Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 8th, 2020

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Walsh.

You talked earlier about challenges related to the pandemic and complementary support.

My riding includes the community of Inukjuak, a town located on the Hudson Bay coast, where a gardening project is being carried out in northern Quebec—the Pirursiivik project. Those in charge of the project created a hydroponic farm in containers, which will enable them to harvest vegetables throughout the year. A major portion of the production will be given to that Nunavik community, and the surplus will be sold in local stores.

Do you think the government could support the development of those kinds of projects in other northern communities?

[Wayne Walsh]

Yes, at this point, there are pockets of funding and there are pockets of resources that would go towards projects such as the one you've indicated in Nunavik. A lot of them are ad hoc. They seem to be case by case. As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately right now there's nothing systematic in terms of a program set-aside. That's why we have these ongoing discussions through our engagements.

We try to steer people in the right directions, but it is certainly something that we've increasingly been looking at. As I mentioned earlier, the harvesters support grant people are asking if they could repurpose some of that money for things such as hydroponics or community gardens. There's a growing interest in communities for that type of investment.

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

You also talked about food insecurity, which affects men and women in northern Canada.

Can you explain to us why food insecurity does or does not occur?

[Wayne Walsh]

If I understand your question correctly, I would argue that food insecurity in the north probably affects women more than men. They tend to be the matriarchs of the household, and when food insecurity has a huge impact on households, I would say, without having any tangible data in front of me for you today, that generally children and women bear the brunt of food insecurity in the north. I would say that's probably the case everywhere.

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

I would like to talk to you about my region, which covers Baie-James, Nunavik and Eeyou. It is often difficult to send food by plane, rail or boat.

How do you plan to ship that food into regions like mine, given those types of problems?

[Wayne Walsh]

Yes, this is essentially the crux of the problem. The communities we are talking about, whether they are in the high north or in the provincial north, are isolated, and food and other supplies need to be flown in. That has a huge impact on the cost, but it can also have a huge impact on the quality of the product, in some cases.

Nutrition North Canada, the retail subsidy program, at its heart targets that nutrition and those perishable foods to reduce the price for the people who live in northern communities for the food that needs to be flown in. That's essentially the fundamental challenge. Whenever you need to transport food any distance, however, it's going to be more expensive. That's why communities are increasingly looking at local food production in order to offset some of the cost.

When we are looking at food systems and addressing food insecurity, we need to look at a whole host of opportunities and of different solutions in order to address the issue.

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

You are talking about options, but have you compared Canada with other countries when it comes to food insecurity?

[Wayne Walsh]

We have not, but I'm pretty sure, if I recall correctly, that Food Secure Canada will have done some work in that domain. There are also some other academics in Canada who would have looked at food insecurity, Canadian versus international, and certainly a lot has been done to study the issue between southern and northern Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have 10 seconds.

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

What factors could improve the nutrition-related process in the north?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Answer very quickly; we are over six minutes.

[Wayne Walsh]

I would say that the number one cause of food insecurity is poverty. If poverty were addressed, then food security would be addressed and it wouldn't be a Nutrition North issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much, Mr. Walsh and Madame Bérubé.

Ms. Blaney, it's your turn now, for six minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses so much for their testimony today.

Let me start with Mr. Parry.

Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned that right now your department has 182 projects that are directly partnered with indigenous communities. In your process of doing these projects, what is the analysis around best practices, and how is that sort of information shared with other communities that may have similar challenges?

[Matt Parry]

Thank you for the question. I might turn to my colleague John Fox, who is in the programs branch, to speak to those issues.

[John Fox]

I am wondering if the member is looking specifically at the local food infrastructure projects that we've been doing in indigenous communities or at the emergency food response as a result of COVID. The approach is slightly different in each of those cases.

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

Both are very important. Either is important, but the first one I have more interest in.

[John Fox]

Those are the local food infrastructure programs.

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

That's right.

[John Fox]

Those are purely application-based. We send out the word as broadly as we can, including to members of Parliament, to invite applications to come in. They're community-based, so there's a broad list or suite of potential eligible applicants. They include even municipal governments or governmental agencies, indigenous organizations, and economic development corporations, but they're aimed at the not-for-profit—

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

There's no process whereby best practices...? I find this is a gap. I worked in the non-profit sector for many years and worked in indigenous communities, and one of the things I found very concerning was that when things worked well, there was nothing shared broadly so that people could look at those programs and those projects and how they were implemented.

Just to clarify, there's no system of sharing best practices or successful programs?

[John Fox]

The program has been open for only about 14 months, so it's a little early to be able to determine where those best practices might lie.

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

Okay. Thank you.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I know that your departments allowed more flexibility to use funding based on the needs of the community. I heard from some communities in my riding about starting community gardens. I also heard about food security projects like providing hampers and getting people back out onto the land.

Has having to address these issues in a new way made any of the departments re-evaluate their process and programming? That's for both departments.

[Wayne Walsh]

I'll go first, I guess.

I would say, simply, yes, but it was something that we were starting to do already. Through our engagement with indigenous partners, we were increasingly being asked to look at lots of options, other than just the retail subsidy, to address food insecurity. I think the introduction of the harvesters support grant was a first step towards that, and discussions are ongoing on other possibilities moving forward.

[John Fox]

The only thing I could add is that in the emergency COVID responses around food, the focus of those responses has been specifically food, but we've been pretty flexible in how that food assistance could be distributed. In some cases in northern communities, it was found that distributing gift cards to individual families was the best way to get them to be able to meet their own food needs through the retail operations. In other cases, as you noticed, it was hampers.

The entire focus of the first $100 million and the second $100 million that the Prime Minister announced has been strictly emergency food assistance. That money hasn't been used to do more long-term work around capacity building and food systems.