U.N. To Canada: Ignoring Hunger Won't Make It Go Away »
The UN Special Envoy had this to say about his visit to Canada:
"Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty. Yet today one in ten families with a child under six is unable to meet their daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right to food strategy. What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and Aboriginal non-Aboriginal peoples. Canada is much admired for its achievements in the area of human rights, which it has championed for many years. But hunger and access to adequate diets, too, are human rights issues — and here much remains to be done."
All but one federal minister agreed to meet with him and the one who did, Health Minister Aglukkaq, an Inuit from Nunavut, continued the Harperialist ostriching ("He’s ill-informed. I found it a bit patronizing… It’s about fighting environmentalists…") in stark contrast to the position taken by Inuit leaders:
[T]he current inability for a significant portion of Inuit to access safe, sufficient, nutritionally adequate, and socially acceptable food is undermining the well being of the population and the very integrity of the culture. Although the health of Canadian Aboriginal Peoples has been identified as a pressing issue, action to address the right to food in Inuit communities is insufficient. Immediate intervention is needed through the collaborative engagement of various levels of government, Inuit organizations and communities to develop a resolution if the situation is to be improved.
As Doug Cuthland put it in The Star Phoenix:
The Conservative strategy is clear. Have an Inuit politician parrot the party line, thus making the issue internal to aboriginal people. In the House of Commons question period she was answering questions directed toward Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan. Sadly this is a federal government that would rather fight and turn people against one another than deal with the very important issues of poverty and malnutrition.
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