JOSHUA GLADSTONE

Only bold action will end food insecurity in the North

JOSHUA GLADSTONE

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Sunday, Dec. 14 2014, 8:00 AM EST

"..Joshua Gladstone is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University and co-founder of Northern Public Affairs. http://www.northernpublicaffairs.ca/index/
As Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq​ flipped casually through her newspaper in Parliament recently, she did so in the face of deep anger and frustration over her woeful handling of northern Canada's food security crisis.
Southern Canadians should be distressed, too. Research has shown that 70 per cent of Inuit preschoolers live in food-insecure homes, a reality that is as much a national disgrace as it is a troubling indicator of our collective disregard for the basic human rights of our fellow citizens.
Disturbing reports of food insecurity in Inuit communities going back at least as far as the early 1990s show that problems of hunger and malnutrition are enduring. Even more disturbing are the two manifestations of the same problem today: people scavenging at landfills and incoherent food security policy.
The Nutrition North program is the Conservative government's solution to the high cost of store-bought food in the North. Other causes of food insecurity, including the impacts of climate change on the Inuit food system and the high cost of harvesting country food, are conspicuously absent from the government's plans...."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/food-insecurity-in-the-north-has-become-a-human-rights-crisis/article22066925/