Dr. Alfred Aziz holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto. He joined Health Canada in 2006, first as postdoctoral fellow and then as a research scientist. After completing a few assignments as part of Health Canada’s Science Management Development Program, Alfred was appointed the Chief of Nutrition Regulations and Standards Division in 2014. Alfred led the updates to the Nutrition Labelling regulations and a multi-disciplinary team responsible for managing and integrating initiatives under the Healthy Eating Strategy, while directly being responsible for leading the work on labelling initiatives, sodium reduction and trans-fat elimination. In February 2019, Alfred assumed the role of the Director General of the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, which is the federal authority on dietary guidance and healthy eating policies. Since then, he has been leading efforts to promote and facilitate awareness, use and impact of Canada’s Food Guide, and to establish a strong framework for monitoring food marketing to children.
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. Current priorities have focused on supporting government-wide response to the COVID-19 response. These include introducing legislative measures to prevent shortages of some foods for special dietary uses, understanding the impact of the pandemic on determinants of healthy eating, and supporting Canadians in making and maintaining healthy eating habits. At the same time, work is continuing to advance pre-pandemic priorities, including the Healthy Eating Strategy and the Regulatory Review Roadmap. Some of the current activities include working with academic experts to develop surveillance tools to measure adherence to the 2019 food guide and working with partners and stakeholders to help integrate the food guide in different policies and programs and to stimulate changes in food environments. In addition, we are developing a regulatory framework for human milk fortifiers and making changes to the Food and Drug Regulations to establish regulations for supplemented foods.