May 14, 2019
Re: Bill C 281
Honourable Senators,
My sincere thanks for taking the time to considering Bill C 281 and for allowing us to tell you why the date needs to be amended to reflect Canada’s agricultural and culinary reality.
Bill C 281 is a Private Members bill sponsored by MP Wayne Stetski (Kootenay- Columbia, B.C.) and, in it, proposes that the Friday before Thanksgiving be designated as National Local Food Day for Canada. At no time in the process that seems to have begun in 2016, did MP Stetski or his office contact me for advice or counsel or even collaboration in the creation of the Bill. Other than meeting him in his riding in the spring of 2016, our first personal interaction was this past Monday on May 13, 2019, a full 3 years after the process began. Curiously, Food Secure Canada didn’t seem to know of the existence of Food Day Canada although we’re a paid up Member of their organization.
For 15 years Canada’s food community has come together on Saturday of the August long weekend to celebrate Food Day Canada® / Journée des terroirs as Canada’s local food day. It’s a grass roots movement that spans the nation at this magnificent time of year. Local food abounds; summer is at its often-steamy height and Canadians are ready to party while honouring those who feed us so very well.
Food Day Canada – Journée des terroirs in the only national food day in any country on earth. It was for this work that I received the Order of Canada in 2012.
As the Founder of Food Day Canada ~ Journée de terroirs, I am writing to voice my opposition to Bill C 281 as it stands. I am deeply concerned as are many of my colleagues who have written to you collectively and individually.
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Food Day Canada’s goal is to ensure that for at least one day of the year it is impossible for any Canadian consumer, anywhere, to ignore the culinary and agricultural talent that is part of our collective story.
We would welcome an amendment to the date of Bill C 281 so that the celebration can REMAIN INCLUSIVE. But in the meantime, WE ARE DOING IT!
Having a Local Food Day is not just about the competitive advantage it encourages for our agricultural and culinary food chain, it’s about culinary sovereignty. It’s about putting Canada on the menu at home and around the world.
From researchers to farmers, from home cooks to historians, Canadians have understood that their food and food traditions can stand on any world stage and that Canadian-grown ingredients are the finest on the planet.
Food Day Canada / Journée des terroirs is free and open to all Canadians and there’s NO fee to participate. All Canada is welcome.
Our journey began when the borders were closed in 2003 to beef exports. Whole communities were devastated.
BSE was a farming disaster but it was not a culinary one.
We were reminded that the Duty of a Citizen is to NOT mind your own business.
We named it the World’s Longest Barbecue and my Call to Action - to grill Canadian beef anywhere in the world at 6 p.m. on the Saturday of that August’s long weekend and send us your stories, reverberated across Canada and beyond.
Canadians responded and barbecued Canadian beef with wild abandon. It began as day dawned in Korea and ended as the sun set in Victoria. It was an astonishing time.
Before the internet, my In Box exploded. The archives are full of names you’ll recognize… Carolyn Bennett, Michael Chong, Murray Calder, Don Oliver.
And this engagement continued year after year. The internet evolved and, with it, so did Food Day Canada. Websites were built largely by volunteers.
As a seasoned journalist I hold up a mirror to our nation in all my writing. As the posts came in year after year from across Canada it was clear…something was happening. Canadians were celebrating WITH LOCAL FOOD. EVERYWHERE!
Whether I named it or not, that Saturday is Canada’s local food day. I did not pick it out of the air or pretend that Canada needs another day for local food…no
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politician can reimagine our culinary reality to his or her liking especially with no plan in place or any infrastructure to support it.
No lobby group can change Canada’s seasons, no matter how much they’d like to. No Bill can change or ignore the frost dates. Remember in 2018, on the proposed date, Calgary was buried in half a metre of snow.
I’m being criticized for thus protecting our local food producers from Local Washing. Trademarking local food can’t be done. I’ve provided expert opinion on just that subject at a Toronto hearing several years ago.
But Trademarking Food Day Canada is a way that we, as Canadians, can ensure that no international conglomerate or even one of our own can abscond with the idea and turn it inside out to suit themselves.
Our logo is shared far and wide with anyone who commits to one thing - to serve forth the ingredients from here in a spirit of celebration and inclusion!
MP Stetski was quoted saying that there was no commodity involvement and at another time that Food Day Canada is elitist.
Canada Beef begs to differ (please note their letter on behalf of Food Day Canada).
For two years running Pulse Canada, the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and Food Day Canada chefs promoted lentils and shared their amazing Canadian story and honouring Dr. Al Slinkard, the feisty scientist who founded the lentil industry for our nation.
The Love your Lentils winner - created by Food Day Canada Chef - was a burger from Chelsea, Quebec which you can now buy in Sobeys. Is that elitist? Hardly.
We helped create a series of historic recipes for Parks Canada. Our Chefs have cooked on board Canada C3’s legendary 150 day voyage from Toronto to Victoria. They have participated in the recent Canadian Plate competition at the EnerCare Centre with the Arrell Food Institute. These are men and women who walk the local food talk.
Food Day Canada and another major partner, the University of Guelph holds Innovation Awards with the criteria being Canadian content and creativity.
The winning chefs are lauded and honoured at the University as Canada’s brand advocates and they are also mentored, learning and tasting and given free rein to explore.
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In 2015 these same chefs began traveling outside of our nation…to the heart of American Gastronomy in Manhattan to the world renowned James Beard House. An invitation there makes a chef’s career. Next week 12 chefs are cooking.
In 2017 we published an ever-expanding list of 150 all Canadian ingredients…The first ingredient is WATER! The list’s live and it’s real. Anyone can access it. It’s downloadable and printable…just like our recipes and our pride-filled stories. And if you want to help someone understand Canadian cuisine direct them to the enormous page on our website, A Food Day in the Life.
Whether it’s a cod from Newfoundland or bison from Kelowna or Yukon Gold potatoes; Ontario craft beers or VQA wines, the stories are rooted in our land and we are promoting Canada for all its worth at every turn. Whether it’s at a long lunch in a Saskatoon field or on board an Adventure Canada ship fulll of tourists encircling Newfoundland, we are sharing Canada with the world.
To respond to this current challenge to my decades worth of work would take weeks so I’m providing a smattering of background details, a few examples of earned media and Ministerial letters that hopefully demonstrate not only the success of Food Day Canada~Journée de terroirs, but also the impact and its potential. There are a few of the Social Media Statistics and for interest, included are the frost dates for Canada.
It will give you a tiny glimpse of the massive volume of solid material that Mr. Stetski’s office actually missed when preparing this bill. Please note the Indian Times Daily article.
In 2018, we lit the CN Tower…and in trending at #1 across Canada we beat out LeBron James and Barack Obama.
This year we are illuminating all of Canada…from Nfld to Victoria. In celebration of our food and our food ways. We have broadcast time booked across the country.
In looking ahead to this year’s Edition of Food Day Canada~ Journée de terroirs on August 3rd, Mr. Stetski and his team are most welcome to Join the Party along with every other Canadian who cares about our local food supply and those who set our tables so well. Whether it’s shopping in a Nova Scotia Farmers Market; at the huge party at the base of the CN Tower; at the Yukon Culinary Festival; eating a burger watching the lights bathe Niagara Falls in red & white or simply in the backyard of a friend we know that THIS is OUR Canada, strong, proud and absolutely delicious!
Warmest regards,
Anita Stewart C.M. LLD, M.A. (Gastronomy)
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Founder – Food Day Canada Food Laureate – University of Guelph FoodDayCanada.ca
ATTACHMENTS AND LINKS:
Media Release; The Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, July 29,2010
Letters of Support: Restaurants Canada Canada Beef
Ministerial Greetings 2018:
The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, July 2018 https://fooddaycanada.ca/featured-article/a-ministerial- greeting-2/
The Honourable Ernie Hardemann, Minister of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs, Province of Ontario, July 2018 https://fooddaycanada.ca/featured- article/from-ontarios-minister
Social Media and Lighting the CN Tower – THANK YOU CANADA! https://fooddaycanada.ca/food-day-canada-2018/thank-you-canada-2/
Frost dates across Canada (Gardening for Dummies) with additional link for specific cities https://www.dummies.com/home-garden/gardening/gardening-basics-for- canadians-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/
EAT NORTH: 15 years of Food Day Canada https://eatnorth.com/mallory- frayn/15-years-food-day-canada-exploring-history-and-growth-event
Forbes Magazine https://www.forbes.com/sites/everettpotter/2018/06/03/anita-stewart-food- day-canada/#575772aa269f
James Beard House, NYC https://www.jamesbeard.org/events/international-the-flavors-of- canada?category=Dinner
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