2019 CAFLP Annual Conference Panel Recap: “National Food Polices and the Regulation of Food”

What is the role of National Food Policies, and why do they matter? What is the strength of the new Food Policy for Canada, and how can it shape the development of policies in Canada?

Walking in to this talk, I was not convinced that the recent Food Policy for Canada is a document of any significance. The 13-page document is filled with goals and targets, action points and long term vision, but at first read, I didn’t see anything concrete, precise or enforceable. I support the goals contained, and want to see Canadian policy work in their direction. But with only 134M budgeted over the next 5 years, and no concrete programmes, I wasn’t sure if the Food Policy brought us any closer to the fair, accessible and sustainable system envisioned.

These hesitations brought me to the panel Towards a National Food Policy in Canada. I was curious to hear the perspectives on the policy from other points of views. And what I heard changed my own reading of the Food Policy for Canada.

Melana Roberts, Chair of Food Secure Canada, began the panel with an overview of the process which led to the Canadian food policy. She spoke of the crucial role Food Secure Canada and other community organizations played in bringing food to the table, so to speak, and shaping political action. Through public consultation, election campaigns and a national summit, a new narrative was built around what is food in Canada. Although, to use Melana’s words “it was not a slam dunk process,” the Food Policy for Canada has created a space in which to approach the many facets of food as a system, where interlaced and interacting domains can come together. This process is essential, for “we need to look at the systemic root of challenges we face.”

The development of the policy and the structure of its implementation is also being studied by American scholars, such as Laurie Beyranevand (Vermont Law School) and Emily Broad Leib (Harvard Law School), who see the Canadian process as a source of inspiration for US action on food systems. That alone, a policy as a source of inspiration and a space for collaboration, is powerful. If a document, and the process of its creation, can bring diverse actors together and create the opportunity to think differently about food and agriculture, it is worth investing in. 

It is true that the policy is not a strong binding document. But that does not mean it has no use, or holds no power. The policy is now for me more than simply the document itself, and is filled with possibility of what it can become. The multilateral process of creation and the crucial role of community in giving the policy weight was a humble reminder that solutions to complex problems are not only to be found only in the written official documents themselves, but rather in the community that creates, surrounds and brings these documents to life.