Celiac Canada Officials and Local MPs Visit the Farncombe Institute
On Friday, August 23, we had a very fruitful meeting with Melissa Secord (CEO, Celiac Canada), Jennifer Stebbing (past president, Celiac Canada), and Liberal MPs Sonia Sidhu (MP, Brampton) and Filomena Tassi (MP, West Hamilton and Ancaster and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario). We visited facilities and basic research labs at the Farncombe Institute and the specialized Celiac Clinic.
The goal was to establish a clinical and research collaboration to raise celiac disease awareness in the community and facilitate better access to treatment for celiac disease. More specifically, we discussed how to:
- Make life more affordable thereby improving quality of life and health outcomes by changing current tax regimes to help Canadians better claim the true cost of their medically required diet
- Improve inclusivity and access to safe gluten-free food through federal programs, regulations and institutions such as long-term care and institutional care, federal transportation, food labelling and food ingredient safety (CFIA, Health Canada
- Improve research funding and clinical trial development in Canada
