Upcoming Event: Domestic Hunger in the USA & Canada – Towards Food & Social Justice

Tuesday, October 2nd  |  7:00pm – 8:30pm

Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House (800 East Broadway, Vancouver)

The Vancouver Food Policy Council is pleased to partner with the UBC School of Social Work to offer this unique panel discussion as part of the 2018 Sustenance Festival.

Join us for an evening of conversation with authors Graham Riches and Andy Fisher. Both of their recently published books critically explore the root causes of food insecurity in the Global North. Their work puts the adequacy of food banks on trial as a primary solution to this nation-wide issue. We will hear from both authors, and open up the room for conversation and questions from the audience.

Andy Fisher is a leading national expert on community food security in the USA, and author of the recently published Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti Hunger Groups (MIT Press, 2017). He is a co-founder of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC), which has successfully brought together food security advocates across the country and influenced federal nutritional legislation. More recently he served as the Executive Director at Portland Fruit Tree Program (2015-2017). Andy Fisher currently consults on various food system organizations and speaks throughout North America about his vision for addressing hunger.

Graham Riches is a former Director of UBC’s School of Social Work (1998 – 2008), and author of Food Bank Nations: Poverty, Corporate Charity and the Right to Food (Routledge, 2018). He is a co-founder of Vancouver Food Policy Council and has written extensively about food poverty in Canada and first world hunger in wealthy nation states from a right to food perspective.

Moderated by David Speight, Vancouver Food Policy Council Co-Chair, Executive Chef & Culinary Director, UBC Food Services

Co-hosted by: UBC School of Social Work and Vancouver Food Policy Council in collaboration with the 2018 Sustenance Festival.

Light refreshments with be provided. No RSVP required to this free event.

Accessibility

  • Venue has physically accessible doorways for wheelchair access
  • Venue has elevator/ramp to access event space
  • Venue has physically accessible washrooms

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All Our Father’s Relations Film Screening

The Vancouver Food Policy Council is pleased to invite you to join us for a special documentary film screening of All Our Father’s Relations, followed by a panel discussion.

When: Thursday, May 31st – 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Doors open at 6:30pm. Film starts at 7pm. Panel starts at 8pm.

Where: Science World at TELUS World of Science, 1455 Quebec St, Vancouver, BC. View Map.

The venue and washrooms are wheelchair accessible. Gender neutral washrooms are available on-site.

Tickets are $15 – available through Eventbrite. Share the event with friends and family on Facebook.

We acknowledge that we are on the unceded, occupied, ancestral and traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations.

As we strive to understand our own relationships to each other and the land through food, it is important for us to also recognize the historical and ongoing colonization and settlement of Indigenous peoples and lands that make it possible for us to be here as settlers.

About the Film

All Our Father’s Relations (祖根父脈) is a documentary film telling the story of the Grant siblings’ journey to rediscover their father’s roots and to better understand his fractured relationship with their xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) mother. Raised primarily in the traditions of the Musqueam people, the Grant family and their story reveals the shared struggles of migrants and Aboriginal peoples today and in the past.

Panel Discussion + Special Guests

Join us afterwards for a panel discussion with Alexandra Henao-Castrillon, Hayne Wai and Howard E. Grant to explore how the erasure of Indigenous and minority communities’ food contributions impacts current society and actions.

Alexandra Henao-Castrillon is originally from Colombia. She has worked supporting and advocating for migrant farm workers in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley for the last 6 years. She is a founding member of the Migrant Workers’ Dignity Association

Hayne Wai is a longtime advocate, researcher, and author on Vancouver’s Chinatown and Strathcona. He is a founding member and past president of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC and a former board trustee of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden and continues his involvement with both organizations. Hayne worked for the federal and provincial governments and was more recently a sessional instructor at UBC’s Faculty of Education. He has served on government, post-secondary and community committees on anti-racism, diversity, human rights and multiculturalism including the recent city advisory committee on Historical Discrimination Against Chinese in Vancouver. Panelists and participants will explore topics ranging from Reconciliation efforts, migrant farm labour organizing, and other challenges we are facing in just and sustainable food systems.

Howard E. Grant was born and raised in the Musqueam community. He was one of the fortunate children who did not attend residential school, giving him the benefit of learning his culture, values and teachings from his elders in his every day life. Mr. Grant is his family’s cultural speaker and is a historian and cultural leader of his extended family. As a result of this, Howard was given the honour by the elders of his extended family to carry the name qiyəplenəxʷ, a name known and respected throughout Coast Salish territories. Mr. Grant is currently the Executive Director of the First Nations Summit. The First Nations Summit is comprised of a majority of First Nations and Tribal Councils in British Columbia, providing a forum to address issues related to Aboriginal Title, Rights and Treaty negotiations as well as other issues of common concern. He is also a long serving member of Council from his home community of Musqueam.

Sarah Ling was born and raised as a 4th generation Chinese Canadian in Prince Rupert, B.C. on Tsimshian territory. She is a Project Manager with an Indigenous focus at the University of British Columbia at St. John’s College as well as Student Housing and Hospitality Services, where she produces and manages both Indigenous and Chinese Canadian storytelling initiatives. She is the lead Producer of All Our Father’s Relations, and was recently elected President of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of B.C

Wild Salmon Caravan 2017

For thousands of years, the wild salmon have been our most important Indigenous food, and cultural and ecological keystone species in BC. They are an indicator of the health and integrity of the Indigenous land and food system on which the health and functioning of the entire agri-food system is based. They feed the entire Pacific Temperate Rainforest as well as many species including the bears, the wolves, the eagles, and our families and communities.

We invite everyone to come out in colourful and creative expressions of love for wild salmon in parades, banners, posters, music, storytelling, regalia etc.

Wild salmon hear our songs!

Celebrate the spirit of wild salmon!

Transform the darkness surrounding the industrial storm that is killing wild salmon.

Swim with us! Get involved in the #WSC2017.

4th annual Britannia School Garden Film Fundraiser

Funds raised will help to support youth, children and families food gardening at:
Britannia Secondary School
SEGA Girls School in Tanzania (Britannia’s twin garden)
Eastside Family Place Summer Garden Program (at Britannia)

Friday, April 4th, 6pm. Films start at 7pm
Astorino’s Hall, 1739 Venables St.
$10 – $20 suggested donation
Silent auction, food, wine and beer for sale,

View two outstanding new films:
A River Changes Course  – Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at Sundance 2013, A River Changes Course tells the story of three families living in contemporary Cambodia as they face hard choices forced by rapid development and struggle to maintain their traditional ways of life as the modern world closes in around them

Dancing Salmon Home  – Winner of the Best Documentary Feature award at the American Indian Film Festival, 2012, Dancing Salmon Home tells the story of the Winnemem First Nation in California who travel to New Zealand to meet their salmon relatives for the first time in generations and return those fish to their rivers of origin that are being un-dammed.

Check us out on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/670806622976550/#

Hope to see you there!

Webinar: Local Food Procurement in a Free Trade Environment

If you are working to bring healthy local foods into public institutions – schools, universities, health care facilities etc…here’s an exciting opportunity to learn more.

Local Food Procurement in a Free Trade Environment
National webinar brought to you by Farm to Cafeteria Canada and Sustain Ontario.
Tues. April 16th – Noon PST (30 -45 minutes duration)
Register here >>
Guest Speakers: Ken Babich, Canadian Public Procurement Council (based in BC)  and Kyra Bell Pascht – Environmental Lawyer (Based in Ontario)
To stay connected with Farm to Cafeteria Canada visit the National Website – www.farmtocafeteriacanada.ca

The Right to Food in Canada: A Community Conversation

Monday, March 4, 2013 from 9-11am
In the Town Hall Room at Vancouver City Hall (453 West 12th Avenue)

* Please arrive a few minutes early as the event will start at 9am *

Olivier

On March 4 Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, will be presenting his report on Canada to the UN Council on Human Rights. Food Secure Canada is providing a platform for Mr De Schutter to share his conclusions in an interactive webinar with communities gathered across Canada.

His report, which can be downloaded from Food Secure Canada’s website, highlights a variety of hunger, health, aboriginal rights, and food systems (both land and water-based) issues, which we will continue to discuss once the national webinar has ended with a short panel and roundtable discussion facilitated by Brent Mansfield, the Co-Chair of the Vancouver Food Policy Council. Panelists include:

Graham Riches, Professor Emeritus, School of Social Work, UBC
Dawn Morrison, Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty
Aart Schuurman Hess, CEO, Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society
Fraser Stuart, Raise the Rates Campaign

We hope you will join us for this very important conversation that is a chance to show that we are not alone in thinking that Canada’s food system is unjust, unhealthy and unsustainable.

This event is open to the public and the media. Please distribute  For more information please contact Brent Mansfield –brentmansfield@gmail.com / 604-837-7667

Download event PDF

Sustenance Festival 2012: Check Out Our Assets

The Vancouver Food Policy Council and members of the newly minted Park Board Local Food Assets Task Force teamed up for an evening of discussion, performance and interactive displays. Food themed performances by burlesque performer Joanie Gyoza and musical guests the Wheely Slow Cooking Tour. VFPC co-chair Trish Kelly hosted a discussion and ideas and suggestions were captured by a graphic recording for the Vancouver Parks Board. Demonstration Food Friendly Neighbourhood curated by Village Vancouver Transition Town Initiative with displays, information and chickens, along with displays by the Neighbourhood Food Networks, the Vancouver Urban Farming Society, the UBC Farm Aboriginal Initiatives and more. Check out http://www.sustenancefestival.ca/

Thanks to everyone who came and all of the volunteers who helped to make it happen!

Photos from our event >>

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