April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

food program

Meal subsidy for the poor

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In a Star story today

Dr. David McKeown and members of Toronto’s board of health want the province to increase social assistance rates to include a “nutrition allowance” to help the poor pay for healthy meals.

Dr. Mckeown points out that a basic food basket for a family of four costs $538.43 a month.

Contrast this with the amount given to MPs to cover four days a week of food expense.

This means MPs in Ottawa four days a week during the time the House of Commons sits can get more than $17,000 a year in the form of meal money to use to pay their mortgages. And it is absolutely, unquestionably and inarguably wrong.*

*Garth Turner:The meals-for-mortgages scam [Read more…] about Meal subsidy for the poor

The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative

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OTTAWA – The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative – a proposal to make safe and healthy food available to all of Canada’s children – will help working families address real concerns relating to childhood obesity and malnutrition.

NDP children’s advocate Olivia Chow (Trinity Spadina) says the initiative calls for universal nutritious food programs to make breakfasts, snacks or lunches available to any child in Canada under the age of 18, in venues deemed most appropriate by each local community. This initiative will mean that no Canadian child will go to school hungry.

The initiative was unveiled today in Ottawa by a group of concerned Canadians led by Chow, Dr. Robert Cushman, former Medical Officer of Health for the City of Ottawa, and Ulla Knowles, a parent and Student Nutrition Facilitator at FoodShare Toronto.

Providing children with nutritious food has a long history.

Today most countries provide for at least one good meal per day. There has been some success here with school breakfast programs but they depend heavily on support from corporations who are not likely to be providing fruits and cheese and other foods children may not have access to at home.

[Read more…] about The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative