Growing Passions – Quebec City Parliament
It seems natural that in a country with a reputation for lovely gardens and so much greenery and food production that Quebec’s parliament should have dedicated spaces for a kitchen garden for both the public and the parliamentary cafe, plus a medicinal garden and other quirky demonstration gardens. A garden of 130 varieties of fruit and vegetables was planted in front of the parliament a couple of years ago, sending a message to the world that urban agricuture is something that is recognised and it is interesting to the public. People arrive with scissors and small plastic bags, harvesting herbs and salad vegetables from areas marked as available to the public, tourists savour raspberries and the demonstration specimen container gardens show a sense of humour – such as ‘bowl of cereal’, the ‘salad bar’ and a version of the French term of affection saying ‘ I love my (little) cabbage’. What a way to invite the public into the seat of power.
Growing passions – Canada’s food activists
A week spent in Toronto was an opportunity to meet with people leading Ontario’s food scene. Tours of Foodshare Toronto, The Stop and Green Barn were generously provided by busy staff and meetings with Wayne Roberts and Nick Saul were inspiring insights into the background and activities of the Toronto Food Policy Coalition and the development of Canadian Food Centres via the evolution of The Stop community food centre from its origins as a food bank.
Wayne’s book, recently revised, “No-Nonsense Guide to World Food’ is a must read – an ebook it is over 300 pages packed with essential reading about the world’s food system. Nick Saul’s book ‘The Stop: How the fight for good food transformed a community and inspired a movement’ is equally essential reading. How wonderful it was to be able to witness the origins of this cutting edge movement that is showing how community food centres should be integral to every community and neighbourhood, replacing a charitable model of food handouts with access to healthy fresh produce, citizen empowerment and food literacy.
Local shopping at Loblaw’s supermarket and the fantastic Evergreen farmers market showed how a Local Food Act can work to support producers and assist the community in accessing local produce – due to the work of Sustain Ontario and long standing Foodland Ontario branding. The government support for a Local Food Act is Ontario is ground breaking and achieving fantastic results in the community – have a look at their ‘Ontario Local Food Report’.
Having witnessed the future now its time to make this happen in Australia.
