I would like to thank you for the invitation, and also congratulate all of you, and Minister MacAulay, for taking leadership on this. I have been involved in a number of the consultations and I've been delighted by this. I was delighted by the discussion that I heard, both in the Ottawa summit in June as well as the regional consultation that we held here at the University of Guelph earlier this month.
I'm really pleased by the four priorities that you've identified, with complete acknowledgement that there could be some tweaking done. I think improving or increasing access to affordable food; improving health and food safety; conserving soil, water, and air; and growing high-quality food are all laudable interdisciplinary cross-cutting objectives, and they signal to me that the government is serious about trying to create a comprehensive policy that applies across Canada.
I actually would like to use my time to make three specific recommendations.
The first is that within that framework you focus on a couple of doable, specific programs. Don't try to boil the ocean here, but figure out a few targeted areas to focus on. I think the food policy provides an ideal opportunity to show leadership in a couple of key areas. If you're taking recommendations right now, under the theme of increasing access to affordable food, I would recommend programs that address chronic food insecurity and safety among Canada's first nations and indigenous peoples. That would probably be my top priority, and then focus on other vulnerable and marginal groups.
Under the heading of improving food safety and health, I would recommend programs aimed specifically at improving childhood nutrition and focusing on food literacy through our public school system.
In terms of the conserving soil, land, water, and air theme, I really recommend that you prioritize programs that are geared at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from the Canadian agricultural sector.
Under the final theme, which is about helping producers grow more high-quality food, I think there's a real opportunity here to align the food policy with the federal budget, with its emphasis on innovation superclusters, and develop the technologies and governance structures to establish a brand Canada which would demonstrate to our trading partners that Canadian food is the safest and most sustainable in the world.
This brings me to my second recommendation, which is that I really urge you to do everything you can to align the national food policy with other government priorities and programs. For instance, I urge the committee to seriously think about how the national food policy can support our research strategy, for instance, by including agrifood as a priority area amongst our research councils.
Similarly, and as I said a minute ago, I think there's a huge opportunity to support the national food policy and have the national food policy support our economic and trade policy. This harkens back to my comment a minute ago about the innovation superclusters. I think that inasmuch as funding is directed to the agrifood sector through the innovation supercluster fund, it should be aligned with the federal food policy. Similarly, I think there should be a direct and explicit alignment between the national food policy and the recently announced economic strategy tables for agrifood growth.
Then there's the new Canadian food guide which is going to be launched soon. We all know that. If two components of the national food policy are increasing access to affordable food and improving health and food safety, I suggest they should be explicitly linked between the food guide and the food policy, and that the food guide becomes one vehicle by which you consider implementing the food policy.
Finally, by using the national food policy to address food insecurity amongst indigenous communities, I think it should be possible to align the food policy with efforts to meet the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with a specific emphasis on nation-to-nation consultations.
My third recommendation builds on this and is actually the most important of my three recommendations. I strongly urge the government to take this opportunity to create a long-term and durable governance mechanism to help establish food policy on an ongoing basis.
As members of the committee may be aware, a number of attempts have been launched over the last few years by civil society and by industry to develop food policy. In one way or another, many of these attempts have not really had the long-lasting impact that we hoped they would. Although there is debate as to why, my own feeling is that one of the reasons past attempts have failed to achieve the lofty goals they've set is simply because the federal government was never at the table and never willing to show leadership. But this is changing, and with your efforts we're making serious progress here.
I strongly urge you to consider that one of the outcomes of this entire process be the creation of a long-term and durable governance mechanism that would promote the future development of food policy in Canada. Governance for food policy has to be underpinned by principles like transparency, participation, accountability. It must be multi-sectoral. It must be multi-stakeholder. It must explicitly include indigenous peoples' participation. I believe you have an extraordinary opportunity to develop such a governance mechanism. Possible models could be a national round table for food or a national food policy council.
I'd like to highlight that a group of stakeholders, some of whom you've already met in committee, along with my own institution, the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, Food Secure Canada, the Maple Leaf Centre for Action on Food Security, and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, are about to launch a white paper on governance of food policy in Canada. I'd be delighted to share copies with committee members, if you're interested. This particular white paper will call for the creation of a national food policy round table. I am happy to take questions on that.
I'd like to quickly wrap up. I applaud the government's efforts to engage in food policy. It's complicated, difficult, and it's time that we did it. I am also very supportive of the collaborative vision that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has put forward, and through the regional consultations and the summit in June. I also think we can use this as an opportunity to take advantage of important trading opportunities while protecting our environment and ensuring safe and sustainable food for consumers.
I share the vision laid out by the report from the Advisory Council on Economic Growth that we can work to ensure Canada is the world's trusted supplier of safe, sustainable food for the 21st century. I believe that developing a national food policy which must include some sort of durable governance mechanism like a national food policy council is the right way to proceed.