Household food insecurity in Canada, Part 2: public policy responses and solutions
Date: Thursday, February 17, 2022
Time: 13:00 - 14:00 ET
To register, CLICK HERE
This webinar will draw on findings from Canadian research and recent international comparative studies to interrogate the relationship between the prevalence and severity of household food insecurity and social policy, considering family and child benefits, wages, pensions, housing and food subsidies, and the public funding of charitable food assistance programs. Building on this body of evidence, we will discuss key elements of effective policy responses to address food insecurity in Canada, considering the centrality of income security to this problem.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:
- To recognize how federal and provincial policy decisions that impact households’ financial circumstances relate to the prevalence and severity of household food insecurity in Canada;
- To appraise current policy and programmatic responses to food insecurity in relation to key facets of the problem.
Speakers: Valerie Tarasuk, PhD (University of Toronto) and Herb Emery, PhD (University of New Brunswick)
Moderator: Bénédicte Fontaine-Bisson, PhD (University of Ottawa)
About the Speakers:
Dr. Valerie Tarasuk is a Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Her primary research focus is household food insecurity. She has led several tri-council research grants to elucidate the scope, nature, and health implications of this problem in Canada, assess the effectiveness of community responses, and determine how public policies and programs impact food insecurity prevalence and severity. For the past decade, she has led PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program designed to identify effective policy approaches and mobilize knowledge to reduce household food insecurity in Canada.
Dr Herb Emery is an economist and public policy scholar who holds the Vaughan Chair in Regional Economics. Dr Emery came to the University of New Brunswick from the University of Calgary, where he has been Full Professor in Economics and Research Director for The School of Public Policy. He has previously been the Svare Professor in Health Economics, a joint position in the Department of Community Health Science in the Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Economics. From 2010-2015, he served as managing editor of Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de politiques, Canada's foremost journal examining economic and social policy. Dr Emery is also a founding member of PROOF, and his landmark work with Lynn McIntyre and Daniel Dutton on food insecurity and public pensions has been critical in shifting the discourse on policy responses to this problem.