The Government of Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy talks a lot about sovereignty. It talks about critical minerals, supply chains, manufacturing capacity and geopolitical instability. 

What it doesn’t talk about nearly enough is food. Guillaume Lhermie, director of The Simpson Centre for Agricultural and Food Policy at the University of Calgary, recently highlighted what my teams, partners and I have spoken about strongly over the last 13 years. Without a food sovereign country, we wouldn’t have reliable defence, growth and, what many struggle with, pride in the country we love. 

Right now, as you’re reading this, almost one in four people in this country are food insecure. Nearly 10 million Canadians, including 2.4 million children, live in households where meals are skipped, portions are reduced, or people simply don’t know where their next meal is coming from. At the same time, grocery prices continue to climb, food bank usage has exploded, and global instability is putting enormous pressure on already fragile systems. Requests for our meal programming, for free, have increased exponentially.Food insecurity is one of Canada’s most pressing social issues. In a world marked by escalating conflicts, climate........

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