Mr. Speaker, I am very happy today to stand in support of this bill. I would like to thank my friend across the way from Kootenay—Columbia for bringing forth this bill for us to recognize the importance of local foods by having a local food day.
I support this bill because it gives us an opportunity to celebrate our nutritious and delicious local foods. In fact, as the day has gone, we have heard a great deal about different recipes and local foods, and there is a lot of excitement about these opportunities. It is also a chance for us to talk about the importance of where our food comes from, how it is grown, and who is growing our food. It is an opportunity for us to have those conversations and celebrate at the same time.
When I heard about this day, the first thing that came to my mind was one of my family traditions, which is that every year around Thanksgiving we go to an apple orchard together to pick apples. It is one of those great family events for us. We go out, spend some time together, and get to have some wonderful apples. There is really nothing like an apple freshly picked from the tree when it is in season. It is the most wonderful thing. It is also a chance for us to explore the country and meet some of our farmers.
In addition, we get to go and pick other fruits and vegetables. It was always of importance for me to take my children out as they were growing up, and we would pick raspberries, strawberries, potatoes—which was very messy—peas, and all those types of things. It was very important to me for us to learn, as people growing up in the city, about the importance of our farmers and where our food comes from.
We do not always have to leave the city to do that, though. There are opportunities right in our community. One of the things I celebrate every spring is the opening of the farmers' markets in my community. It is a wonderful chance for people to get together and see neighbours, and also to talk with farmers and buy local food.
In only two weeks, I am looking forward to one of the farmers' markets opening up, the East York Farmers' Market at the East York Civic Centre. It is there every Tuesday starting May 15, and runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. It has great food, and it is really nice to see people coming together outside of the Civic Centre to celebrate our local foods.
Shortly on the heels of that, we will have the Leslieville Farmers' Market opening up. That one is also fun. There is great music along with the food. It is a chance to bring people together. Every Saturday starting May 20, at Jonathan Ashbridge Park, people will be out and celebrating local food.
Having a local food day is a chance for us to talk about how we can do more of this, more bringing people together in cities and celebrating our local foods.
Not to be left out, the last farmers' market that is going to be opening up in my community is the Withrow Park Farmers' Market. It is every Saturday, starting June 2, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. That is another place where they have different community events, such as “100 in 1 Day”, where people were able to learn how to build homes for bees and all of those types of things. We learn about pollinators and food issues while we are there.
As I said, having a local food day really encourages us to have that conversation about the importance of our local foods. It is a chance to highlight people working in the farmers' markets and their volunteers, the farmers who bring the food to the markets, and learn about everything we can do to make sure we protect the lands on which this food is grown. That is another important aspect.
I found it very interesting that a poll of Ontario consumers conducted by Environics Analytics in partnership with the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation in 2007 found that 80% of Ontarians polled preferred to buy locally grown produce. In fact, 91% of the people polled said that they would buy locally grown food if they could find it in the grocery stores. The poll shows that in my home province of Ontario—and I expect this is similar across our country—people support local food production. They actually seek it out and would really like that to be something they can find in their stores.
In Toronto, one of the places where those local foods can be found and are grown is in our Greenbelt. I cannot emphasize how important our Greenbelt is in the greater Toronto area to Ontario, and really across our country, for food.
In fact, Ontario's Greenbelt is the world's largest permanently protected greenbelt. It has almost two million acres. It protects farmland and forests, but also agricultural lands. It really surprised me that it is the world's largest greenbelt and, not only that, of the approximately two million acres, over 900,000 acres of the Greenbelt are farmland. As it is so close to the city of Toronto, local food day would be an opportunity for people to explore and get to know more about the Greenbelt that surrounds them. In fact, if the weather is nice, people could even choose to explore, on local food day, the Greenbelt by cycling, because there are cycling trails. There are 462 kilometres of cycling routes through the Greenbelt. What a wonderful opportunity to cycle along those routes and see some of our great farms close by.
As we celebrate local food day, it is also important to think about how we can promote and support farmers. It is a chance for us to grow an awareness of the importance of our local farmlands. I do not want us to underestimate the importance of that conversation because, as has happened recently in conversations members have had in their communities, people tell us that they believe there are better uses for our agricultural land. They tell us that we should be using some of the Greenbelt for other uses, such as development. Local food day would give us an opportunity to highlight the importance of protecting the Greenbelt. It would give us a reason to have conversations with people so they could learn more about why we need to make sure those agricultural lands are protected.
We can talk about the reasons we like our local food and recipes, but it is also about healthy food that we can grow locally. It is good for our environment to have these green spaces, It is good for our economy, which people do not always talk about. Local food and our agricultural markets are very important to our economy as well.
Finally, as we have been talking today, people have shared recipes and talked about their favourite restaurants and foods in their areas. It is about community as well. It is wonderful that food is a way to bring people together and if we have local food day, I am excited to push that forward, have the conversations, and also eat some wonderful foods together.