National food strategy recommended The report advises more emphasis on developing local food systems and less focus on export markets
A report to be presented to the United Nations’ Council on Human Rights calls on Canada to develop “right to food” legislation as the number of food insecure Canadians grows.
Citing poverty as the main cause of food insecurity in Canada, the report to be presented March 4 in Geneva calls for a national food strategy, a poverty reduction strategy and an enriched social assistance system with increased minimum wage levels.
It also calls on Canada to put less agricultural policy emphasis on exports and more on developing local food systems and markets.
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Report author Olivier De Schutter, special UN rapporteur on the right to food, visited Canada last spring and met with local community food activists, aboriginal communities, farm groups and government officials in Ottawa.
His reception from the Conservative government was frosty.
Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said De Schutter was pursing a political agenda and should be concentrating on developing counties where food shortages are endemic rather than Canadian agricultural policies.
“The single best way to make sure that families in Canada and around the world can access the food they need is to make sure our farmers remain successful,” he said in May.
“We are making sure that families in Canada and around the world can access the food they need by promoting free and unfettered trade.”
Health minister Leona Aglukkag, the only minister to meet with De Schutter, said she was insulted that he was prescribing policies for northern aboriginal communities without ever visiting the north.
At the time of De Schutter’s visit to Ottawa, opposition MPs embraced his criticism of Canada’s record of hunger amid plenty.
Last week, when the text of the report to be presented at the UN was made public, it made barely a ripple.
There were no House of Commons questions or government reaction.
The advocacy group Food Secure Canada, which organized meetings for De Schutter when he was in Canada last year, called on the government to take the findings and recommendations seriously.
“Our members sincerely hope that this report will be neither shelved nor dismissed,” executive director Diana Bronson said in a statement on the report.
