Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  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.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  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.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There's the lobster industry, for example. Remember that incident in Nova Scotia...? There are similar seasons of harvest, etc., that may be in conflict with people's traditional practices and quotas set up for different fish or sea mammals, etc. Sometimes the policies developed by government and DFO, etc., may not agree with the traditional knowledge or the local observations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  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.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  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.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  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.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are some programs available. Each community has to apply for them themselves. Sometimes the challenge is that they spend a lot of time putting proposals together, and some communities may not have the capacity to implement those proposals. Capacity building is also another challenge we need to look at.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can answer that. We've seen many communities that have their own solutions. One common solution is to have a communal freezer with a communal harvest program. The elders take the young kids out for hunting, and then place the slaughtered food in the communal freezer. That way they can share with whomever needs it in the community.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Malek, go ahead first.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  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.