It’s been over 15 months since I joined Food Secure Canada as Executive Director. En français, c’est le Réseau pour une alimentation durable – un sens un peu différent – enfin, longue histoire… Food Secure Canada is a national, bilingual not-for-profit organization devoted to achieving a healthy, just and sustainable food-system through knowledge sharing, networking and advocacy, particularly at the federal level. Right up my alley! I’ve been based in Montréal most of the time since summer 2019 with occasional trips to Vancouver to see family. Comme de raison, depuis la pandémie, les voyages sont un peu moins fréquents…
The highlights since May 2019 have included both meeting and reconnecting with wonderful food activists, scholars and policymakers from coast to coast to coast, being highly involved in the launch of the Food Policy for Canada in June 2019, a parliamentary appearance, our Eat Think Vote campaign during the federal election, our AGM, visioning dialogue and board-staff retreat and a highly successful e-letter-writing campaign that resulted in 36% of all federal MPs being contacted by their constituents. In addition, in collaboration with the team, we’ve produced high quality and frequent media commentary in English and French including Le Devoir, two articles in Policy Options, one in July 2019 and the other in May 2020, the Hill Times, several mentions in iPolitics and an interview on CBC Sunday Edition with Michael Enright following the publication of our policy action plan on food system transformation in light of COVID-19. Speaking at a CARE/FAO webinar on the impacts of the pandemic was also exciting. Speaking engagements have been engaging and invigorating. We have been fortunate to both retain the confidence of a number of funders as well as attract new support while “changing the engine in mid-flight” with respect to making progress on long term strategic and operational issues. Thank you to our supporters. We were also delighted to welcome our sister, charitable organization – the Peoples Food Institute. Please join me and others in making a tax-deductible donation!
J’ai la chance de travailler aver du monde extraordinaire qui partagent une même passion et des valeurs. The most satisfying is seeing citizens take action and organizations taking up our work to bolster their own efforts, an example being West Coast Environmental Law. Furthermore, our organizational journey to work in a truly inclusive way to embrace the ways of thinking and knowing of Indigenous and racialized communities in a truly anti-racist and decolonized has been an opportunity for me to learn and grow as a leader. Never before have I had to bring together my food-systems work with what we used to call equity, diversity and inclusion (now considered a bit old fashioned by our inspiring, brilliant youth who are rightly pushing their elders to go further and deeper to challenge established societal power structures). Merci à tous et toutes au RAD!
