How Canada destroyed Indigenous food systems 🌾
Decolonizing Canada's food systems
For too long, we've been taught that the Western ideology of health is some sort of objective truth rather than a product of the colonial system.
Health and well-being are unique experiences and can look like different things for different people. Then why is our diet still highly influenced by the government and the impacts of colonization and capitalism?
Canada is a country with rich agricultural land, we have a sizeable international diaspora and an Indigenous population native to this land with intergenerational knowledge that enabled them to thrive long before settler colonizers arrived. With all these pieces, the way we view nutrition and health should be so much more diverse, but it isn't.
We need to change how we think about health and nutrition, which means we need to decolonize our food systems.
The historical context they missed in class
The destruction of cultural food systems wasn't just a consequence of colonialism; it was intentionally planned. The separation between Indigenous Peoples and their cultural food systems was enforced through colonial policies like The Indian Act (1876), designed to seize Indigenous land, obstruct traditional economic systems, and place bans on potlatch ceremonies between communities.
In the past 150 years, Canada has (*forcibly*) taken over the country's agricultural land to mass-produce dairy, beef, and corn and imposed barriers to the sources of nutrition that Indigenous folk sustained themselves with for centuries.
Obtaining traditional Indigenous food was also criminalized: the hunting of seals, caribou, elk and other species were banned by law, forcing First Nation, Métis, and Inuit to become dependent on settler food diets and assimilate.
Case in point: Rigolet community
Hunting bans were first created due to substantial declines in wildlife populations from commercial overfishing, climate change, extraction, and deforestation - all actions of the settler capitalist industries. Yet the blame for environmental degradation is frequently placed on Indigenous peoples.
Caribou is regarded as nutritious lean meat in the Rigolet community (located in the Mealy Mountains). Yet, the hunting restrictions disrupted the passing of intergenerational knowledge, meaning that parents couldn't teach the youngest generation about their traditional nutritional diets or the cultural practice of hunting.
"You're not going to increase the quality of life of people just by having access to food, I think it's just part of what the food [means to Inuit] - the interaction with the food, and the food getting, and the food preparation, and food sharing."
- Member of the Rigolet community
The impact
Not only do settlers occupy Canada and separate Indigenous communities from their traditional lands—our capitalist and colonial systems have irreparably damaged food sources.
Thirty-four communities still have boil water advisories in Canada. The government of Canada website states that "everyone in Canada should have access to safe, clean drinking water," not to mention that this was a Liberal election promise in 2015—to be completed by 2020. This is completely unacceptable in a country as wealthy as Canada and one of the most water-rich countries globally.
And let's not forget that in October 2021, the residents of Iqaluit, Nunavut faced a local state of emergency after their water sources were contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons – aka fuel chemicals – aka gasoline. GASOLINE.
These processes have affected many traditional foods, including contamination by toxic metals and chemicals. In particular, mercury pollution has been a significant concern in multiple Indigenous communities whose traditional diets consume many types of marine species coming from diverse ecosystems.
Mercury pollution can lead to impaired vision and hearing, premature mortality, congenital disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and joint disjunctions.
An estimated 90% of the population of Grassy Narrows have symptoms of mercury poisoning (an Ojibwa First Nation located 80 km N of Kenora, ON in Nunavik, NWT). This is just an example of one community severely affected by the contamination of food sources, but many Indigenous communities in Canada are disproportionately over-exposed to mercury poisoning.
Cost of Food
And that doesn't even begin to cover the current state of food costs in Canada—which continue to impact Northern Ontario First Nations Reserves disproportionately.
A study of monthly grocery costs found that a $50 grocery shop at a local Toronto Walmart would cost $115 on a reserve in Ontario. Consider the cost of these food items on a First Nations Reserve in Ontario versus a local Toronto Walmart.
Racism & Food Insecurity
4 million Indigenous, Black, and racialized folks currently experience food insecurity in Canada (that's over 10% of the population)
Approximately 50% of households in Nunavut experience food insecurity, compared to a national average of 8.8%
In First Nations communities, 54% of the population experiences food insecurity in Canada
How come such a large percentage of Canadians do not have access to enough healthy and cultural foods - a fundamental human right? Systemic Racism.
These inequities have been perpetuated for decades through the purposeful creation of financial barriers, food deserts in BIPOC neighbourhoods, and colonial efforts to eradicate Indigenous food systems. This creates substantial health impacts, including nutrient deficiencies, chronic illness, and poorer mental health.
Next Steps
In order to heal the trauma of colonialism and improve the future of food security, especially for marginalized communities, we must centre Indigenous food systems, knowledge and perspectives.
Address colonial policies including The Indian Act which limit Indigenous knowledge and practices, as well as farming, hunting and fishing restrictions which continue to restrict Indigenous communities despite being a response to commercial over-fishing, climate change, extraction, and deforestation.
Take a critical look at the Canada Food Guide—which remains heavily based on western notions of health and fails to address many of the biggest health gaps in Canada, like food insecurity.
Advocate for Indigenous leaders and communities to be at the forefront of decision making on issues of health, nutrition, food insecurity, hunting, fishing and agriculture industries and environmental waste.
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UWinnipeg, CBC, CNN, Health Affairs, The Borgen Project, Hindawi, Centre for Social Innovation, Broadbent Institute, Food Not Bought, ScienceDirect, Oxford Academic, Teach for Canada, Assembly of First Nations, CBC, The Walrus, The Narwal, MDPI, Érudit,
