Before you cast your ballot Oct. 19, Food Secure Canada is asking that you Eat Think Vote.
Jasperite Susan Roberts is promoting the national campaign to get people to not only think about where their own food comes from, but to make food security a local campaign issue.
Roberts, who works with Alberta Food Matters and Food Secure Canada, will be at the annual Bowls With Soul event at the Jasper Activity Centre, Sept. 27, to promote the campaign and to engage Jasperites in a discussion about the need for a national food policy, ensuring all Canadians have access to healthy, just and sustainable food.
The goal of Eat Think Vote is to end hunger in Canada, provide affordable food in northern and remote communities, support new farmers and secure a federal investment in a healthy food program for all schools.
“It’s also about getting people that haven’t thought about this before to begin thinking about the origin of their food, why they eat what they eat and what the source of it is, and what’s been done to it.
“The key message of Eat Think Vote is really to eat your food, think about the food—take a minute and look down at your plate and ask yourself: do you know where your food came from? Then look at who’s running in the election and who brings this up and who is thinking about it, and talk to your candidate about this,” she said.
While at Bowls With Soul, Roberts will be collecting signatures for a petition endorsing the need for a national food policy.
Food Secure Canada, with participation from upwards of 3,500 Canadians, has created a draft of what that policy could look like, called Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada. It highlights five key elements for achieving food sovereignty: ensuring that food is eaten as close as possible to where it is produced; supporting food providers in a widespread shift to ecological production in both urban and rural settings; enacting a strong federal poverty elimination and prevention program; creating a nationally-funded Children and Food strategy to ensure all children have access to the food required for healthy lives; and ensuring that the public, especially the most marginalized, are actively involved in decisions that affect the food system.
“It has to be a policy where there’s many at the table, not just the retailers of food, not just the people from waste management, not just the farmers, it has to be all of them and the people that are eaters and the people that are marginalized.
“A national food policy cannot be created in a vacuum,” said Roberts.
Once completed, the policy would provide guidance “for everyone who eats, produces or is a purveyor of food,” said Roberts, noting that, among other things, it would include best farming practices, as well as guidance for retailers in terms of what food they sell and how much it costs.
By having those policies in place, the nation could ensure that everyone has access to healthy, sustainable food, she said.
“I know it sounds like nirvana or a dream, but it definitely is possible.”
To learn more about Eat Think Vote or to sign the petition advocating for a national food policy, visit the activity centre Sept. 27 during the Bowls With Soul event or check out www.foodsecurecanada.org/eatthinkvote.
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
