As the federal leads on standard setting and policy development related to public health nutrition and the nutritional quality of the food supply, Health Canada’s Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion and the Bureau of Nutritional Sciences will provide updates on their new and ongoing initiatives. This includes initiatives under the Regulatory Review Roadmap and Healthy Eating Strategy. Some of the current activities include the development of standard dietary assessment surveillance tools to assess alignment with the food guide; collaborating with stakeholders to stimulate changes in the food environment in key publicly-funded settings. In addition, we are modernizing Part B of the Food and Drug Regulations, developing a regulatory framework for clinical trials for foods to a special dietary purpose and developing an awareness and education campaign for supplemented foods.
Ms. Maya Villeneuve holds a degree from the Université de Montréal in nutrition and is a registered dietitian. She joined the Bureau of Nutritional Sciences of Health Canada as a Nutrition Research Officer in 2000 where she worked on several Provincial Nutrition Surveys. She then headed the Nutrition Survey Section in the same Bureau where she led the Health Canada team responsible for the development of nutrition content for the Canadian Community Health Survey – Nutrition (CCHS 2.2) and the Canadian Health Measures Survey. In 2010, she became the Associate Director in the Bureau of Nutritional Sciences where she provides scientific and strategic advice on policy and regulatory files, such as the Healthy Eating Strategy, Regulatory Modernization. She also leads international files and is the Canadian Head Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses.