Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us today.
I'd like to start with some questions for Mr. Vansintjan at Food Secure Canada, because we've heard a lot in our pre-budget consultations about food security. Certainly, in my own community, and I know in communities across the country, access to affordable food is a pressing issue for Canadians in this moment.
I was interested to see that a lot of your recommendations functionally focus on the supply side, particularly the recommendations related to community-owned grocery stores and addressing monopolies and interprovincial trade barriers. All of this is important, of course, but what we have been hearing from many groups at consultations is that food security is an issue of low income and that as a government, we need to look at addressing low income if we want to get at the issue of food security for Canadians.
We've heard from groups that talk about making the disability tax credit refundable. We've heard from groups that talk about increases to the Canada child benefit. We've heard from groups that want to see a focus on capping rents and investing in deeply affordable housing so that low-income people have money left over at the end of the month to purchase food.
I'm curious as to why your recommendations are so different. Perhaps you could speak to that. Of course, it would be great to do all those things, but why is that the case? What is your view on supply-side versus demand-side investments to address food insecurity?