Latest / The Future Herd / 19: The Permanence of Emergency, The Infrastructure of Care

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19: The Permanence of Emergency, The Infrastructure of Care · The Future Herd

• 0:00
  Jesse Hirsh: Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh.
• 0:01
  Welcome to the Future Herd.
• 0:12
  What does it mean when a food bank starts to look less like charity
• 0:16
  and more like infrastructure, A canary in the coal mine perhaps.
• 0:21
  Not a stop gap, not a temporary response something system level, something
• 0:26
  that grows as the system itself.
• 0:28
  Phrase in this episode, Neil Heddington walks us through that
• 0:33
  shift from the inside as CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto.
• 0:39
  He's not just responding to demand.
• 0:41
  He's mapping it, forecasting it, and in many ways revealing the deeper
• 0:45
  architecture of food insecurity In one of the wealthiest cities in the world,
• 0:51
  what emerges is rather uncomfortable.
• 0:54
  Food banks were never meant to become permanent institutions, and
• 0:58
  yet they've evolved into highly sophisticated logic logistical systems,
• 1:03
  moving massive volumes of food, coordinating thousands of volunteers
• 1:08
  using data and AI to anticipate need.
• 1:11
  They're efficient, they're effective, and their very effectiveness risks normalising
• 1:17
  the conditions that make them necessary.
• 1:21
  But that's only part of the issue because beneath the operations,
• 1:25
  beneath the policy failures, there's something else holding it all together.
• 1:29
  Culture, not as branding or messaging, but as a lib system of values.
• 1:36
  Dignity choice, respect that shape, how people are served, and how people show up
• 1:42
  to serve in a context defined by scarcity.
• 1:46
  Culture becomes the difference between a transaction and a relationship.
• 1:52
  This episode sits in that tension between failure and ingenuity, between
• 1:57
  emergency response and a permanent system between logistics and care.
• 2:05
  And in that space, a harder question begins to take form.
• 2:10
  If food banks have become essential infrastructure, what does that say about
• 2:15
  the systems we've built and the ones, quite frankly, that we've abandoned?
• 2:22
  Speaking of systems, we've built a reminder about our crowdsourcing
• 2:27
  project Commons dot the future herd.ca.
• 2:31
  It's a way to add interactivity to this podcast, and it's something
• 2:36
  you can do while you're listening, so go check it out right now while
• 2:40
  we tune in to our chat with Neil.
• 2:43
  Neil, welcome to the Future Herd.
• 2:45
  Neil Hetherington: Really glad, really grateful to be here.
• 2:49
  Jesse Hirsh: So the first question I love to throw out, my guess I'm
• 2:51
  calling it my RAR shot test, is, uh, what does the future mean to you?
• 2:57
  Neil Hetherington: The future mean to me.
• 2:59
  It is a very big question.
• 3:01
  Um, and it's very hard, you know, on the one side, uh, data right now, uh,
• 3:06
  says things aren't quite as good as they used to be, certainly in the food bank.
• 3:09
  Um, now we're serving one in 10 Torontonians.
• 3:12
  Gets their food from the daily bread food bank, and that's atrocious.
• 3:16
  Um, and, uh, and then you have all these concerns and anxiety about
• 3:20
  AI and the future of work and what that's going to, uh, to mean.
• 3:24
  And so that's the, uh, that's the, the, the, the dark side.
• 3:27
  But we all need sort of.
• 3:29
  The Hopi Changey stuff, and on the Hopi Changey side of things, um, I prefer to
• 3:34
  live with, uh, optimism and say, you know, is, is, are there, are there opportunities
• 3:39
  for us to, uh, to recalibrate so that AI is doing things that, you know, we, uh,
• 3:44
  we don't need to spend time doing so that we can spend more time with loved ones.
• 3:48
  Maybe I'm being way too optimistic, but, uh, but that's my, uh, my sincere hope.
• 3:53
  Jesse Hirsh: And we do try to do the.
• 3:55
  Hopey feel good stuff here on the future herd, but with the sobriety
• 4:00
  of kind to assess the challenges and, and some of the, to use a a, a, a
• 4:06
  phrase, I'm fond of the poly crises, uh, uh, that seem to be facing us.
• 4:11
  But before we get into that, I do wanna kind of do the
• 4:14
  usual biography or lore piece.
• 4:17
  Uh, only because I, I like to brag to people that I became a
• 4:21
  farmer 'cause I wanted to be on the front lines of climate change.
• 4:25
  But it, it strikes me, not only are you now on the front lines of food security.
• 4:30
  But you've previously had experience on the front lines of the housing crisis
• 4:35
  and, and I suspect that gives you a perspective on food and food security
• 4:40
  that is more W 360 or holistic than perhaps some of the other people in
• 4:45
  the sector, although I could be wrong.
• 4:47
  So give us a sense of kind of your history of leadership, because
• 4:51
  I think it runs pretty deep.
• 4:53
  And explain a little bit how you ended up.
• 4:55
  On on this particular side of the sector or focusing on this
• 4:59
  particular collection of issues.
• 5:02
  Neil Hetherington: Well, uh, my history is, uh, is one, uh, generally, uh, for
• 5:07
  the last 27 years in service, uh, in, in variety of ways in the nonprofit sector.
• 5:13
  Um, really two, uh, on the housing side and on the food security side.
• 5:17
  And they're, they're, they're, they're.
• 5:19
  Co-related.
• 5:20
  Um, I think my, uh, you know, not to go way back, but,
• 5:24
  Jesse Hirsh: It.
• 5:24
  Neil Hetherington: I had the awesome privilege of having a grandfather
• 5:27
  who is the international leader of the Salvation Army, and that, uh,
• 5:32
  infused me a sense of, uh, values and opportunity to be able to give back.
• 5:36
  Um, I've had the opportunity to work alongside some extraordinary
• 5:39
  people, um, whether volunteers or staff, and, uh, and, and.
• 5:46
  You know, that has been, uh, the motivation for me, uh, in, in my
• 5:50
  career, the, the vision of, you know, in the case of Habitat for
• 5:54
  Humanity, a world without poverty housing in the case of daily bread.
• 5:58
  A uh, a city and a country where, uh, where we eliminate food insecurity.
• 6:03
  And, and those are, those are, uh.
• 6:05
  Aspirational goals and, uh, and visions and, uh, and it's, it's, it's
• 6:11
  wonderful to get to work alongside so many volunteers who make that happen.
• 6:15
  Today is, uh, a part of international, uh, volunteer week, uh, appreciation week.
• 6:20
  And it's, you know, just after this I'll have the opportunity to go and thank,
• 6:24
  uh, the volunteers who, who give so, uh, generously to, to this mission.
• 6:30
  Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
• 6:30
  Right on.
• 6:31
  And you know, as a quick aside for listeners, if you put uh, Jesse
• 6:35
  Hirsch Salvation Army into Google, I did an interview, uh, with one
• 6:39
  of the leaders of the organisation.
• 6:41
  That's quite fascinating 'cause it is a really interesting, uh,
• 6:44
  and, and historical organisation.
• 6:46
  That's a very cool.
• 6:47
  Cool, uh, connection.
• 6:48
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah.
• 6:49
  Jesse Hirsh: Um, uh, one of the reasons I was eager to talk to you is, you know,
• 6:53
  when people talk about agriculture and tea, people talk about AgriFood, Toronto
• 6:57
  doesn't always fit into the conversation.
• 7:00
  you know, we are starting to look at food security here on the podcast
• 7:04
  and talking to different guests.
• 7:05
  Uh, Lori Nichol was on the show a couple episodes ago.
• 7:09
  I'm not sure our listeners really understand the, the dynamics
• 7:13
  of food insecurity in Toronto.
• 7:16
  And the, the, the, the, the, the context for the work that your organisation does.
• 7:22
  So even though Toronto people might take that stuff for granted,
• 7:26
  give us that big picture view.
• 7:28
  Gi give us a sense of not just what you and the organisation do, but
• 7:33
  the unique challenges of Toronto within the Canadian context.
• 7:38
  Neil Hetherington: Sure there's a, there's a lot in there and you know,
• 7:40
  a lot of people, you're right, don't think about Toronto in the agricultural
• 7:44
  sense, but you know, it, it doesn't take that long to go back in history.
• 7:47
  Where Campbell Soup that was made in Toronto, there was
• 7:49
  a whole lot of processing.
• 7:51
  We used to have canneries here in the city, and we don't have any of that now.
• 7:54
  We don't have, uh, uh, really, I don't, I don't believe there's a cannery actually.
• 7:59
  A company making cans in the province of Ontario, let alone the country.
• 8:02
  I'm not, uh, I'm not entirely sure.
• 8:04
  I think we ship our metal down and so we've really, uh, been an integrated
• 8:08
  economy and, uh, a orange man to the South has told us, you know,
• 8:12
  that is, that is a security risk.
• 8:14
  Um, and so we need to, uh, uh, to regroup on, on that front.
• 8:19
  Um, that's on the sort of, on the macro sense on the micro, um, what's
• 8:24
  going on in terms of food insecurity is, uh, is, is problematic as I said.
• 8:29
  So you think about nationally, about 10 million Canadians have some degree of food
• 8:35
  insecurity that's outta 40, uh, million.
• 8:38
  And so that's, that's a problem.
• 8:40
  Uh, the, uh, the, the next side of that would be just in the local
• 8:44
  context, it's about 10% who rely on food banks just in Toronto.
• 8:49
  Uh, when the pandemic started, I, uh, um, I was called into the, the
• 8:53
  church that I attend, and the minister wanted to give a little prayer.
• 8:57
  He, he just said he wanted to, to.
• 9:00
  You know, this is just when we were, we weren't wearing masks because the, they
• 9:03
  were just saved for, for those that, uh, that were, uh, in first responders.
• 9:08
  So I was at the church service and he, and he, and he said this prayer, and
• 9:11
  before he said it, he said, you know, if the Daily Bread food Bank goes down,
• 9:15
  60,000 families won't eat this month.
• 9:18
  And let's, let's, uh, give Niels some encouragement.
• 9:20
  And that, that didn't gimme encouragement.
• 9:22
  It made, it had a giant yoke on me when, when he gave that,
• 9:25
  uh, that that commissioning
• 9:26
  Jesse Hirsh: No
• 9:27
  Neil Hetherington: and.
• 9:29
  Yeah, exactly.
• 9:30
  And, and now that number's not 60,000.
• 9:32
  That number is 330,000.
• 9:35
  So we've gone from 60,000 to 330,000.
• 9:37
  We've gone from spending one and a half million dollars a year on food to some
• 9:41
  $29 million a year on, uh, on food.
• 9:44
  It has been, uh, a Herculean, uh, effort.
• 9:48
  Effort.
• 9:48
  The city has come together.
• 9:50
  Um, to be able to, uh, to deal with it.
• 9:52
  So again, you know, if you, you talk about the difficult news,
• 9:55
  I've given you difficult stats.
• 9:57
  Well, here's the, the hopeful side of things.
• 9:59
  Um, I have hope because the community came together and rallied
• 10:03
  and is responding to the Christ.
• 10:05
  I have hope because Canadians are talking about a lack of affordable
• 10:08
  housing and governments know they now need to respond, uh, to it.
• 10:12
  I have hope because we are starting to eliminate the populace with the
• 10:16
  fact that if you're on disability in Ontario, you get $1,400 a month.
• 10:22
  And you gotta survive on that.
• 10:23
  You get only get 700 if you are still on disability, but
• 10:26
  you find yourself homeless.
• 10:27
  'cause the government says, since you're homeless, you're
• 10:29
  not paying rent, therefore we're gonna cut your disability in half.
• 10:32
  So we are, uh, telling more and more, uh, Ontario's, more and more Canadians
• 10:38
  that there is a fundamental problem.
• 10:39
  It's a structural failure, but the good news is, um, there is, there are policy
• 10:44
  alternatives to be able to fix that.
• 10:47
  Jesse Hirsh: Well, and speaking of the policy alternatives there,
• 10:49
  there's, there's couple things there.
• 10:51
  You said that in, in my own kind, uh, amateur historian
• 10:55
  mind, I was kind of feeling that.
• 10:58
  The way in which we are connecting the dots presently
• 11:00
  is, is kind of unprecedented.
• 11:03
  Like we used to treat different policy areas as kind of separate and distinct,
• 11:08
  but now it feels as if we're starting to look at policy frameworks about how
• 11:12
  these things all connect together in terms of housing and food and access
• 11:16
  to employment and community services.
• 11:20
  I, I suspect that you have a particular unique.
• 11:24
  Perspective that your position affords you both in terms of being at the front line,
• 11:28
  right, of seeing kind of the need and the demand grow, to your point of going
• 11:32
  from like five figures to over 300,000.
• 11:36
  But to your point, I suspect you're starting to see the solutions.
• 11:40
  You're starting to see the kind of programmes and policies
• 11:43
  that could make an impact, uh.
• 11:46
  Please let us see what you see and let us know what you know and help
• 11:50
  us infect us with the hope that I, I'm clearly feeling from you.
• 11:56
  Neil Hetherington: Well, I, I, I think first of all, there's no magic solution.
• 11:58
  Um, it, it will take a toolbox to be able to build this house that
• 12:02
  we need to, to build and so on.
• 12:04
  Um.
• 12:05
  Uh, there are different things that we advocate for.
• 12:07
  So we worked very hard to advocate for the Canada disability benefit
• 12:10
  that brought in $200 a month more for people on disability.
• 12:14
  That makes a profound difference.
• 12:15
  That might be one or two less visits to the food bank in any given month.
• 12:19
  So income supports are important on the housing side of things.
• 12:23
  Um.
• 12:25
  Think about, uh, alcohol and tobacco, you pay 30% of that in
• 12:30
  a sin tax, gasoline, same thing.
• 12:32
  So you're sitting, you're paying 30%, uh, to, to the government in, in taxes.
• 12:37
  So, um, you've got that.
• 12:39
  And then on the, um, housing front, when you build a new house, you pay about
• 12:45
  30% in development charges and tax.
• 12:47
  Is, and so it's preposterous to me that we think that we are going to,
• 12:51
  uh, push housing forward when we, uh, levy the same tax rate for sins than,
• 12:58
  uh, than we do for, for something that is fundamentally a right.
• 13:02
  So you have the right to housing, but you're paying 30% tax.
• 13:04
  You have a right to food.
• 13:05
  There's no tax on food.
• 13:06
  You have a right to to healthcare.
• 13:08
  There's no tax there.
• 13:09
  You have a right to education.
• 13:10
  There's no tax there, but housing for some reason, there is.
• 13:14
  So, uh, what we're working on right now is we are going to the federal government.
• 13:18
  We're saying the people that need it the most could really benefit
• 13:24
  if, uh, the rental payments were tax deductible and could they get a a,
• 13:29
  a tax credit there that would allow them to target low income families and
• 13:33
  make it just about rent, and they'd be able to set something up very quickly.
• 13:37
  That would have a profound impact.
• 13:39
  Um, I, you know, it's, it's, there's multiple things.
• 13:42
  There's inclusionary zoning, there is, uh, there's the
• 13:45
  reduction of development charges.
• 13:46
  There's, you know, uh, removing the HST on, on housing, and the, the government
• 13:51
  is starting to respond to hopefully lower, uh, the, the, the prices.
• 13:56
  And you're starting to see, uh, a deescalation in rental prices.
• 14:00
  The last thing is how do we fight precarious employment?
• 14:03
  Um, so if you think the three things that we gotta deal with, affordable housing,
• 14:07
  income supports precarious employment on the third one, it's hard right now,
• 14:12
  you know, we're an integrated global economy and so, uh, you know, there are
• 14:16
  individuals who come to the food bank.
• 14:17
  They've got two or three jobs, uh, they're all part-time, uh, combined.
• 14:22
  They have an income that is.
• 14:23
  Too rich for any social benefits, but too, uh, too, uh, poor
• 14:28
  to be able to, uh, to get by.
• 14:30
  So they're making choices on rent or hydro, things like that.
• 14:33
  So these are some of the policy areas that, uh, that we work in.
• 14:37
  Um, and what is, what's, uh, helpful about it is we're on the front line.
• 14:41
  We can say who's coming in, why they're coming in, and what, uh,
• 14:46
  uh, they need in order to not have to make use of a charity.
• 14:50
  Jesse Hirsh: I mean, to your point about the, to, to use the kind of, uh,
• 14:53
  pop culture phrase, the rise of the precariat instead of the proletariat.
• 14:58
  It, it, it's interesting how that kind of parallels, uh, the workforce and, and even
• 15:03
  the kind of culture within agriculture.
• 15:06
  'cause there is a similar kind of precarity where people will have multiple
• 15:10
  jobs or multiple part-time jobs and still not be able to make ends meet.
• 15:15
  I I, I do feel I'm spending a lot of time on the context and, and I, I happens to
• 15:20
  be, 'cause I'm a big picture kind of guy.
• 15:22
  The, the other piece I wanted to ask you, and this is kind of
• 15:25
  within, uh, the context of this larger food insecurity crisis.
• 15:30
  The concept of a food desert is something that I think.
• 15:34
  Where food researchers kind of heard it, know all about it.
• 15:37
  I think there's a lot of people who've never heard that phrase.
• 15:40
  And I'm curious how the, the work of the Daily Bread Food Bank correlates to both
• 15:46
  the concept and presence, uh, of food deserts, uh, in the city of Toronto.
• 15:52
  Neil Hetherington: Well, um, you know, food deserts were, uh, an area, you know,
• 15:56
  it's can, or do you have a grocery store that you can purchase from within, uh,
• 16:01
  sort of walking or, or easy bus access.
• 16:04
  Um, and that was certainly a, a real challenge for a
• 16:07
  lot of, uh, of, of Toronto.
• 16:10
  Um, that, that has subsequently changed.
• 16:12
  Um, I would say that Toronto is a city now where there really aren't food
• 16:16
  deserts, but there's a lot of people that can't afford to go to the grocery store.
• 16:20
  Um, sadly, we now serve the Daily Bread, serves about 200 food programmes
• 16:25
  all across the city of Toronto.
• 16:26
  You can walk to a food bank now, um, pretty well anywhere
• 16:30
  in the city of Toronto.
• 16:31
  And, uh, and that is, uh, that is telling and it's, uh, shameful.
• 16:36
  Jesse Hirsh: Hello.
• 16:37
  Shameful in the sense that the presence of hunger is shameful, but without being, you
• 16:44
  know, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?
• 16:45
  Gleeful in the face of tragedy.
• 16:48
  is nonetheless impressive.
• 16:50
  And, and I say this in the sense that, you know, I, I lived in Toronto between
• 16:54
  the early eighties and the late 2010s, the extent to which social programmes
• 17:01
  and community support services have become part of the city fabric.
• 17:05
  It changed over my lifetime.
• 17:08
  can you give us a sense of the diversity or the way in which
• 17:12
  all those kind of touch points or community kind of presence, the role
• 17:17
  that it plays in those communities?
• 17:19
  Because I, I agree.
• 17:20
  It's shameful that it exists, but at the same time, you have to acknowledge
• 17:24
  the gratitude to have that kind of infrastructure available to people.
• 17:29
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah, I, it, it so it, you're, you're right.
• 17:32
  And I should have, should have clarified that it really, um, it, it, it is
• 17:36
  a, um, it, it's atrocious that we have people who can't afford to buy
• 17:41
  food, um, in a, in a country as that is, uh, has the wealth that we have.
• 17:47
  Um.
• 17:48
  And, and so there is a, a real challenge when somebody crosses
• 17:52
  the threshold of a doorway of a food bank for the very first time.
• 17:55
  You know, that, that there is, there is shame often attached to, uh, to that
• 18:00
  and, uh, um, and we do our utmost to be able to register them and get them in,
• 18:07
  uh, in the most low barrier way so that they, uh, they know that they're doing
• 18:11
  the right thing for their family and that it is, and that they're not alone.
• 18:16
  And they're not alone.
• 18:17
  Uh, you know, I, I remember walking the, the lineup, uh, recently where,
• 18:21
  where I saw a, uh, a person that I knew that worked at, uh, one of the
• 18:25
  media outlets in Toronto and, uh, and we, we, we said hello and she was, uh.
• 18:32
  You, you know, I think she, she immediately said, well, this
• 18:35
  is the reason I need to go.
• 18:36
  And she gave some rationale.
• 18:37
  And the rationale that she gave was, she talked about what her,
• 18:40
  her income was, and it was about 50,000, just over $50,000 a year.
• 18:44
  And you think 50,000.
• 18:45
  Why are they going to a food bank?
• 18:47
  Well, here's her math.
• 18:48
  She's got two kids.
• 18:49
  She pays about $2,100 in rent.
• 18:51
  So after fi, uh, 50,000 after taxes, you're 36, pay for your rent,
• 18:57
  and you, it works out to roughly $6,000 that you have for the year.
• 19:01
  $500 a month to be able to pay for food, uh, clothing and transportation.
• 19:07
  And, uh, the average Canadian eats about $300 a month in food.
• 19:11
  So she's underwater with her two kids right away.
• 19:14
  So there is somebody who's done everything right.
• 19:16
  They went to school, they got a job, they're working hard, they should
• 19:19
  be able to live the Canadian dream, but they can't, um, because you
• 19:23
  know what the rental payments are versus the income that they've got.
• 19:29
  Jesse Hirsh: And this is where, not to go on a tangent, but it's kind of relevant.
• 19:33
  This is where I'm a bit of a radical in that I don't see
• 19:35
  any problems with free food.
• 19:38
  This.
• 19:38
  Same way.
• 19:38
  I don't see any problems with people paying for food, I wish
• 19:42
  we could do something about that stigma, about that shame.
• 19:46
  'cause I agree with you, $50,000 in Toronto is pretty
• 19:50
  tight, like the cost of living.
• 19:52
  Uh uh, not just of Toronto, of a lot of Canadian cities.
• 19:56
  Uh, is is incredibly difficult for people to manage and food should
• 20:02
  not be part of that equation, right?
• 20:03
  They should not have to worry about their nutrition so they can have the
• 20:07
  energy and focus to do those things.
• 20:10
  We could go on and on about that, where we would both be on the same page.
• 20:15
  I, I'm curious to get into the organisation and, and I do
• 20:18
  want, I don't want to get too much into the nuts and bolts.
• 20:21
  But I suspect a lot of people, myself included, have some cliches about
• 20:26
  the way food banks work or that the way an organisation like the
• 20:30
  Daily Bread Food Bank would work.
• 20:33
  are some of the strengths?
• 20:34
  What are some of the pain points?
• 20:36
  Well, how, how?
• 20:38
  How does a contemporary food bank or food bank umbrella
• 20:42
  organisation, how does it function?
• 20:45
  And I guess to lead you in a direction, what are the kind of
• 20:49
  resources that you guys require that we should be championing?
• 20:52
  Both on a policy level or just on a cultural level?
• 20:57
  Neil Hetherington: Okay, so lots in there.
• 20:58
  So what we do is we try to make sure that everybody who comes to the food bank gets
• 21:02
  three days worth of food once a week.
• 21:04
  So maximum you can come is once per week, uh, and you can
• 21:07
  get three days worth of food.
• 21:09
  And we do it in each of the food, food groups.
• 21:11
  And so how it works behind the scenes is we've gotta forecast about six weeks
• 21:15
  out, uh, every single uh, uh, visit to every single food bank across the city.
• 21:22
  And then we have to disperse roughly just under a million pounds of food per week.
• 21:28
  That's how much food is going, coming in and going outta the Daily Bread food bank.
• 21:32
  And we become more and more sophisticated with that.
• 21:34
  Uh, we use AI to, uh, to help us in that.
• 21:37
  And we start purchasing from multiple countries, uh, you know, foods that
• 21:40
  you can't buy here in Canada and, uh, and, and starting to really lower the,
• 21:45
  uh, the pricing on, on these things.
• 21:47
  So, uh, that is, uh, uh, the sort of the logistics and it all ends up on
• 21:53
  shelves all across the city of Toronto.
• 21:55
  Somebody comes in.
• 21:56
  They're, say they're a family of four, they get 400 points and they
• 21:59
  shop for the food that they need.
• 22:01
  No longer is the day where you, you know, here's a box of food.
• 22:04
  And that's, I hope you enjoy it because it's inefficient.
• 22:07
  It's less, uh, because I don't know about you, but I don't buy, like that
• 22:11
  box of food is gonna have macaroni and cheese, it's gonna have peanut
• 22:14
  butter, it's gonna have two and a. And are you going to have a jar of peanut
• 22:19
  butter every single week in Uh, no.
• 22:22
  No.
• 22:23
  And so this, uh, shopping actually allows people to, uh, to, to be a lot more
• 22:27
  rationed on the food that they take.
• 22:29
  So, um, so that's how, how it works on that front.
• 22:32
  As I mentioned earlier, we used to spend a million and a half dollars a year on food.
• 22:36
  Now it's $29 million.
• 22:38
  Um, it's a sophisticated supply chain, uh, here and anybody listening,
• 22:43
  anybody watching this, uh, please.
• 22:45
  When, if you're in Toronto, come by, uh, the Daily Bread Food
• 22:48
  Bank, we'll give you a tour.
• 22:49
  We're very friendly and we'd love to, uh, to show you how we
• 22:52
  logistically make this all happen.
• 22:55
  Jesse Hirsh: And, and I, I wanna come back to the logistics, but you know, you, you
• 22:58
  talked about the modelling, the AI side.
• 23:02
  I mean, I'm curious, just on a metaphorical level, how do you
• 23:05
  deal with that supply and demand?
• 23:06
  Because.
• 23:07
  To your point, you're dealing with a very large user base and you know, planning six
• 23:12
  weeks ahead, while it sounds like not a lot of time, that is a lot of complexity,
• 23:18
  do you manage that supply and demand?
• 23:20
  Because clearly the, the demand is not necessarily stable.
• 23:23
  It could be growing, and that makes then securing the supply.
• 23:27
  To your point of having, let's say three, you know, meals a week, one
• 23:31
  visit, like how do you manage that?
• 23:33
  How do you project that and is
• 23:35
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah.
• 23:35
  Jesse Hirsh: source of stress or is that something you guys feel
• 23:38
  that you're getting better at?
• 23:40
  Neil Hetherington: We're getting better at it.
• 23:41
  We're pretty good about it.
• 23:42
  I would say we, um, uh, we're usually within one to 2% of
• 23:46
  forecasted, uh, client visits.
• 23:48
  Um, so that, uh, that part is good, but do we stress about it?
• 23:52
  Absolutely.
• 23:53
  Um, and here's the challenge that we also have.
• 23:55
  You know, we have, uh, generous donors like Etel Pasta.
• 23:58
  They, they, uh, huge amount of pasta that they give to the daily bread food bank.
• 24:03
  It with with love.
• 24:04
  They will send an email saying, on in four days we'd like to send you a tractor.
• 24:09
  Trail load worth past.
• 24:10
  And we're, and we'll be like, absolutely.
• 24:12
  That's incredible.
• 24:13
  And we have to say yes.
• 24:15
  Um, and we always say yes.
• 24:16
  Um, but that might have screwed up all of our supply chain work that we were
• 24:20
  doing six, six, uh, six weeks ago.
• 24:23
  So we're definitely gonna say yes to the donation, we're gonna make it happen,
• 24:26
  but it's, it's much more challenging.
• 24:28
  A lot of people think that the, for the not-for-profit sector is a bunch of, you
• 24:32
  know, Mo Moo wearing left wing granola eating, uh, dream Catcher kind of.
• 24:38
  Uh, folks, and it's, and it's it, yes, we're visionary, but at the same time, we
• 24:43
  have to be more businessy than business.
• 24:45
  Us because we've gotta figure out, um, things that business doesn't normally do.
• 24:50
  The cost of goods sold, you buy from your vendors and you, and
• 24:53
  you make the good and you sell it.
• 24:54
  Um, we have to do all of that.
• 24:57
  Plus we have to deal with the, uh, the, the, um, massive changes that
• 25:01
  where a supplier is saying, here's a bunch of free stuff that doesn't
• 25:04
  happen in the for-profit, uh, side.
• 25:06
  And you gotta say yes to it.
• 25:08
  So we, in the not-for-profit sector, you really do have to
• 25:11
  have a, a strong business acumen.
• 25:14
  And because you're, you're working to do more with less in a much
• 25:19
  more transparent, uh, way with, uh, additional governance and oversight.
• 25:24
  Jesse Hirsh: And to your point, the margin of error is even smaller, right?
• 25:28
  So where they've got some room to fail in ways that, you know, not only for
• 25:32
  you as failure have direct human cost, but I think the, uh, expectations
• 25:38
  placed on nonprofits and charities do tend to be much higher, uh, than the
• 25:43
  expectations placed on the private sector.
• 25:45
  I, I, I wanna dig a little deeper onto the logistics side.
• 25:49
  Only because, uh, I, I, correct me if I'm wrong, but it it, I assume that what
• 25:56
  you've developed is kind of unique, and I don't mean unique necessarily within
• 25:59
  the AgriFood sector, but to your point, you're more of a social enterprise
• 26:04
  than you are a private enterprise.
• 26:06
  So give me a sense of not just the expertise in logistics that you guys
• 26:11
  have had to develop, but what that.
• 26:14
  Then makes possible right in, in, in, because you are the Toronto Food
• 26:18
  Bank and not the North Bay Food Bank.
• 26:20
  I I. In terms of, you know, what that logistics, what that capacity
• 26:24
  then allows you guys to do as a network, as an organisation, I.
• 26:30
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah, it's, uh, um, so we are part of, uh, an association.
• 26:35
  Um, so there are, there's the Food Bank of Calgary and of Vancouver, of Montreal.
• 26:41
  And so we will share a lot of information so that we're not,
• 26:44
  uh, reinventing the wheel.
• 26:45
  There's no competition there, and that has been very, very useful.
• 26:49
  We also, um, quite frankly, um, we hire some really outstanding individuals.
• 26:54
  The, the woman who heads up our, our operations, our VP of operations, Heather
• 26:59
  Valentino, she is, she's, she's wonderful.
• 27:02
  She's, she's come from craft and from Maple Leaf, and she has,
• 27:05
  uh, taken that business acumen.
• 27:08
  Uh, she is a, I don't know.
• 27:10
  Uh, what level of, um, of, uh, of six Sigma?
• 27:16
  She is probably some ninja warrior, um, level, and that she just knows, um,
• 27:20
  that, uh, how to lean out the system brilliantly and, uh, um, do it in a way
• 27:26
  that volunteers want to be part of it.
• 27:29
  Here's another peculiarity of what we do.
• 27:32
  If you think about like coming in and sorting food, this
• 27:35
  food's been donated to us.
• 27:36
  We gotta sort it.
• 27:37
  You know, we should have conveyor belts here, uh, that, that just, you know, pack
• 27:41
  everything and move, move things around.
• 27:42
  But we don't do that.
• 27:44
  Um, and we do a less efficient, uh, mechanism.
• 27:46
  The reason we charge companies to come in right now, there's a company
• 27:50
  here that's paying us some $20,000 for the privilege of doing our work.
• 27:54
  So our revenue source is a labour inefficiency.
• 27:58
  That doesn't make any sense at all.
• 28:00
  Um, and so, uh, you know, we, we have these peculiarities.
• 28:04
  We, we learn from, from what works and doesn't work.
• 28:07
  We share it across the province, we share it across the country,
• 28:10
  and we learn from, from our, our counterparts right across Canada.
• 28:14
  Jesse Hirsh: When you say it doesn't make sense, you mean it doesn't make
• 28:16
  sense from a larger optimization, but it
• 28:21
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah.
• 28:21
  Jesse Hirsh: sense from a relationship and a revenue generating perspective?
• 28:25
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah, it, it makes complete sense for us.
• 28:27
  But if, if we were a for-profit company, we'd lean it out and we
• 28:31
  would conveyor ba, well conveyor belt out the, uh, the packaged goods
• 28:36
  Jesse Hirsh: Yeah.
• 28:36
  Neil Hetherington: instead, you know, we have many of the same systems, but
• 28:39
  they, there's a lot of hands that are moving boxes around that you would say,
• 28:43
  Hey, we could get rid of, you know, 90% of the labour force in this operation.
• 28:47
  And if you did that, then we wouldn't have any money for the food.
• 28:51
  Jesse Hirsh: Well, and that kind of opens the question 'cause you alluded
• 28:54
  to the kinda, I, I think you might've used the word volunteer experience.
• 28:59
  But one assumes that the people who are attracted, who are volunteering are
• 29:03
  doing so more than just for the reason of they've got time on their hands.
• 29:08
  Give me a sense of what the culture that are either exists because it does, or
• 29:14
  that you guys deliberately cultivate.
• 29:16
  To, you know, create where in an enterprise there'd be a
• 29:19
  culture, maybe 'cause people are showing up for a paycheck.
• 29:22
  But in a social enterprise there's different motivations and there's
• 29:26
  different desires in terms of what they get back from the organisation.
• 29:30
  Neil Hetherington: You're entirely right.
• 29:31
  Um, culture is the most important thing that I work on every single.
• 29:35
  Day at this organisation.
• 29:36
  Um, without doubt, it is culture, culture, culture, um, it's culture,
• 29:41
  then it's strategy, then it's structure.
• 29:43
  And so what is that culture that we, uh, manifest here?
• 29:47
  Well, for staff, I wanna make sure every staff can say, I have
• 29:50
  the tools, the autonomy, and the inspiration to do my job.
• 29:55
  So they, that, those are the three things we're, we're going for
• 29:58
  there and for the, uh, for the, the paid and unpaid staff as a whole.
• 30:04
  I would say we take the mission seriously and nod ourselves.
• 30:07
  It is a really fun place to work.
• 30:09
  It is.
• 30:09
  Um, if you were to go out into that production hall right now,
• 30:13
  where that company is, there's probably seventies pop music on.
• 30:16
  If you go into our warehouse, there's some Nigerian rap I think that will,
• 30:20
  will, would be, uh, would be playing.
• 30:22
  And then if you went into the kitchen, they're, they're sort of like a,
• 30:25
  a, a much more heavy rock kind of.
• 30:27
  Uh, and so they all have their own music that's going on there and
• 30:31
  jazz in, in the actual food bank.
• 30:33
  And so, um, we make it a place where, um, you want to be, um,
• 30:37
  where you know you're appreciated.
• 30:39
  Um, and, uh, as a result, we have almost no turnover of staff.
• 30:44
  Um, people wanna be here.
• 30:45
  Jesse Hirsh: Well, and to that point, you know, you, you kind of answered it, but
• 30:49
  I wouldn't mind you elaborating a little.
• 30:52
  think that there are a lot of leaders who either don't appreciate culture
• 30:55
  or, or don't value culture, to your point, as part of their mandate, as a
• 31:00
  leader, as part of their focus of what they want to be institutionalising.
• 31:05
  What's your argument?
• 31:07
  What would you say either to other leaders or even to your stakeholders who
• 31:10
  might say, you know, Neil, why are you prioritising culture, uh, above and beyond
• 31:15
  some of your other responsibilities?
• 31:18
  Neil Hetherington: Uh, I, I, I don't, I think it'd be hard to find somebody
• 31:21
  who doesn't think that the CEO's job is to instil a, a, a, a, a good culture
• 31:26
  for the organisation that they run.
• 31:28
  Um, but you know, my arguments for it would simply be
• 31:32
  it's in your best interest.
• 31:33
  Um, when somebody wants to be there, they, uh, they, they, they, they do
• 31:38
  that job with, uh, with excellence.
• 31:40
  Um, when somebody is valued.
• 31:43
  Um, there is, there is a sense of, uh, uh, collegiality that, um,
• 31:49
  is, is is incredibly important.
• 31:51
  And, um, so, uh, so it's, it's, I I want people to want to be here.
• 31:57
  People need to get it, want it, and have the capacity to do their job.
• 32:01
  And, uh, and I'm gonna make sure that they have all the, I'm gonna make sure
• 32:05
  they have the three things, the tools, the autonomy, and the, the inspiration.
• 32:08
  And then, uh, and then on that autonomy, we let them fly.
• 32:12
  And, um, and so it is, it costs us a lot less because we have a lot less turnover.
• 32:17
  Um, we, it allows us to attract great people.
• 32:21
  Um, that's another thing.
• 32:22
  You know, we posted for a board position, so we had two board positions last year.
• 32:26
  Um, and so these are unpaid positions to be on our board of directors.
• 32:31
  Uh, we did the posting for, let's call it three, four weeks.
• 32:34
  And there were 300 applications, qualified applications for,
• 32:38
  for the, uh, for the position.
• 32:40
  And that speaks volumes to people wanting to be here.
• 32:44
  And so when, when you are that magnet.
• 32:46
  Good things happen.
• 32:47
  So what has happened because of a good culture, we've gone from $8
• 32:51
  million a year in revenue to $42 million a year in, uh, in revenue.
• 32:55
  It has been, uh, solid, good growth and, uh, uh, the, the risk associated
• 33:02
  with a toxic culture, I just think is far too great, um, to, uh, to, to
• 33:07
  avoid not putting it as, as precedent.
• 33:10
  Jesse Hirsh: And, and this is where, uh, you know, to the part of the reason I
• 33:14
  asked your, uh, asked the question the way I did about culture is I think you
• 33:18
  are kind of taking your own exceptionality for granted in that, you know, uh.
• 33:25
  Toxic cultures are quite pervasive, uh, right now, uh, in our organisations,
• 33:32
  uh, in, in our broader economy.
• 33:34
  And there are very few leaders with the courage and leadership that you
• 33:37
  have, to not only not want them, but to recognise the burden and dysfunction
• 33:43
  they, uh, a place upon the organisation.
• 33:47
  And there's a reason why I keep evoking the phrase social enterprise because
• 33:51
  I do think that you guys legitimately belong in the category of enterprise.
• 33:58
  Not just because you have the size and the capability, but to your point
• 34:02
  about the five sigmas or whatever.
• 34:04
  You, you, you are achieving a level of excellence that we often
• 34:08
  just associate with enterprises.
• 34:11
  Yet at the same time you use the word, uh, which I wanna emphasise 'cause it's
• 34:15
  a word I think about a lot autonomy.
• 34:19
  There are very few enterprises who even understand what autonomy is,
• 34:23
  let alone encourage their staff or their leaders to embrace autonomy.
• 34:30
  is it so important to you and, and what has been the rewards or the payoffs,
• 34:35
  uh, for embracing such an approach?
• 34:39
  Neil Hetherington: There's study after study that tells you that when people are
• 34:43
  under stress, they make bad decisions.
• 34:46
  Um, so what do you do as, as a, as a boss?
• 34:50
  You, uh, as a, as an employer, you remove as much stress as you
• 34:54
  possibly can on your workforce.
• 34:56
  So when you do that, people make better decisions and they are more productive.
• 35:00
  And it's as simple as that.
• 35:02
  It doesn't have to be, uh, over, uh, over complicated.
• 35:06
  And so that has been, uh, my primary function is to make sure that this
• 35:10
  is a culture where people want to be.
• 35:13
  Jesse Hirsh: And again, to your credit, that requires a, a lot of
• 35:16
  confidence, a, a certain level of self-esteem that not all leaders have.
• 35:21
  So I appreciate that.
• 35:22
  And then let me follow that up with a much more difficult question, uh, to put you
• 35:27
  in a more awkward or flatfooted position.
• 35:31
  What if, do you think the rest of us are missing?
• 35:35
  Right.
• 35:35
  What is it like a lot of what we've talked about so far, while maybe not familiar
• 35:41
  to outsiders, I think people within the sector kind of understand the value of,
• 35:44
  and that's partly why I was getting into the autonomy piece and the culture piece.
• 35:48
  'cause I do think there are segments that don't appreciate that.
• 35:52
  But what are the pieces that maybe you take for granted or maybe that you're
• 35:56
  really passionate about, but you feel the rest of society is kind of clueless about?
• 36:01
  Again, it's a tough question to kind of catch you off guard, but I'm really
• 36:06
  trying to draw out that piece of wisdom, that thing that you see that
• 36:11
  you wish the rest of us could see that would either make your job easier.
• 36:16
  on a broader social level would really start to reverse the, the food
• 36:20
  insecurity crisis that we're witnessing.
• 36:24
  Neil Hetherington: Oh man.
• 36:25
  Like there's so many questions within that, like that's, that's almost not fair.
• 36:29
  Um, so,
• 36:30
  Jesse Hirsh: I don't play fair.
• 36:32
  Neil Hetherington: so I'm going to, I'm going to, I'll, I'll parse it out
• 36:36
  first on the leadership side of things.
• 36:38
  Um, leadership can be incredibly lonely.
• 36:41
  Um, it is, you know, you as CEO, you don't have a peer.
• 36:45
  The board of chair is not your peer.
• 36:47
  He's represents the boss.
• 36:49
  And anybody who's a staff member is, is, you know, theoretically reporting up.
• 36:54
  So, being a leader can be incredibly lonely.
• 36:55
  More than that.
• 36:57
  A leader always has to be rowing in the opposite direction of the team.
• 37:01
  So when they're chaotic, you are calm.
• 37:03
  When they are calm, you are the one stirring things up.
• 37:06
  And so, uh, so that makes that loneliness even even greater.
• 37:10
  So you do need to, um, have, uh, yes, a, a sense of, of confidence about that,
• 37:16
  but you get that confidence, I would argue, by hiring people better than you.
• 37:21
  I can, you know, if, if you play tennis, you should never play tennis
• 37:24
  with somebody, uh, who's not as good.
• 37:26
  Or you always play tennis with somebody better, uh, if you want to get better.
• 37:31
  And so I can, uh, say with full confidence, every single one of the
• 37:35
  leadership team does their functional area far better than I could ever do.
• 37:39
  And, uh, and so that's an enormous burden lifted from me.
• 37:45
  Right.
• 37:46
  So now I've got, uh, I've, I've.
• 37:49
  Uh, you know, I've, I've got this lonely position.
• 37:53
  Uh, I've got the stressor and that burden, but it's reduced
• 37:55
  because I'm playing tennis with people better than, uh, than me.
• 37:58
  So that's on the leadership side of things.
• 38:00
  And then on the, what don't people get right now about food insecurity?
• 38:05
  Um, what they don't get is how costly.
• 38:08
  Poverty is, there was a study in 2019 that showed that, uh, poverty costs about $30
• 38:14
  billion in Ontario alone per year, uh, in Ontario, alone about $1.70, 1.7 million,
• 38:22
  sorry, $1.7 billion in the justice system, about $5 billion in healthcare
• 38:28
  costs directly attributable to poverty.
• 38:30
  So.
• 38:32
  So we have as Canadians a choice of, uh, of addressing poverty upstream by
• 38:38
  building affordable housing, by building cooperatives, by building social housing,
• 38:43
  and making sure that people's stress in life is reduced because they can afford
• 38:46
  to live and thrive in their community.
• 38:49
  Um, and as a result, it will actually increase, uh, what we have to spend
• 38:54
  on debt reduction on, uh, other priorities that the government,
• 38:58
  uh, might have poverty's expense.
• 39:01
  And then the last part is poverty's expensive on our souls.
• 39:06
  It is incredibly expensive to, uh, like, think about every time you walk
• 39:10
  down the street and you see a, a, a person who's unhoused at the time,
• 39:13
  and, you know, do I talk to them?
• 39:15
  Do I not?
• 39:16
  Um, how are they doing?
• 39:17
  They've been there month after month, year after year.
• 39:20
  And, and it, it, it can be, uh, as, as taxing and as horrific it is for
• 39:25
  that person living that experience.
• 39:27
  It's also traumatic for the, the child that walks by and says,
• 39:30
  what, what, what's going on there?
• 39:32
  And so there is a, um, uh, a real opportunity to reduce our government
• 39:37
  spend by doing the right moral thing and going upstream in poverty.
• 39:42
  Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
• 39:43
  Now, almost at the end, uh, of what has been a wonderful episode, and I, I, I
• 39:48
  kind of have to ask this next question.
• 39:51
  I'm not sure if you feel it will be tangential or still within the kind of
• 39:55
  wheelhouse of what we've been discussing.
• 39:57
  But there's lots of talk these days about municipal grocery stores
• 40:01
  and certainly the city of Toronto
• 40:03
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah.
• 40:04
  Jesse Hirsh: actively exploring it.
• 40:06
  Uh, what are your thoughts both on the concept but also
• 40:09
  the impact that it could have?
• 40:11
  Neil Hetherington: Well, I'll say that, um, uh, as it is right now,
• 40:17
  I, I, I'm not in, in favour of them.
• 40:19
  Um, and I've gotta preface that by saying I appreciate so much a city
• 40:27
  council that declared a state of emergency when it came to food insecurity
• 40:31
  That's willing to try anything.
• 40:33
  But the try anything means you do your homework and so let's, let's just do
• 40:37
  the homework really quickly together.
• 40:39
  You spend about $300 a month in groceries, so the grocery stores get a profit of
• 40:45
  about 2.5 to 4%, so that if the city came in and said, we're gonna do it
• 40:51
  without profit, and they were able to deliver, that'll be about $12 for you.
• 40:55
  But here's the big, but that makes an a wild and wrong assumption that
• 41:00
  the city could operate as efficiently as Loblaws and that the city could
• 41:05
  buy food as cheaply as Loblaws.
• 41:07
  So that ain't gonna happen.
• 41:09
  So then you, then the question becomes, how much of a subsidy
• 41:14
  should the city be putting in?
• 41:16
  So if they want to help you, the, and is it 25?
• 41:19
  Is it 50?
• 41:20
  Dollars per, per month.
• 41:22
  Now, if you do $50 per month and you just use the people that go to
• 41:27
  the food bank, that would cost about $15 million per month, uh, for the
• 41:32
  city to give that kind, that $50 subsidy to each person's going there.
• 41:36
  And then you'd have questions about, well, could anybody shop there?
• 41:39
  And all that sort of stuff.
• 41:40
  So, um.
• 41:41
  You know, it, where I think the city can be most effective is, uh, providing land
• 41:47
  for development for affordable housing.
• 41:49
  They can reduce development charges.
• 41:51
  They can, uh, provide the student nutrition programme for breakfast
• 41:55
  and in schools, uh, school boards, uh, across the city of, uh, Toronto.
• 41:59
  So I don't think, uh, city run grocery stores, uh, are anything
• 42:02
  other than a fleeting headline.
• 42:04
  Um, but here's the, the thing.
• 42:07
  Thank you to the city for, for bringing it up.
• 42:10
  As, as, as an idea.
• 42:12
  Daily Bread will do the homework and the math, um, to find out whether
• 42:16
  or not the math, maths or not.
• 42:18
  And if it doesn't, don't do it because there's enormous tail
• 42:22
  risk if you do it and it fails.
• 42:24
  So let's, let's play that one through.
• 42:26
  So they put the four, the four stores out there, that's what they're
• 42:29
  looking at right now, and they fail.
• 42:32
  Now, um, Joe Average walking down the street is gonna say, yeah, the
• 42:35
  government tried to do something, the government can't do it, and it'll affect
• 42:39
  all other progressive social policies.
• 42:41
  And so don't do something that you know is outside your lane that you,
• 42:45
  you know, uh, does not necessarily have that opportunity for success.
• 42:48
  Us.
• 42:49
  Jesse Hirsh: Well, and you know, to your larger point, thought of this
• 42:53
  question when we were talking about the logistics and infrastructure.
• 42:56
  'cause you.
• 42:57
  Clearly understand some of the difficulties and the
• 42:59
  pain points in managing that.
• 43:01
  And to your larger point that it's not as if the, a startup from the public
• 43:06
  sector is gonna beat Loblaws at their own game without heavy subsidies.
• 43:11
  I fully agree that the danger here is when they mess it up, not so much
• 43:15
  when they're presenting the idea.
• 43:18
  One last question before we get to the closer.
• 43:20
  Uh.
• 43:21
  How, how do you guys plan to, uh, capitalise on this larger
• 43:25
  awareness around food security?
• 43:28
  Because this kind of goes back to our larger question about shame.
• 43:31
  That on the one hand, yes, food insecurity is getting worse, and that's
• 43:35
  putting a lot of stress on people.
• 43:37
  But I do see the silver lining that more and more people are upset about
• 43:41
  these issues and perhaps more mobilised to look at the, uh, adjacent policy
• 43:46
  areas that you've been bringing up to go to end on the hope No.
• 43:50
  What do you think the opportunity is now for, for you as a leader
• 43:53
  and for your organisation?
• 43:56
  Neil Hetherington: You are entirely right.
• 43:56
  And this is, I'm, I'm glad that we're ending on, on this, um, not
• 43:59
  the question two, two questions ago.
• 44:01
  That was a hard one.
• 44:02
  Um, the, uh, on the, on this point, um.
• 44:05
  We have the power to change policy.
• 44:08
  So we got some 280,000 letters sent to Christian Freeland to get
• 44:12
  the Canada disability benefit.
• 44:13
  Why?
• 44:14
  Because Trians and Canadians saw that, uh, it was, it was fundamentally wrong
• 44:20
  that anybody should, uh, should be, uh, on disability and not be able
• 44:24
  to afford their, their groceries.
• 44:26
  And so there was pressure put on.
• 44:28
  So we will leverage the media, uh, that, uh, that is out
• 44:32
  there podcasts, whether it.
• 44:34
  So traditional or, or, or, uh, social, no matter what it is, we're gonna
• 44:38
  leverage that to, uh, to infuse a sense of activism that allows us
• 44:43
  to be able to have conversations.
• 44:45
  Based on evidence and based on good data to be able to provide policy solutions.
• 44:50
  Because, you know, I work with all politicians and I can tell you, and I'm
• 44:54
  not affiliated with any of them, I can tell you that it doesn't matter if it's,
• 44:57
  you know, and like left centre, right?
• 45:01
  Um, all of them, whether they like to em, admit it or not, uh, of the other
• 45:05
  parties, all of them want a candidate where everybody can thrive and commute in.
• 45:09
  They just have different ways of getting there.
• 45:10
  And so we're gonna make sure that based on the government that's in place and
• 45:14
  their, their priorities that we provide them the policy alternatives that will,
• 45:18
  uh, make sure that, uh, we can all thrive.
• 45:21
  Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
• 45:22
  So we are at a time, uh, the last part of every episode is the shout outs, and
• 45:27
  this is really meant to be a kind of gut feeling where I. to you, Hey Neil,
• 45:32
  who are the leaders that you look up to?
• 45:35
  Who are the people that you either look for inspiration or
• 45:38
  that we should be looking to?
• 45:41
  And it's meant to be a spontaneous answer.
• 45:43
  I'm not looking for an Academy Awards
• 45:45
  Neil Hetherington: Yeah.
• 45:45
  Jesse Hirsh: speech or anything.
• 45:46
  Just comes to mind.
• 45:49
  Neil Hetherington: All right.
• 45:50
  Well, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna give you a few.
• 45:51
  Um, so the past leaders that I look up to and I got to be mentored by, would
• 45:56
  certainly be President Jimmy Carter.
• 45:58
  Um.
• 45:59
  Ed Clark, the, uh, former CEO of, uh, of TD Bank, he's still, still, uh, living.
• 46:04
  I made it sound like a pass.
• 46:06
  Um, and the founder of Habitat for Humanity, Millard Fuller, they're,
• 46:09
  those are incredible, uh, leaders who, uh, who, who grew their,
• 46:13
  their organisations or in politics.
• 46:14
  And they did it with a sense of value, um, and, uh, hard work.
• 46:18
  And then current leaders, um, you know, I, uh, I. I, as I, I'm heading
• 46:24
  right now to thank volunteers, um, and those volunteers are assembled
• 46:29
  and brought together by, by Jeffrey Wong and his team here at Daily Bread.
• 46:33
  And I'm gonna give him a shout out because in this international, uh, week
• 46:36
  of volunteers, um, uh, corralling that group, inspiring that group, that's, uh,
• 46:42
  that's a, a mighty task that Jeff has.
• 46:44
  So he's getting my shift.
• 46:46
  Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
• 46:47
  Right on.
• 46:48
  Well done.
• 46:48
  Well, thank you, Neil.
• 46:49
  This has been fantastic and if anything has really helped me appreciate the.
• 46:55
  Expertise that social enterprises like the Toronto Daily Bread, food bank, and
• 47:00
  leaders like yourself are developing.
• 47:02
  If only 'cause you know, to your point about the association that you're in.
• 47:06
  So we can spread and cross pollinate that knowledge as widely as possible.
• 47:10
  So thanks again for a fantastic conversation.
• 47:14
  Neil Hetherington: Really appreciate it.
• 47:15
  Thank you so much.
• 47:19
  Jesse Hirsh: It is certainly tempting to admire the system after
• 47:23
  a conversation like that and admire a leader like Neil and the resilience
• 47:28
  and capacity that he brings to the heroic challenge of feeding the hungry,
• 47:34
  uh, certainly in a city like Toronto.
• 47:36
  But we can't stop there because what Neil and his team have built is by
• 47:41
  any operational measure extraordinary.
• 47:44
  The scale, the coordination, the ability to anticipate, need, and respond to it.
• 47:49
  It's a model many institutions would struggle to match.
• 47:53
  Uh, you can see why food banks have become indispensable, but that's
• 47:58
  not the point that we should be leaving this conversation with.
• 48:01
  The deeper takeaway is harder to sit with.
• 48:04
  The more effective this infrastructure becomes, the easier it is for
• 48:08
  broader systems to lean on it, to defer responsibility, to accept
• 48:13
  that this is how things work now, and yet inside that reality, there
• 48:19
  is a different kind of signal.
• 48:21
  Culture, doing real work, heavy lifting, dignity preserved
• 48:26
  through design, not intention.
• 48:28
  Volunteers and staff acting with a shared sense of purpose that holds
• 48:33
  the whole kitten caboodle together.
• 48:36
  A system that even under pressure insists on treating people as
• 48:40
  participants, not problems.
• 48:43
  Imagine if we had a democracy like that, hey.
• 48:47
  So the question isn't whether food banks should exist.
• 48:50
  They already do.
• 48:51
  They're embedded, evolving, and in many ways leading the question is
• 48:56
  what we choose to learn from them.
• 48:58
  Do we treat this as a permanent workaround or do we recognise it as a map?
• 49:04
  One that shows us exactly where our policies, our markets, and
• 49:08
  our assumptions are breaking down.
• 49:11
  Because if this is infrastructure now, then it's telling us something
• 49:16
  not just about food, but about how we care for each other at scale.
• 49:24
  And that is fundamentally the ideology of the future herd.
• 49:30
  We gotta care for each other.
• 49:32
  Hey, alright, until next time, we'll see you soon.