Ontario's local food legislation comes into effect in 2014

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario is the first province in Canada to have a Local Food Act aimed at increasing local food awareness and boosting sales after the legislation was passed unanimously at Queen’s Park Tuesday.

The Act will be “proclaimed into force” in the spring of 2014, says Mark Cripps, Ontario agriculture ministry spokesman. “Today is a day to celebrate,” he says. “The winner here is Ontario agriculture.”

The new legislation will increase local food awareness and stimulate sales by “setting local food goals and targets in consultation with sector partners,” the government says in a Nov. 5 press release. The legislation is “part of a strategy to build Ontario’s economy by making more local food available in markets, schools, cafeterias, grocery stores and restaurants. This will create jobs and expand the province’s agri-food sector.”

Cripps says the Act passing third reading unanimously shows how the legislature can work effectively to pass laws. “We believe as a government this (the Local Food Act) is just another tool in the kit to help support and grow the industry.”

Representatives from the two other parties in the Ontario Legislature say when the Liberals first proposed the legislation it was weak. But changes suggested by the Progressive Conservatives, local food groups, agricultural organizations and the New Democratic Party improved it.

Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman, the Progressive Conservative agriculture critic, says in a Nov. 5 press release their caucus helped to improve the Act by suggesting a number of changes that were adopted, including:

• Moving Local Food Week to the first week in June from the initially proposed week before Thanksgiving in October, which is Ontario Agriculture Week.
• Creating a 25 per cent non-refundable tax credit for farmers donating agricultural products to an Ontario food bank or community food programs.
• Expanding the definition of local food to include forest and freshwater foods, which will enable all regions of Ontario to increase local food production.

Mark Wales, Ontario Federation of Agriculture president, says the tax credit for farmers donating to food banks or programs should lead to a lot more farmers donating surplus produce. “We’ve supported that because the principle is good and it recognizes what people are already doing.”

Having Local Food Week in June is another plus, he adds. “Now we have two weeks recognizing local food and the importance of the agricultural industry in Ontario rather than one.”

NDP agriculture critic John Vanthof, MPP for Timiskaming-Cochrane, says their suggestion to extend the tax credit to processors that donate to food banks or programs in addition to farmers wasn’t picked up. But their proposal to change the government-reporting requirement to once a year instead of every three years – which was initially proposed – was adopted.

The reports will summarize the government’s local food activities as well as its goals under the Act and the efforts undertaken to meet them.

Despite the changes that were included in the Act, Vanthof says the Local Food Act “is still not a strong piece of legislation. It could have been stronger. But I don’t think it’s going to hurt anyone.”

Vanthof says hopefully their proposal of giving the tax credit to processors too could be reviewed at a later date. “No one disagreed” in principle with the idea of giving processors the credit but the NDP couldn’t get that suggestion adopted this time because the committee couldn’t make amendments in the usual way when this Act was being discussed, he notes.

The government keeps calling the Local Food Act an “aspirational piece of legislation,” he says. “But do you really need laws to create aspirations?” The NDP wanted the government to give the legislation some “real purpose,” Vanthof says. “After all it’s a law.” BF