Hansard

The Convener Lab

We move to agenda item 3. As members will recall, Linda Fabiani was going to North America, so we gave her a mission—which she chose to accept before the rec...

Linda Fabiani SNP

I was out in North America in April during Scotland week, so I took the opportunity to visit the New York City human resources administration/department of s...

The Convener Lab

That sounds very interesting, Linda. I have an observation, rather than a question. With regard to your final comments, I was reading an article a little whi...

Linda Fabiani SNP

You are absolutely right, convener. Please excuse my personalising the issues, but I discussed the matter seriously with some of my Canadian relatives, who, ...

Ken Macintosh Lab

You made it clear that the biggest recent rise in the use of food banks in Canada happened as a result of the recession. It is rather unfair to ask you this—...

Linda Fabiani SNP

I have talked about what I heard directly from the officers of the Ontario Association of Food Banks; I cannot speak from the basis of research that has been...

Ken Macintosh Lab

It is very interesting to consider the interaction between the state and voluntary programmes, as well as the danger of what you have called food bank creep ...

Alex Johnstone Con

I have been interested in what Linda Fabiani has had to say about the Canadian experience in particular, and the suggestion that the recession might have cau...

The Convener Lab

We have a helpful briefing on food banks from the Scottish Parliament information centre. If SPICe continues to monitor the situation, we will welcome any ev...

Ken Macintosh Lab

I believe that we were going to talk about that in an informal session, because SPICe is not at the table just now to give us evidence. My own thoughts are t...

The Convener Lab

We can take that up when we look at our report on food banks and at information that can assist us.