Food-Impoverished Canada

Most Canadians obviously live in never-never land.  Believing ourselves to be singularly well looked after when it comes to the food marketplace.  Food is abundant and relatively inexpensive in Canada.  People living in Canada have many food alternatives.  They may purchase for their families nutritious whole foods, and they have the option of buying commercially pre-prepared food products whose nutrients are questionable but whose popularity is legendary.

Many food shoppers rely heavily on junk food, food devoid of nutritional content, but heavily laced with salt, sugar and fat, all taste-appealing and unhealthy when taken immoderately.  Many people have no idea how to prepare basic healthy meals, and have little interest in learning how to put together these simple, whole-food meals for themselves and their families.

It is far more convenient and wastes little time to eat at fast-food outlets, or buy meals already prepared that don't require preparation of any kind, and everyone enjoys them because they taste so good.  And when it comes to choices, those are the choices of a good many people.  Shopping for decent foodstuffs, storing and preparing it for the table is time-wasting and a bore.  In Canada, even convenience foods are cheap.

Food becomes expensive when it must be transported by air to far-off corners of this vast country, to inaccessible and weather-reliant areas of the country where people live by choice or by necessity.  This includes of course people in the territories of Nunavut and Northwest Territories and the Yukon.  It also includes the far reaches of northern Ontario, Manitoba and northern Quebec.

Places where accessibility becomes difficult in our northern hemisphere winters and where transport costs are piled on top of basic food costs and where availability of fresh products becomes limited because of cost.  Many Canadians are proud to live in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and increased costs of living are simply accepted as part of the lifestyle.

On First-Nations reservations the insistence is that aboriginals prefer to live on their traditional lands, and to be supported financially by the Government of Canada through the avails of the taxation system.  None of which makes Canada even remotely similar to a Third-World country whose emerging economic status does not detract from the fact that endemic food scarcity for much of the population remains an enduring problem.

Yet the UN's Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the right of food is embarking on an 11-day visit to Canada, to inspect the food situation in this country.  He has been to Niger, Bangladesh, Brazil, Palestinian Territories, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Guatemala, Niger, India, Lebanon, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Benin, Syria, China, Mexico, South Africa and Madagascar, and now it is Canada's turn.

The first wealthy country of the world to be so honoured by inspection.  One can only suspect that this has occurred through direct invitation.  The independent expert, Olivier De Schutter, will visit Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg and Edmonton, along with remote aboriginal communities in Manitoba and Alberta.  It would seem obvious that the Government of Canada would have had no hand in issuing such an invitation.

It is not obvious that the Special Rapporteur intends to routinely visit other First World countries to probe their food supply chains.  But Mr. De Schutter, will be examining the challenges facing aboriginal people, he will look into government policies and programs affecting the right to food, and meeting with aboriginal leaders and NGOs.  And, of course, federal officials at Health Canada and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Oh, and while in Ottawa, he plans to meet also with the NDP leader of the Official Opposition, Thomas Mulcair.

According to the executive director of Food Secure Canada which lobbies for public access to nutritious and sustainably produced food, "There are two million Canadians in this country who regularly lack access to sufficient food.  People who are living on government assistance often have to choose between paying the rent and paying for food, and that means they often can't make healthy food choices."

Who knew?