A Food Strategy for Canada?
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
By Amanda Sheedy - On March 18, 2014, the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) launched its much-anticipated Industry-led vision of a Canadian Food Strategy. On first read, the strategy seems to resonate with the goals of Food Secure Canada and its members – that all Canadians should be food secure, have access to healthy and safe food provided by a sustainable food system that ensures industry prosperity. But if you dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that these goals are all subject to the first, and primary goal of ensuring industry prosperity.
In the section, “Learning From Best Practices” the ‘success’ of the Sodium Working Group is highlighted, a multi-stakeholder group convened by Health Canada whose recommendations have largely been ignored by government. After years of negotiations between industry, government and civil society, the working group produced a Sodium Reduction Strategy with a number of recommendations, including a ‘voluntary approach’ to sodium reduction so that Industry would not be pushed into reducing salt content in processed foods. This, despite the fact that Canadians consume double the recommended sodium intake levels, due largely to high sodium loads in processed foods that are HIGHER for the EXACT SAME PRODUCTS in Canada than in other countries. The health community saw the results from the Sodium Working Group as a failure to advance important public health policy, but apparently the CBoC and its allies have a different perspective.
As many of you know, Food Secure Canada’s Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada advances a citizen-based vision of a food strategy for Canada. The Canadian Agri-food Policy Institute and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture have also developed their own visions. We continue to encourage the government to take the necessary leadership to reconcile the many forces at play so that we may one day have a National Food Policy in Canada that is good for Canadians.