Agriculture committee  Typically civil society ends up doing health, environment, and indigenous concerns. All of those concerns are wrapped up in civil society if you take agriculture as the one piece and governments at FPT levels as the other.

Agriculture committee  They are, but they would be separately represented. There's a difference between how agriculture would represent its own sustainability issues and how another environmental group would represent them, or how health considerations would be rolled in versus the case with a group that's very focused on health, so that's where civil society would be represented.

Agriculture committee  What I was showing was the cost to society. It would be $68 billion, if you do the accounting PHAC's way, and if you're really specific to the health care system, then it would be $26 billion. Specifically the agri-food industry, where a lot of the sugars, salts, and fats are added with the way food is processed—it's not grown that way but those extra things are added to it—brings in a revenue injection of $21 billion.

Agriculture committee  Nutrition north Canada currently subsidizes for the benefit of everyone at the retail stores. It doesn't focus on providing food access for people who have difficulty with food access. Their focus has been fresh food, which we all know is difficult to transport and has had its own challenges.

Agriculture committee  My third point that I didn't have an opportunity to speak to was about a governance mechanism. An intersectoral group of us just submitted—and I participated in that—a white paper on governance. We did talk about, in fact, what Cam spoke to, which was a national food policy council.

Agriculture committee  We have not said that we are looking to cut out red meat production, by any means.

Agriculture committee  It's not recommended to be consumed in large quantities every day. There's a difference between consuming smaller quantities of some of these higher carbon footprint sources of protein on a daily basis compared with not eating it at all. That goes back to looking at a variety of sources of protein.

Agriculture committee  Okay. Dieticians wouldn't teach it as “vegan is the way to go”.

Agriculture committee  Vegan is one way, but it's not the only way.

Agriculture committee  That's not how I read it. The guiding principle talked about a balance of foods and it named all of those in there.

Agriculture committee  That's what guiding principle one in Health Canada's newly released document is about.

Agriculture committee  I would say that the message we've been hearing from Health Canada in the food guide is very much like what the food guide has been saying in the past, so I'm a little bit puzzled by some of the reactions we've heard. I'm not sure that the food guide, and the emphasis on plant-based sources of protein along with animal-based sources of protein, is different from what the message has been in the past.

Agriculture committee  The sufficiency of income means that food is affordable in some regions where people have good incomes, but it's not affordable where people have low incomes. There, we talk about income supports and local supports. Nutrition north Canada subsidizes transportation only to selected communities for fresh foods in retail stores.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I'm Pat Vanderkooy, and I'm here with Dietitians of Canada. We're the national professional association for our regulated health profession. We provide leadership in shaping food and nutrition policy. We too congratulate the government on leading in the development of a food policy for Canada.

Human Resources committee  That's the other thing.