- Target:
- The Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled
- Region:
- Canada
According to Food Banks Canada:
Thirteen percent of Canadians live in a state of food insecurity, which means they do not have reliable access to adequate amounts of safe, good-quality, nutritious food. The root cause of hunger in Canada is low income, which consistently affects more than four million of us at any given time.
Food banks are an important method of addressing this need. Each month, over 850,000 people turn to food banks for help; more than one-third are children and youth. The people who visit food banks come from all backgrounds. They include families with children, employed people whose low wages do not cover basic living essentials, individuals on social assistance, and Canadians living on a fixed income, including seniors and people with disabilities. (n.d.)
However, “[t]he global fight against hunger is less about food and more about waste with one-third of the world’s food going uneaten every year” (Ostroff, 2015).
“Last December, a study [by Value Chain Management International Inc.] reported that Canadians waste $31 billion worth of food annually, with 10 per cent of that coming from grocery stores” (Ostroff, 2015).
On May 22, 2015 CBC News reported that France’s parliament
"voted to forbid big supermarkets from destroying unsold food, encouraging them to donate to charities or farms instead, as part of a national campaign against food waste. The amendment approved by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament…is part of a larger environmental bill….The bill would require big supermarket chains to donate goods no longer fit for sale to charities or to farms for use as animal feed or compost. That includes goods that were packaged wrong or damaged, but remain edible, or that are past a recommended use-by date but are not dangerous to eat. Foods that are past a firm expiration date would go to farms."
Disappointingly, The Huffington Post reports: “Canada doesn’t have legislation like France’s groundbreaking new law, but the Real Canadian Superstore and No Frills grocery store chains recently announced they are trying to reduce food waste by selling ‘Naturally Imperfect’ produce at a 30 per cent discount” (Ostroff, 2015).
Armed with these facts, we, the undersigned, take the following action.
References
CBC News. (2015, May 22). France to require large grocery stores to give unsold food to charities. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/france-to-require-large-grocery-stores-to-give-unsold-food-to-charities-1.3083422
Food Banks Canada. (n.d.). About hunger in Canada: The facts about food insecurity. Retrieved from https://www.foodbankscanada.ca/Hunger-in-Canada/About-Hunger-in-Canada.aspx
Ostroff, J. (2015, May 22). France’s grocery stores banned from wasting food under new law. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/22/france-food-waste-grocery-stores_n_7422090.html
We, the undersigned, call on the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled to initiate a Bill—a remedy within the power of the Legislative Assembly—that would answer/respond to our support for ending food waste in Alberta:
We ask the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled to forbid grocery stores from destroying unsold food—to give unsold food to the needy before it goes rotten.
We urge the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled to initiate a provincial campaign against hunger and food waste.
We ask the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled to act as an initiator to/of a Canadian national campaign against hunger and food waste.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Forbid Grocery Stores from Destroying Unsold Food petition to The Legislative Assembly of Alberta, in Legislature Assembled was written by RoQ_COMM555 and is in the category Health at GoPetition.