Quatre jours après que j’ai affiché mon dernier message sur ce site – soit le 20 juin – j’ai subitement perdu ma mère. Même si elle avait 91 ans, et elle nous disait qu’elle sentait la mort venir, ce fut un choc. Cependant, elle voulait mourir, comme elle nous disait souvent. Heureusement la fin était passablement vite et sans douleur d’après le personnel de l’Hôpital Montfort, qui ont offert des soins extraordinaires dans ses derniers jours. Voici l’avis de décès en français et en anglais. Thanks also to the Funeral Cooperative of Ottawa and the family and friends that provided support to me and my family at this difficult time, including helping organize a wonderful celebration of mum’s extraordinary life in July.

Needless to say, much of the summer was spent doing what I needed to do, with the work still going on as my late mother’s executor and heir. Thank goodness we moved back to Ottawa from British Columbia a bit more than a year ago so that we got to spend more time with her and to facilitate my ability to close affairs. Of course, mum’s arrangements for her passing were in perfect order, which facilitates things.

On the professional front, it’s been satisfying to see a 2020 scoping review as well as a more recent 2022 tome published originally in German and now translated into English drawing on the foodscape concept I put forward in the 1990s. I never expected this work to evolve and take so many interesting developments around the world. It’s been an honour to be invited by the German scholars to collaborate and contribute to one of their upcoming volumes.

I’ve also continued to do extensive media commentary on the food crisis, both in Canada and globally. This included an interview with the CBC’s Carolyn Dunn in early August on the implications of grain shipments from the Ukraine on global food security, two interviews on A Little More Conversation, one in August and another in September, and a piece in Maclean’s on the rising cost of living. It was also a thrill to see one of my more scholarly publications come out as a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Urban Food Governance. Looking forward to some launch events this fall.

Finalement, ce fut un plaisir de participer au 21e Forum de Banff, cette fois à Charlottetown. Je participate de temps à autre à ce forum concernant les politiques publiques depuis son tout début. Voici la photo de groupe prise au bord de l’eau avec la coopération de la météo! At this year’s Forum, it was great to be invited to speak as part of a “Dockside Chat” panel on the topic of “Has Deglobalization Arrived” sharing reflections on global food insecurity.