Thanks, Chair.
Thanks to all the witnesses.
Mr. Vansintjan, thank you for being here. Thank you for the work that Food Secure Canada does, by the way. I've been following the organization for years. They wrote “A People's Food Policy for Canada” years ago. They worked on getting Canada's first national food policy since World War II. They were instrumental in advocating for the local food infrastructure fund. You made a recommendation about expanding that considerably.
My colleague Ms. Martin asked some really good questions about income security being part of food security. Notwithstanding those comments—I think they were really good—your focus today was on the structural elements within the economy. I think that's really important. Essentially, I take what you've said here today to mean that we need to rebuild the regional food systems that once were thriving in Canada, the local-based food systems.
Can you speak to how those shorter supply chains add to resilience in our food system at a time when it's vulnerable to a lot of the shocks that Ms. Higgins was talking about, the shocks that are international and global in nature?