Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 25th, 2021

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

A number of communities have expressed their dissatisfaction with nutrition north Canada. What do you think about this?

[Dr. Malek Batal]

If there is no one else, I'll take this one too.

We are not the first ones to mention nutrition north and to mention that it doesn't seem to be working well for communities where it is implemented.

There are many reports that started coming out. I can mention the UN rapporteur report in 2013, and then lately in 2019 there was a study also that looked at nutrition north. What seems to be clear is that we don't know how the subsidies are trickling down to the consumer. I think this is the main issue.

When we look at things such as the “Feeding My Family” Facebook page, for example, which was happening in Nunavut and in other places, in many instances nutrition north was present in communities, and people were posting very high prices for milk and meat and other essential foods. There are issues with the subsidy program, clearly.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

My next question is about the women, children, elders and handicapped persons living in the communities.

These residents are even more vulnerable when it comes to insecurity in the Canadian north. What are your observations on their situation?

[Dr. Malek Batal]

I would just say that local solutions are the appropriate response to not only that question and that challenge but all of those that have been raised. The idea that we need to look externally at how to get other foods into communities, how to reduce those costs and to make sure that there are foods that are attractive to people living in those communities is only a small part of the challenge.

My sense of what we have come to understand as a result of the study that we've been involved in is that by focusing on traditional foods and access to those foods and good information about them, we deal with a bigger suite of issues than simply those we hear quite commonly in northern, rural and remote communities that relate to getting food in there and the cost of pop versus other foods or beverages.

I think local solutions are such an effective way of trying to answer these questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

That's all our time.

Madam Bérubé, thank you.

Ms. Blaney, go ahead for six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I want to thank everybody so much for their testimony today. It was very informative.

My first question I'll leave open to any of you. I know you're the experts on this.

One of the first questions I have is around nutrition north. I've heard from other testimony the concerns about transparency, the reality that the connection to what's happening in the communities is not there to the degree it needs to be. President Obed, from ITK, talked about what he thought would be an important transition, moving it from a subsidy program into more of a social program so that the resources that are going out to the communities are more reflective of the needs.

He talked very clearly about some folks having more resources and others having less, and there being an uneven playing field, which really leads to a lot of low-income people not being able to access appropriate food.

I'm just wondering if you could provide any thoughts you have, or any witness testimony that you heard through your research, that may reflect those particular challenges, and if you heard anything similar.

[Dr. Laurie Chan]

I can add to that.

We have heard a lot of concerns from the communities that the decision for what food is stocked in the local store is not transparent. It's often made by the supplier, or even a store manager who is not from the community. A lot of times they voiced the concern that the food they stock is primarily based on profit, and not other decisions.

I think the point is to keep emphasizing that the governance is the issue. Who is making decisions on how to spend the subsidy? Make the subsidy transparent so that people know the subsidy is well spent for the needs of the community.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I've heard concerns that [Technical Difficulty—Editor] monopoly for these stores and that's not really reflective of the need.

Mr. Batal, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I saw you were about to answer.

[Dr. Malek Batal]

I just wanted to give a quick answer. I apologize for having to leave because I have another commitment.

My answer has to do with something you alluded to in your question about the ability to purchase the food. I think that's probably where our attention should go rather than subsidizing something that the people do not have control over. Perhaps it's aiding families to actually be able to afford food whatever the food costs. I think that's where subsidies would make more sense because that gives back freedom to people to choose the food that they like, that is in harmony with their beliefs and that is what they want to consume.

That's a big debate. I'm sorry I have to leave as I say this, but I think that's where the government could be switching the financial contributions—from stores to actual families. That's what we saw. We saw that families who were on social assistance were having the hardest time being food secure. Families with children have a hard time being food secure even though parents shield their children from food insecurity. The children are not food insecure themselves, but the parents of children are more food insecure than people who are not parents.

I think the major issues are with families being able to afford the food, no matter what the food costs.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I found it quite startling in your testimony when you talked about families who have somebody with an old age pension having more food security. I don't think that's often what people think of.

Thank you so much for your time. I'm really sorry to see you leave.

[Dr. Malek Batal]

Thank you all.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

The next question is around climate change and the impact on [Technical Difficulty—Editor] to traditional food.

We've heard a lot of testimony from people talking about how they used to be able to harvest different types of food, but the changes in the climate, the reality that the ice isn't staying as long and it's not as strong, are really providing challenges. They're not able to get that.

I think about the high cost of food, plus now not being able to hunt and gather the way that they used to. Nutrition north used to have provisions for people to be able to buy things like bullets to go hunting. Now that is completely off of the table. I'm just wondering if you heard anything about that in your study. What are your thoughts on climate change and the impacts?

[Dr. Laurie Chan]

We did ask the participants what the barriers are for them to get more traditional food. The majority of them mentioned that they would like to get more traditional food but cannot. Climate change has been mentioned as one of the top five. Another is government regulations. They cannot fish or hunt because of government regulations. Also, industrial pollution has been mentioned as well—chemical pollution.

One of the other things, certainly, is the perception of the quality of the food. When people see that the food doesn't look or taste the same as the food they had before, they will refrain from eating it. Support on education to address some of these local concerns can help to change their perception, or try to resolve the problems to sustain or maintain the quality of the food so that people have confidence eating the food.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Ms. Blaney.

Panel, we're coming up to time. I'm going to ask each of the parties if we can limit it to one question each from Mr. Schmale, Mr. van Koeverden, Madam Bérubé and Ms. Blaney. That might get us close to the time that we need to end.

Jamie, would it be okay with you to ask one question rather than have five minutes, which would pretty much take up the whole time?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Yes, I'm okay with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Okay, go ahead.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

We heard a lot about quality. We heard a lot about access. We heard a lot about problems with the subsidy program: It works, it doesn't work or there are problems.

Have there been any organizations or any discussions around the actual growing of produce? Obviously with the temperature, you can't without warehouses. I've seen massive greenhouses in different climates that work in cold or in warm. That way you don't lose the nutrition that it takes for the shipping, the time, the short shelf life and all of that. It might also create jobs in the agriculture sector of wherever we're talking about. I know we have people from all over the north.

That's my question. Are we talking about actually growing it there and allowing people the freedom to have the foods they want?

[Dr. Laurie Chan]

Yes. When we reported the results back to communities in Saskatchewan, we heard that they have a very successful program helping local communities to set up greenhouses to grow home produce. That has been very successful. Of course, in other communities, where the climate allows them to grow their own produce, they are quite successful as well.

We were asked to test some of the local soil, for example, to make sure the homegrown produce is safe to support the vegetables they harvest locally. If it's identified as one of the potential local solutions, it's definitely worth supporting.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Then you don't have to worry about all those other issues like climate change and everything. You have it there.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much, Jamie.

Mr. van Koeverden.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. It's been extremely interesting today, and I appreciate the insight.

My question also concerns climate change, as well as the potential contamination from Arctic oil drilling. I know that we're talking about maybe some more southern jurisdictions, but when we talk about the potential for contamination, we're talking about living off the land and living off fragile ecosystems. Arctic and subarctic ecosystems, it has been shown, are more susceptible to climate change, and they might also be more susceptible to contamination from Arctic and subarctic oil drilling.

Have these things been taken into consideration much?

[Dr. Laurie Chan]

Yes. I think that both climate change and chemical pollution from industry are similar issues of environmental degradation. Some of them are close by and some of them are more long-range issues and are happening elsewhere. We cannot let the local people suffer because of our irresponsibility in handling chemicals, etc.

When we make decisions in allowing industry to go ahead or not, the whole issue of food security or the way of life of people, the well-being of people, definitely needs to be considered and to weigh heavily in those decisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

Adam, thank you for that question.

Madam Bérubé, we will have your question, please.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have the following question.

Given all the factors, which ones do you believe are especially relevant in terms of food security?

[Dr. Laurie Chan]

When we keep emphasizing the food security issues, it's not just about buying market food or not. The inability or the lack of capacity to get safe, nutritious traditional food locally is more important. Ways that we can actually help them to access more local traditional food or find solutions so that they can store or share traditional food will be a more effective solution than subsidizing imported food to go into communities. That's our though, in general.