Great resource from our team at @foodfirstnl.ca to inform your municipal vote! www.foodfirstnl.ca/blog/voting-...

Sharing a gift link to a gift of a article. As a Southern Ontario Millenial Robert Munsch was both a literary and a physical presence. I sat at his feet many times and I never fully understood how famous he was. This article added a lot to my understanding of him. He'll be so missed.

Come meet the St. John's city council candidates running for the at-large seats "under the whale" tomorrow. They'll be serving up their visions for the city.

One thing I really enjoy about having a staff team that works (partly) remotely is all the different scenery we get on our team calls. The winner this week is definitely the person working from the deck of a longliner off the coast of Labrador!

Nice to be back in the Happy City space to speak to folks at their Campaign School. Municipal elections are this October - get out and run!

With our staff spread across the province, bringing us all together is tricky, but always the highlight of the season! To say there was a lot of gratitude and joy in the room at this year's Staff Gathering is an understatement.

Grey day on the West Coast today but the @foodfirstnl.ca Food Hub is full of colour.

Spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at the Autism Society Greenhouse for the Food Producers Forum AGM. Lots on the go with their work, including a shiny updated website at www.foodproducersforum.com

The data dump that our team at @foodfirstnl.ca waits for every year is here - new food insecurity numbers (for 2023) from the Canadian Income Survey. The news is... not good. 30.1% of NLers were food insecure in 2023, up from 26% the year before. Third highest rate of the provinces.

A very useful graph/thread here!

Labradorians, it's survey time! Our team at @foodfirstnl.ca has a survey out to gather some info about what kinds of country foods people want to eat. This will help inform all sorts of work happening in Labrador right now. Survey link is here: survey.alchemer-ca.com/s3/50271634/...

The end of the carbon rebate is unquestionably bad for low income households. Life just got more expensive for people who can least afford it.

A fun little cat to let out of the bag this week (I'm on the St. John's Public Libraries Board) is that we're hoping to move the Michael Donovan Library from it's itty-bitty storefront (1600 square feet!) to a bigger more accessible spot in the Village. It's not a done deal yet, though! (1/5)

We've got town hall meetings coming up Friday at lunch and Tuesday at supper! Good food and good chats for sure. Register at www.77charter.ca

Canada now has a national school food program now that all provinces and territories have inked funding deals with Ottawa, by @davemcginn.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic... via @theglobeandmail.com   @chsfcanada.bsky.social

Looking forward to speaking to some smart folks for this one!

This is neat! Designs are regionalized so there are some Atlantic Canada ones that look pretty nifty.

Dark times these days so it's nice to have some dreaming to do. Won't you join us? 77charter.ca is the spot!

I'll be on CBC radio in Labrador this morning at 7:40 Labrador time, talking tariffs and what they mean for our food systems. Listen in if you're in the Big Land!

Some thoughts on the trade war, now posted on the @foodfirstnl.ca blog. Things are going to be hard, but there are the beginnings of a road map on how to respond.

We just finished up a fun afternoon launching this thing with some great friends and colleagues. It's pretty neat to look back on a year's work and have so much to talk about. Super-proud of our team at @foodfirstnl.ca today.

Going on air with the CBC St. John's Morning Show around 7:20 to talk school food! There's a big survey out and a ton of opportunities coming. Listen in if you can!

All are welcome to join us this Thursday as we look back on our work in 2024 and plan for 2025. Enjoy some light refreshments, explore our new home, and let us know what you'd like to see happen at Charter Avenue -- YOUR new community food space! Register now: www.foodfirstnl.ca/community-up...

I'm sure folks in Labrador will be watching this one with interest.

BREAKING: New PBO Report estimates a Guaranteed Basic Income can reduce poverty by 40% nationwide at a net cost of just $3.6B/year and 1% impact on hours worked. Poverty costs Canada $80B+/year.

As we celebrate love and connection today, let's find ways to share that love with our communities. Volunteer, share a meal, or donate to an organization working in food insecurity. We can all help our neighbours and communities feel loved and cared for by championing the human right to food!

Hey St. John's drivers, the usual post-storm reminder from your friendly neighbourhood pedestrian: slow down and make some space! This soon after a big storm we're all in the road together, and my eyes are tired from all the driver stare-downs I had to do en route to work this morning.

A social and environmental justice coalition is hoping the NWT government will consider its proposal for a basic income guarantee program. cabinradio.ca/220845/news/...

I've spent a good part of my day (like many of us) thinking, reading, and talking about tariffs - specifically, what they will mean for food security and insecurity here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Thread ahead on what the impact will likely be and what the response should look like. (1/12)

Back on the airwaves at around 5:05 to talk tariffs and food security on CBC's On the Go. Definitely the focus of our thinking at @foodfirstnl.ca today.

Heading into the VOCM studio this morning to give some @foodfirstnl.ca perspective on the impacts of the trade war on our Food systems (spoiler alert: it's bad). On air around 8:10 this morning.

Big room full of friendly faces at the NL Federation of Agriculture Symposium in St. John's. Lots of energy, staring down some big changes. Excited to be into this gathering for the next few days.

Really nice look at what food security programs look like when they're built by northerners, for northerners. @foodfirstnl.ca had a chance to bring Joseph Murdoch-Flowers from Qajukturvik over to Labrador last year to work with folks there, and it was super-inspiring.

Small @foodfirstnl.ca website update with some fun implications. We finally have a "Get Involved" page, and that links to a really exciting new thing: a new fund for Indigenous students doing work on food systems that we're partners on. Looking forward to seeing the work! (1/4)

Dropped the ball for Human Rights Day on Bluesky (my bad) but here are a few of our belated thoughts: Canada helped to create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights back in 1948. In doing so, they agreed that food is a basic human right. Now (76 years later), 1 in 4 Canadians are food insecure.

New bus route just dropped! Express connector along the Parkway from Village Mall to Avalon Mall to MUN. Starts January 6! www.metrobusmobile.com/v3/schedules...

This isn't the kind of headline that gets a lot of attention, but it is some important legislative moves towards more affordable housing. Changes to NL's planning act that explicitly enable inclusionary zoning and community benefit agreements. (1/2) www.gov.nl.ca/releases/202....

December is filled with calls for generosity and this year feels even moreso. Food banks are regulalry breaking visitation records and they need donations. Yet we know that food charity can't solve food insecurity. We need income-based solutions if we want to make a difference. So what can we do?

This Giving Tuesday has actually launched some really thoughtful public conversations about how to support charities while also pushing for the policy changes that would end the need for them. I was glad to be able to be a part of three media conversations about this today (1/4)

A design hill that I will die on is that first come, first served registration for community programs should be destroyed. Open registration for a while, then do a lottery to hand out the spots. The current system prioritizes people like me, who can log in at a specific time with a fast connection.

The kiddos on the walk to school enjoyed having to slide down Garrison Hill on their butts, the adults less so. Stay safe out there in St. John's, it's a black ice festival until the sun melts things a bit more!

Just had the best morning with our @foodfirstnl.ca crew doing our annual debrief and brainstorm about the Western NL Food Hub. So proud of that project. If you live anywhere between Gros Morne and Stephenville you should 100% check this out. (1/7) www.nlfoodhub.ca

Big day in boards for me! Our board at @foodfirstnl.ca has a new Chair (congrats @andremyers.bsky.social!) and some amazing new board members, and I just got home from my last AGM as Chair at the Tuckamore Festival, which is near and dear to my heart. Not bad for one Wednesday!

Tonight in Tactical Errors at bedtime with the 6-year-old: 1) Introducing the "You may take our lives, but you may never take...our freedom!" speech from Braveheart. 2) Agreeing to a 3-round wrestling bout before bath time. Learned that kiddo's wrestling name is "Watermelon Sugar, AAARGH"

One reason why Canadians feel bad about the economy right now: Food prices have still increased faster than wages. Story from @rtkwrites.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Kicking off the third and final day of Dig In 2.0. It's been a remarkable couple of days that really reinforces how much Atlantic Canada is leading the way on food systems work right now.

Kicking off Dig In 2.0 - the second Atlantic Canada Food Systems Summit - in Charlottetown with a great visit to the Legacy Garden and the always thought-provoking Paul Taylor. Going to be a great 3 days!

Working from the @foodfirstnl.ca Western NL Food Hub on order pickup day = shelves full of local deliciousness and chats with happy eaters as they come through. Nice way to pass a morning.

Bound for Corner Brook to do a couple talks on advocacy and policy - including this Green Drinks event which is open to the public, so drop on down, West Coast pals!