmental and intergovernmental (including provinces and territories) approach to food policy will be difficult. Considering growing food insecurity, declining public trust in certain agricultural practices, the rise in obesity and the growing financial burden associated with diet-related chronic disease; it is tough to see how we can address these issues through a single set of policies. Still, I think there is an enormous amount of potential in this sphere that builds on some solid thinking and experience from civil society and industry actors. I encourage you to consult deeply on the options, actively supporting civil society organizations like Food Secure Canada to help in the process of consulting Canadians. This process will be of value in itself, encouraging citizens to see their government as listening, and through this alone raising public trust and engagement in Canada’s agri-food system.

Second, of the many good ideas that will come forward, I encourage you to focus on a few key win-wins in the first iteration of a food policy to show what an integrated approach can achieve. The example I want to highlight today is the idea of a National Healthy School Food Program. You might say that such a program is beyond your mandate or that it lies primarily in the realm of the provinces. I would argue that there is a huge opportunity here under the leadership of the federal government. A national healthy school food program would build on an existing patchwork of programs across the country, often at the level of school boards and municipalities, but it needs some national leadership to be truly universal. It should be cost-shared between the federal government, provincial governments, school boards, private sector donors and parents.

I should also emphasize that I am not talking about a charitable program that is asking farmers to donate food for the public good. A school food program should be built on direct partnerships between local farmers and local schools where possible. The farms would have featured ingredients on school menus and would host kids for farm tours. The model we could build on is that created by an organization called in Toronto. In 2014, FoodShare bought $1million of produce directly from southern Ontario farms for its school food programs, thereby feeding meals to over 175,000 children (a third of all students in Toronto) while ensuring stable contracts paying fair prices to groups like the .

School food should be about more than simply ensuring children eat a healthy breakfast or lunch, it should be teaching them about how food is grown and raised, including efforts to increase the sustainability of that production (thus addressing issues of ‘social license’ in agriculture). Solid, healthy meals in schools (think Jamie Oliver, not the bland cafeteria food you or I grew up with), would help address food insecurity (the 12% of Canadians not getting enough to eat) but also take us a step towards addressing the growing obesity crisis and the growing cost of diet-related chronic diseases for our health care system. It would achieve this by encouraging youth to eat healthy foods, and giving them a hands-on education on how to prepare local foods themselves at schools like Wakefield Elementary and Pontiac High School in Shawville.

I could give you more examples of the types of programs and policies that could be written into a national food policy, but time doesn’t allow it. I do want to emphasize that through just this one example we could take steps towards addressing a variety of social and health challenges while creating new long-term markets for Canada’s farmers.

My final point is to encourage you to see that this is just one of many win-win possibilities that can come out of a co-governance approach between the feds, other levels of governments and other partners. To identify and act on other win-wins, I encourage the creation of a Canadian Food Policy Council. Food Policy Councils consist of representatives and stakeholders from all parts of the food system, including farmers of course. There are currently over two hundred councils doing creative work worldwide. Most advise municipal or (US) state governments. Canada’s experience with the National Round Table on Environment and Economy – a force for sustainable development in Canada until 2013 – shows the value of such an advisory body as a first step towards designing innovative solutions.”

More than half of the world’s population now live in cities and other urban settings. That means farmland often gets paved for urban development. While the number of farms and farmers in Canada are decreasing, making food ever more valuable, . That accounts to around 40% of food production. People have been distanced from their food source and are far away from the consequence of consumption. We’re wasting the labor and resources of people in distant areas and countries. The more that this happens, the more that we create a vulnerable city that can topple at any moment.

Tammara Soma, PhD candidate at UofT and 2014 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholar, has taken the matter into her own hands. Soma recently launched a social innovation project titled ‘’ which aims to determine policy options to address one of the century’s biggest challenges: preventing food waste. The project’s ultimate outcomes are: 1. Tangible solutions that reduce food from being wasted and add efficiency to the food system. 2. National level policies to support a sustainable food system that conserves water and energy, enhances ecosystems, and mitigates climate change. 3. Equitable collaboration between stakeholders in the food system, especially those from marginal communities. The lab’s social innovation approach was chosen because social innovation includes long term solutions and interventions, and interdisciplinary, evidence based policy.

Soma hopes that evidence generated from this project will lead to better urban planning that incorporates sustainable food systems and includes other aspects such as resiliency to climate change. “Urban Planners can contribute positively or break food systems,” she says.

The project includes a lot of collaboration between campus and community. On the subject of food waste on campus, Soma says universities are big institutions that have a lot of space with land and purchasing power. She believes students on campus are starting to take initiative to deal with food waste on campus but universities can do more. “To start making an academic influence, we have to start with the university itself.”

One of the project’s priorities is to understand and collaborate with the Indigenous communities in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. In Indigenous cultures, the idea of waste doesn’t exist.

Engaging with urban farmers is another priority. The project currently has representation from the urban farming community. Soma is also looking into bringing members from faith based communities as they have an influence in society and can bring about ethical change around food waste. The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholar says that this was the most challenging aspect of the project but arguably one of the more important ones. Ultimately, the priority is to produce evidence based policy.

The project is also looking for people who would be interested in collaborating with and contributing to the project. For more info contact: info@foodsystemslab.ca

Click on the image of the report to open it.

“Here’s a conundrum: Producers in the Canadian agrifood system are supplying more food than ever before to international markets, but a greater number of our citizens are becoming food insecure or going hungry inside Canada’s borders. Five years ago, about eight percent of Canada’s total population was classified as food insecure. Food security is considered to exist in a household when, as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization puts it, “all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life.” Food insecurity occurs when “food quantity and/or quality are compromised, which is typically associated with limited financial resources,” says Statistics Canada.”

Click on the image below to download a PDF copy of the policy brief.