Huntsville Councillor Jonathan Wiebe raised issue with information released by the health unit asking people to lobby their municipal candidates on a variety of issues, including food security.
Wiebe brought the issue up at Huntsville Council’s September 24 meeting and said while he agrees with the premise he noted that nowhere does the health unit mention growing your own food.
They talk about programs that would increase putting money in people’s pockets, whether it be pushing for basic income or upping stipends, etc. and nowhere in that material was there anything about encouraging people to grow their own food Huntsville Councillor Jonathan Wiebe
“And I know that the District has made a point of trying to focus or trying to stimulate more local agriculture and stimulate, we’ve done it here in the town, people growing food and having the ability and knowledge of growing food,” he added.
Wiebe said the information talks about food security and how awful it is when cupboards are bare, and yet there is absolutely no mention of growing your own food.
“So I just wanted to put that out to our District councillors; that it jumped out at me and I think it’s something that I’m going to certainly voice my opinion further on towards the Simcoe Muskoka Health Unit and I hope that you join me in that,” he said.
Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison said a few councillors have spoken to District CAO Michael Duben about the lack of communication between the health unit and the District. He said the health unit has received millions of dollars from the District since it amalgamated into the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, and there’s been very little communication with the public health organization.
“I don’t think we’ve received any reports from the Simcoe Muskoka Health Unit. They effectively take the money and do whatever they want. I think they probably talk to the folks in Simcoe a lot more because they’re a much bigger player and so our CAO is actually trying to get their attention to say that you know, we give Muskoka Tourism a much smaller sum of money and we make them report quarterly,” he said.
“They’ve sent out a number of items that I thought were sort of politically charged during the provincial election and that I thought might have been a little inappropriate, but they don’t really care what we think and so the province has set that up. I remember the brouhaha that created that problem in the first place… it was a big fight between the District and the Muskoka-Parry Sound Health Unit and they just chopped it up, put Muskoka with Simcoe and that’s how they shut us up,” said the Mayor.
Huntsville District Councillor Nancy Alcock said she had a similar reaction when she read that information. “The issues that they raised were completely politically charged and also ignorant of what the District has done.” She said the District had commissioned two separate studies from Ryerson to look specifically at local food production and what the District’s role could be from a planning as well as a social services perspective.
“So they talked about a food charter, they talked about the food co-op before the food co-op existed. So lots of great ideas came from that and in fact some of them were incorporated into the District Official Plan. So the fact that there was no reference to any of that was a bit discouraging, so I’m really happy you raised that,” she told Wiebe.
“Discouraging but not surprising,” added Aitchison. “I’m not sure they know we exist other than they have our mailing address and send us their stuff.”
Councillor Jason FitzGerald said the disconnect between the District and the health unit is disappointing. “It seems we could have a better relationship.” He said according to their literature, municipalities provide 21 per cent of their funding, which he described as considerable. “So maybe they should be more engaged.”
Aitchison told council the District CAO is trying to make inroads with the public health organization. “We’ll see what comes of that,” he concluded.
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Sherri McGrath says
Instead of talking, do something. Set up public veg gardens, lobby the provincial govt to increase min wage as promised and keep the guaranteed income pilot going. The residents of Muskoka need this. And stop using round up. It kills bees, plants and humans.
Rob Millman says
I agree totally with everything expressed in the article. Buried somewhat within, however, was mention of a food charter. I was on the original Committee in Town looking at food security: this quickly morphed into considering a Huntsville Food Charter. The District, at about that time, was also spitballing about a Muskoka Food Charter.
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It’s been quite a while now. Would you to know if anything has eventuated?