Thank you.
Good evening, committee chair and committee members. Thank you for inviting us to present our study results on food security in northern communities to your committee.
My name is Laurie Chan. I'm a professor and Canada research chair in toxicology and environmental health at the University of Ottawa, and one of the principal investigators of the study.
The other co-PIs who are here this evening are Dr. Malek Batal, a professor and Canada research chair in nutrition and health inequalities at the University of Montreal; Dr. Tonio Sadik, senior director of environment, lands and water at the Assembly of the First Nations; and Dr. Constantine Tikhonov, section head of safe food environments at the first nations and Inuit health branch of Indigenous Services Canada. Ms. Lynn Barwin is the project manager of the study and is based at the University of Ottawa.
On behalf of the team, I'm talking about the results of the first nations food, nutrition and environment study. This is the most comprehensive statistically representative study on nutrition and the environmental health of first nations ever completed in Canada. It is a true partnership between universities, the Assembly of First Nations and the federal government. This 11-year study received over $12 million in funding from Health Canada and Indigenous Services Canada, and successfully collected data from 6,487 participants from 92 first nations in 11 ecozones and eight Assembly of First Nation regions south of the 60th parallel across Canada.
Out of the 92 communities, 37 were within 50 kilometres of main service centres, 39 were over 50 kilometres away and 17 were fly-in communities. A random sampling strategy developed by Statistics Canada was adopted to ensure that the study assessed and represented the diversity of diets of first nations. We used a standard approach, with identical tools and methodology, so that the results are comparable.
The study is based on a participatory approach and was born out of a need expressed by the first nations. Overarching first nations support was received through a resolution passed by the chiefs-in-assembly in 2007 at the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly, and the AFN participated as one of the principal investigating partners throughout the study. At the regional level, before implementation of the study, first nations regional organizations were consulted, as were representatives from each participating first nation. Regional chiefs approved the study and provided guidance on approaches to addressing specific local environmental issues or concerns and logistics needs in their respective regions.
All first nations were involved in the planning and implementation of the data collection for the five study components. They included household interviews, through which socio-demographic, nutritional, health and food security information was collected. We also collected tap water samples for metals, surface water samples for pharmaceuticals, hair samples for mercury, and traditional food samples for contaminant metals. We believe this important information collected by the study can be used by first nations, by the risk assessors and by policy-makers like you to develop effective initiatives to promote better health and well-being for first nations.
We have included an executive summary of the study in the package we submitted to you.
Next will be Dr. Batal.