I can answer from some of the experiences I've had in working with communities in terms of forwarding some of their agendas on food sovereignty and security. I've been up in northern Ontario, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and territory, which represents about 45,000 people in 49 communities, northern and remote. In speaking with these communities and hearing their stories in terms of what they need to feel food-secure and then towards the path of sovereignty, for many of these communities it was just getting access to.... Some of the stories...for example, one elder said, “I just need some access to some soil to start some community gardens.”
We heard other stories from a gentleman who was diagnosed with severe diabetes. He began changing his food, how he ate. He began accessing local foods, traditional foods and, through that, even accessing the fish from his environment, which then brought up some issues for him such as the safety of the fish in terms of water quality. He began using that as a mechanism to bring some of the youth back out to the water and to the land, and he started to see these transformations happening in the community.
I use this as an illustration to say that, when we look at some of these solutions here, we'll be looking at multi-dimensional solutions and targeting different layers, and some of the layers are quite grassroots, some basic support. As Stephen said, there are many models across the country, and one of the recommendations we'd support is having an inventory saying what's happening out there, because a lot of communities are asking, “How do we re-engage? How do we do this? We heard neighbours down the road or up in the north are engaging in these ways”, and that was something they asked us to begin looking at as well. That would be one way.