Bill C-304

National Food Waste Awareness Day Act

An Act to establish National Food Waste Awareness Day

This enactment designates the 20th day of October in each year as “National Food Waste Awareness Day”.

National Strategy to Reduce Food Waste and Combat Food Insecurity

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to Motion No. 110, a national strategy to reduce food waste and combat food insecurity.

We know that people across Canada, too many in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, are struggling to make ends meet and to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. While people are going hungry, a tremendous amount of food is being wasted. Much of this wasted food is nutritious and healthy foods that could be eaten by those who are hungry. Instead, it is shipped to a landfill to rot.

At the same time as food is being wasted, we are seeing the cost of food continuing to rise at insurmountable rates while grocery CEOs earn record profits. Everyday Canadians, including families, seniors, people living with disabilities and workers, and I could go on, are all having to make impossible choices between which basic need to prioritize.

At the same time as Canadians are grappling with these unfair choices, the total value of wasted or lost food in Canada is tagged at $49 billion each year or roughly $1,766 per household. That is $49 billion of wasted food each year that never makes it onto people's tables, and $49 billion that could serve to feed every single person in Canada nutritious food, three meals a day, for five full months.

Knowing all this, I cannot imagine any member of the House not being in favour of legislation that would address wasted food and food security. Motion No. 110, advanced by the hon. member for Willowdale, addresses food waste reduction, food insecurity, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, reaching the UN's sustainable development goals and policy to increase food donations to those in need.

While this motion contains goals I agree with, it seeks only to express an opinion of the House and not to enshrine anything concrete into law. Motions in the House are important mechanisms that allow members to express the opinions, wishes and will of their constituents and those they represent. They have their place, but I wonder: Why not a bill?

My hon. colleague, the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam, has introduced two very strong bills, Bill C-360, the wasted food reduction and recovery act, and Bill C-304, the national food waste awareness day act. These NDP bills would have the power to enshrine many of these same objectives in Canadian law, which I hope to see supported by members in the House.

This follows work by past NDP members of Parliament, like Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who introduced Bill C-231, the fight against food waste act, in the 42nd Parliament, before my time. Unfortunately, the majority of Liberals voted to defeat this bill at second reading in February 2016. An interesting point is that of the Liberals who voted against this motion to fight against wasted food was the sponsor of today's motion. Had the member for Willowdale actually understood and voted accordingly with the urgency of this issue eight years ago, I believe we would be in a different place today. A motion today is good, but solutions and actions eight years ago would have been better.

Those in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith have been particularly impacted by food insecurity and wasted food. I am incredibly proud to share the important work of Loaves & Fishes Community Food Bank in addressing both of these issues. Loaves & Fishes provides free food services to more than 40 communities across Vancouver Island, including 15 indigenous communities. Not only is Loaves & Fishes feeding more than 10% of the population on Vancouver Island, it is also actively counteracting food waste and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a successful food recovery program.

The Loaves & Fishes food recovery program collects all surplus food from grocery stores regardless of quality and redirects it to the highest and best use. This surplus food is primarily fruit, vegetables, meats, bread and dairy items that grocery retailers have traditionally thrown out in a dumpster. I participated and saw first-hand this process at Loaves & Fishes Community Food Bank. Because of the work of an incredible team composed of many dedicated people, over 21 million pounds of food have been diverted from landfills since 2012. In 2023, the organization sourced and distributed 8.2 million dollars' worth of food through 33 food recovery partners.

Food collected that is unfit for human consumption has also been diverted from landfills by partnering with farmers to provide animal feed and with other organizations working to convert organic waste. Loaves & Fishes has been so successful in its food recovery that it has been asked by Food Banks BC to develop a food recovery guide that would help other food banks in the province to create programs of their own that could provide a national model for food recovery.

However, doing this important work requires space, and that is something Loaves & Fishes currently does not have enough of. Although it fully utilizes every inch of the space it has, to see the food recovery program do all that it can and needs to do, Loaves & Fishes is seeking necessary federal funding for a new warehouse distribution centre. The Province of British Columbia, the City of Nanaimo and the Regional District of Nanaimo have all committed millions of dollars to support this project, while the federal Liberals have yet to contribute.

Those reaching out in support of this project continue to come in. It is evident that this is a vital project for Vancouver Island. It is for these reasons that I personally handed these letters of support to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, urging the federal government to contribute its part. It is also for these reasons that I and my NDP colleagues, the member for Courtenay—Alberni, the member for North Island—Powell River and the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, wrote a joint letter to the minister in February highlighting this important project and requesting a path forward to see this project funded.

I bring this forward as investing in a new Loaves & Fishes warehouse distribution centre is exactly the kind of project the Liberal government needs to be investing in to put words to action and truly give communities the infrastructure and investment required to increase food security and reduce wasted food. This is an opportunity for the government, an opportunity that I hope it will take.

My NDP colleagues and I will be supporting Motion No. 110, as the contents of the motion are important for us all. It is essential that we see more than just words from the government. Instead, we need true investment in real solutions, because food should not be wasted and people should not continue to go hungry.

Because I have spoken faster than I anticipated, I am going to add a few extra pieces. I wanted to take a moment to add a few thoughts around the important work of my NDP colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, who is also the NDP agriculture critic. He has been championing the issues of food insecurity and food waste and is meeting with stakeholders on an ongoing basis to address these issues. I know he has met with stakeholders including Food Secure Canada, Second Harvest, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada, Cowichan Green Community, Deans Council—Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine, and the list goes on.

We need to see all members of Parliament doing the work to speak to those in the community who know first-hand how to get these projects done to reduce food insecurity and to increase the amount of food being put on the tables of those who need it, instead of tragically being wasted. We know that New Democrats have been fighting this fight for a long time, so I am happy to see this motion coming forward today. I would also like to see those real actions and investments being put forward by the government.

I would like to thank the member for putting forward the motion. I look forward to supporting it, and I look forward to seeing the true investments we need.

Food Day in Canada Act

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I hope that the government heard the speech by the member from the Bloc Québécois today.

As people living in Canada are faced with the highest food prices they have ever experienced, it is time for the government to increase food security in this country. The NDP acknowledges that this bill could play a small part in that, yet there is still work to do so no one in Canada is going to bed hungry.

My colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford has been a champion in addressing the immediate food insecurity problem in this country, which is the price gouging for corporate profits at the grocery store. The leader of the NDP has been holding grocery chain CEOs accountable for this price gouging. The truth is that, while the grocery oligarchs in this country are making billions in profit, more children are going to bed hungry. This cannot stand because it is driving up food insecurity and hurting Canadians.

I recently asked the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development to explain how food insecurity in this country could be trending up when poverty rates are going down. The minister responded that the government realizes this disconnect and is now linking their poverty reduction council and their food policy council to talk about this. She admitted that, for too long, food was not included when talking about poverty, and this is something that is now being addressed. Food, a fundamental need, was not part of the considerations when the government was dealing with poverty. It seems unbelievable.

However, there is hope. The minister admitted that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food cannot do this work alone, and that the current shared mandate between those two ministries is needed to solve food insecurity. I agree and say to both of these ministers that they need to advance the solutions faster People are going hungry, especially those living in poverty.

Almost one million people living in poverty in this country are persons with disabilities, and they are still waiting for financial support to come through the Canada disability benefit. The cost of groceries means they are skipping meals, as well as eliminating fresh fruits and vegetables from their diets. The Canada disability benefit, which would be established with the passing of Bill C-22, is needed now to offset this reality. Throughout the course of the committee study on Bill C-22, we heard about the suffering of people with disabilities living in poverty. Overwhelmingly, we heard that they are not eating enough meals daily and cannot keep up with the rising cost of food.

It is essential that the federal government step up with an emergency benefit immediately, so I again ask the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion to provide a disability emergency response benefit while Canadians wait for the currently unfunded Canada disability benefit.

Today, with the increasing cost of food, a growing number of households are becoming food insecure. People are relying now more than ever on charities, not-for-profits and places of worship in their communities to put a meal on the table. I want to take a moment to highlight some of those invaluable community partners in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam. These are the organizations that are feeding the families that are unable to make ends meet: Share Food Bank, Immigrant Link Centre Society, The People’s Pantry, Coquitlam Alliance, Tapestry and Hillside churches, Soroptimist International of TriCities, Tri-Cities Moms Group, Coquitlam farmers' market, Fresh Roots, School District No. 43, and the city of Coquitlam, which stepped up to quickly adapt their city kitchens during the pandemic and have sustained an affordable meal delivery program for vulnerable seniors in Coquitlam.

I thank them all for what they do to offset food insecurity and improve lives in our community. Thank goodness for these community groups. Strong local food systems are crucial to ensuring food security for all Canadians, and so too is a caring community that does the work to leave no one behind when government has not done its work to protect the most vulnerable. There is still much work to do in the House to enact laws and programs that protect Canadians from food insecurity.

As my NDP colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford has said, the NDP supports this bill and knows it can raise other key areas too, to encourage the government to establish more food security initiatives in Canada. Farming is one of those areas. My colleague has said that farmers can be one of our greatest tools in effectively combatting climate change, alongside feeding the world, and that with the enactment of this bill, farmers will become part of our national discourse.

In Canada, we have extensive arable land where food can be grown. We produce far more food than our population consumes. We are net exporters. We are one of the top agricultural producers in the world, and that is something we should definitely talk about more.

For example, do members know that Canada is the largest producer of lentils in the world? We produce almost twice as much as India. Between our two countries, we produce more than 50% of world's lentils, yet per capita, Canadians eat very few. That is a shame because lentils are high in protein and fibre and low in fat and calories. They are naturally gluten-free and have an exceptionally low glycemic index, making them suitable for a diabetic diet. The majority of Canadians do not know this.

From coast to coast to coast, Canada has local food that needs to be shared and eaten. We are a country with the ability to produce food locally for everyone, not just to give the bare minimum amount but to achieve the good, high-quality food we all need. We need that high level of nutrition. It is a very strong factor in the social determinants of health.

As New Democrats, a strong food system has been a central issue for us. In 2011, we ran on a commitment to introduce a Canadian food strategy that would combine health and environmental goals. We created a strategy called “Everybody eats: Our vision for a pan-Canadian food strategy”, which focused on how food travels from the farm to the factory to the fork. It was comprehensive, and it forced the Liberals to act. It is now time for the Liberal government to do more to protect Canadian food systems in the new reality of increasing climate disasters.

I think about the recent devastating flood in B.C. that wiped out roads and limited supply chains for weeks, as food could not get in and out of the Lower Mainland. Realities like that are why this government needs to understand how and where food is grown and produced in Canada.

This bill has the potential to direct the Liberals to look at the concept of food miles and how far food goes to reach a table. Today our food is travelling long distances to make it to our plates. That is not food resiliency. In B.C., we have the ability to grow a lot of seasonal produce, and we need to understand those opportunities and build resiliency around them.

In closing, it is important that this bill be part of the journey, not the end of it. We have much work to do to build and rebuild resilient food infrastructure in this country. We have relied too much on imports for decades while letting our own food production dwindle, and we need to bring more food closer to home. We also need to reduce the amount of food we waste. That is why, in November 2022, I moved to introduce Bill C-304, an act to establish national food waste awareness day. I thank the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for seconding that bill.

Having a day to recognize the impacts of wasted food on food insecurity and climate change will raise awareness, inspire change and contribute to a meaningful solution to make Canada's food system more secure. Each year, 60% of the food produced in Canada is thrown out, and half of it is fresh, edible and nutritious food that could help feed four million Canadians, one million of whom are children, who are struggling daily with access to healthy food. It would be one more tool we have in our policy tool box to remind Canadians of how important local food is, celebrate the farmers who produce it and start a conversation on how we, as parliamentarians, can better support food security so everybody has access to high-quality food and no one goes to bed hungry.

National Food Waste Awareness Day Act

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-304, An Act to establish National Food Waste Awareness Day.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to table my first bill, which designates October 20 as national food waste awareness day. I thank the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for seconding my bill.

This bill has a special place in the history of the office of Port Moody—Coquitlam, as it was researched by Yulia, our intern from Ukraine. Food insecurity is a reality, and her work was driven by a global concern.

Having a day to recognize the impacts of food waste on food insecurity will raise awareness, inspire change and contribute to meaningful solutions to make Canada's food system more secure. Sixty percent of the food produced in Canada each year is thrown out, and half of it is fresh, edible and nutritious food that could help feed four million Canadians, one million of whom are children who struggle daily with access to healthy food.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)