Towards a United Voice: OCFP’s Food Security Work
In Ottawa, the challenge of food insecurity is no longer an “emergency only” issue. It is a persistent reality for many households. The Ottawa Community Food Partnership (OCFP) exists precisely to help shift our collective response: away from fragmented charity-based models, and toward a more connected, community-led, systemic approach.
As part of Ottawa’s newly adopted Poverty Reduction Strategy (2025–2029), the Food Security Pillar Working Group provides a vital space for coordinated action, policy development, and alignment across sectors. The OCFP is proud to be deeply engaged in this group, sitting as the working group lead and alongside fellow OCFP partners including Just Food, Coalition of Community Houses, Parkdale Food Centre (through lived experience participant), the Ottawa Food Bank, Nutrition Blocs, and Belong Ottawa. We are working to ensure that voices across local food initiatives are represented, linked, and amplified in alignment with municipal and system-level decision-making.
One of the key upcoming events in this shared journey is the Food Security Symposium happening at the end of October. While there have been similar events in the past, we are clear in our collective voice to say that this symposium will be but a stepping stone. An opportunity to elevate the rising concerns in an increasingly troublesome climate. A day to sit with City staff and elected officials to talk about meaningful action that is both immediate and long-term. This is work that cannot happen in one day: it is ongoing and consistent.
We look forward to spending the day together, with the goal of addressing food insecurity through actual systems change, as we cannot continue down the current trajectory.
The Food Security Symposium design is currently being finalized.
We will keep you up to date on the plans for this event!
What OCFP Brings & Why a Unified Voice Matters
Since its founding in 2016, OCFP has supported a shift away from traditional food charity toward meaningful community engagement and food justice. Rather than see food programming in siloes, OCFP seeks to connect emergency food providers, health centres, community development organizations, resource centres, and food justice groups across Ottawa.
In 2024, OCFP refined its approach: we prioritized cohesion across the food sector, alignment of programming and messaging, elevating partner work, and leveraging community expertise in policy directions.
This orientation means that when the Food Security Symposium arrives, we are not showing up as a single voice, but working to carry forward the insights and experiences of many.
By aligning voices across partners, we aim to:
Reduce duplication and fragmentation in advocacy
Highlight complementarities in work (rather than competition)
Center the lived experience and frontline realities of those working in neighbourhoods
Strengthen leverage with decision makers (municipal, provincial, federal)
Ensure that proposed food security strategies are anchored in what is already happening on the ground
