44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 29, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/29/24 10:21:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I move that the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, presented to the House on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, be concurred in.
I appreciate the opportunity to stand and speak on this very important report entitled “Food Security in Northern and Isolated Communities: Ensuring Equitable Access to Adequate and Healthy Food for All”.
Just to give a quick summary, in general, right across the country, no matter where one lives, food security has become a major issue. We see food bank usage at record highs. In fact, some food banks are running out of food before the lines get through the facility. It is a very challenging time for many Canadians, and it is even worse, if members can believe, in the north, especially in our territories.
For example, this report states, “Food insecurity is generally defined as a situation that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food. In 2017–2018, 12.7% of Canadian households were food insecure”.
As I mentioned right off the top, it is worse in the north. The report states that roughly “4.4 million” households, “12.7% of...households” right across the country, “were food insecure”. Let us look at the north: the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It has reached as high as “16.9%” in the Yukon, “21.6%” in the Northwest Territories, and “57%” in Nunavut. That is absolutely incredible. It goes on to say that among Northerners, Indigenous peoples are particularly at risk of being food insecure.
One of the recommendations from this study, and what the committee heard, is that, unfortunately, the nutrition north program that is available shows that the program itself and the changes the government has made to it are not meeting the needs of northerners.
As I mentioned, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kenora, who has great insight into this subject as well and who wants to share his thoughts.
One of the biggest factors of the increase in the cost of food is of course the carbon tax. We see the newly elected Premier of the Northwest Territories calling for relief from the carbon tax. We know that when farmers, truckers and grocery stores, etc., are forced to pay the cost, those costs are passed along to the consumer. This continues throughout the chain and increases the cost of absolutely everything. Unfortunately, food prices are impacted by this at a level and at a time when Canadians are struggling to pay their bills. Inflation is out of control. The cost of everything is up, and the government refuses to take any sort of action or to show any kind of compassion for the people who are suffering.
The government says that people will get rebates, but it had to rebrand this rebate because Canadians were not actually buying it. They noticed that somehow the rate at which they were taxed through the carbon tax was quite disproportionate to the rebate, which leaves a very good question: If it is taxing people, raising the cost of everything, giving them a bit back and expecting them to be grateful but not actually helping the environment, why bother taking it from them in the first place? Why not leave that money in their pockets? Why not stop bribing people with their own money? Let them keep it and make the best decisions they can, and they will. Consumers will always make the best decisions based on their own situations.
I think that is one of the key disagreements between the official opposition and the government; the government believes that it knows all and that it is smarter than the 40 million or so Canadians out there. It can have a central plan to make everything work, and eventually, we will reach utopia. This is not happening. Canadians are suffering. They are going hungry. They are skipping meals. They are lining up at food banks at rates we have never seen before. Food banks are running out of food. In the north, the rates of food insecurity are even worse.
When we think about it, why is there no action? We would think the government would act, especially when people are suffering. We listen to the tone of the Prime Minister when he responds. We bring up the cost of a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread or a litre of milk, and all we hear, other than about the so-called rebate, which we know does not equal the amount people are spending, is that the Liberal government is working on it.
We have a report that was tabled in the 43rd Parliament, in June 2021. The program is still not working, and the cost of food is getting is worse. People are suffering even more. However, the government is not impacted by that. Those connected to the Liberal government, those who get the contracts for nothing and for whom money goes out the door, they are not impacted by the price of those items. Regular, everyday people are impacted, and that is the problem.
When pressed on it, the Liberals just ask for three things. They wanted unlimited time, unlimited resources and, of course, unlimited money, and they will eventually figure it out. At the end of the road, will it be worth it? It probably will not be for the average Canadian, but it might be worth it for those who are lobbied and lawyered and connected to government. They will reap the benefits, but the average person will not. We are seeing that again in the north.
I do not think there is anybody who could actually justify paying more in interest on our national debt than we do in transfers of health care dollars to the provinces. I do not think there is an argument that would actually make sense. The government does not seem to think it matters. It keeps spending. It keeps putting the future on the credit card. That is not responsible, despite programs that could easily be looked at.
We talked about the green slush fund many times in the House, in many speeches. The green slush fund is where billions of dollars have been thrown, and it looks like it has just been given out to those who are connected, who are well-lawyered or who lobbied government. The infrastructure bank has yet to produce anything of substance, but it has received ridiculous amounts of funding. The list goes on. We have arrive scam in the news, again and again, where two people in their basement seem to have made off like bandits with no real accountability. We have reports coming out that the indigenous consultation on the arrive scam app was not actually done through indigenous people.
The government keeps saying one thing after another, not actually living up to what it should be doing, yet food insecurity in the north continues to get worse. Money is being spent in higher amounts than ever, especially when we look at Crown-Indigenous Relations and look at Indigenous Services Canada. The spending is up, but the outcomes are down. There is actually more money going into those two departments, but Indigenous Services Canada, ISC, is only hitting 27% of its actual targets in its own departmental plan. It just tabled a new departmental plan today. We will have to see if it is any better. What private sector corporation would be able to succeed if it was only hitting 27% of its goals? I do not think many would. The government is looking at it and proudly saying it is throwing x amount of dollars at x amount of programs, but lives are not improving.
Going back to the study recommendation, it is recognizing that the nutrition north program will not solve food insecurity in the north. We have to look at other options. Economic reconciliation is something we talk about in a great capacity on this side of the House, because we believe that indigenous peoples have been left out of this conversation for far too long.
Having indigenous participation in the economy is key to its success as a nation. We are talking about an indigenous population that is motivated, well-educated and, according to the stats, a very young population. They want to be included, but have been left out for far too long. Therefore let us unleash the powers of these entrepreneurs. Let us stop with the government-knows-best, Ottawa-knows-best approach that we have had for 150-plus years and that has failed for those 150-plus years.
We have put forward a potential option for first nations communities that want to participate in their own economy. As I said, many do; they are just constrained by the Ottawa-knows-best approach. There is the first nations resource charge, which allows companies that are doing business on first nations lands to, instead of paying Ottawa for the federal taxes, pay the first nation directly. It is a far more efficient way for tax dollars to have maximum effect, the velocity of the tax dollar, than the current method. Currently, a resource company does business on first nations lands, leaves the community, comes to Ottawa and goes around the cotton candy machine. First nations have to come to Ottawa and ask for the tax dollars back in the form of programs and services that are not working, and then they get only a share of the funding back.
Therefore let us eliminate parts of the broken system, for one thing with the optional first nations research charge, which was actually developed by the First Nations Tax Commission. It was an indigenous-led proposal that we were able to have great success adopting and promoting. I know that when we are in government, very soon, we will be able to implement this and actually create a difference in the lives of indigenous peoples.
When we look at the north, we look at food insecurity. Processing is an issue—
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- Feb/29/24 10:40:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know we were all disappointed to learn that the member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock's time expired, as he had much more to contribute. However, it is an honour for me to rise to speak to such an important topic here this morning.
As has been highlighted in the discussion thus far, we know that food insecurity is a challenge right across the country, with inflationary spending by the NDP-Liberal government and its carbon tax adding to the cost of living. People right across the country, from coast to coast to coast, are struggling to get by, to put food on the table and to put healthy food on the table, which is an important distinction. It is one thing to be able to afford some food, but to be able to afford healthy food, and culturally appropriate food in many cases, has become a struggle. It is why there have been, unfortunately, two million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month. In recent statistics it might be even higher.
Eighteen per cent of families across the country are reporting food insecurity. This is really an affordability crisis across the country, much of it the creation of the NDP-Liberal government with its inflationary policies and carbon tax, which is a tax on everything: on the farmers who make the food, the truckers who ship the food and the individuals who buy the food. In fact in 2024, a typical family will have to spend $700 more on groceries as a result of the government's policies.
As the report we are discussing today has highlighted, this is an issue that is even greater in northern communities across the country, including in northern Ontario and communities I represent in the northwest. There are 42 first nations in the district that I represent, many of which have no year-round road access, so it becomes a challenge to deliver goods to those communities, especially food and healthy food that does not have a long shelf life.
What are communities in the north relying on? They are relying on winter roads, which are not always predictable, depending on the weather we are getting. They are relying on a barge to go from the northeast around the corner to northwest Ontario. They are relying on aircraft, which, of course, with the carbon tax, the so-called clean fuel regulations, and the second carbon tax on top, are getting more and more expensive to operate as well. There is also the pilot shortage. I could go on and on with the issues the government has created, but they all add to the cost of living for northern communities.
Then, of course, when we look farther north to the territories, where, I understand, there is not much road access to communities, the rates of food insecurity are even higher. According to a report put together by Statistics Canada with information from the University of Toronto, 46% of people in Nunavut and over 22% in the Northwest Territories live in food-insecure households. This is a major affordability crisis.
What is the government doing about it? Of course it is making it worse with its inflationary policies and high taxes, but it has supposedly been aiming to address this through nutrition north Canada, one of its flagship programs to address food insecurity in the north. Every single year, the government has been increasing funding to nutrition north Canada. In 2021, it announced $163 million over three years to expand it.
Every year, the money goes up, but the rates of food insecurity also go up. The government is spending more but getting worse results year after year, driving up the cost of living for people in the north, which is a major issue. Clearly the program is not working. As my colleague who spoke before me mentioned, nutrition north Canada is not going to solve the affordability crisis when it comes to groceries across northern Canada.
There are a number of reasons for that, which the report highlights. When I was previously working on the indigenous and northern affairs committee, this struck me. The mandate of the program is not even to address food security. We learned that from the officials of nutrition north Canada. This does not make any sense. Why would that program exists? It is a subsidy that goes to the retailers. There are a lot of concerns with the transparency of that. There are concerns that it has not been opened up to agricultural producers, that there has not been enough support for local harvesting or the ability for food to be processed in the north. It has a very narrow scope, yet the government continues to invest more and more money into a program that does not work.
Unfortunately, that is a common trend we have seen with the government. We have seen it with nutrition north and we have seen it in Indigenous Services Canada. The government often boasts about the fact that it has dramatically increased funding to Indigenous Services Canada. However, we have seen from PBO and Auditor General reports that the spending has not actually led to an increased ability of ISC, Indigenous Services Canada, to achieve its departmental results. That is why a number of boiled water advisories continue to exist in northwestern Ontario and across the country. Over and over again, we are seeing the government focused on announcements, photo ops and money that is being sent to the bureaucracy instead of doing the real work to ensure that it is getting to the people who need it.
Something that really concerns to me is that last year, through an answer to an Order Paper question, we found out that 94% of executive staff at Indigenous Services Canada received massive bonuses, totalling over $3.6 million. They are failing to meet their targets. They are failing to deliver adequate services to indigenous people across the country, yet they are being rewarded with bonuses. That is a slap in the face to indigenous peoples across the country, including in the north, who are struggling to get by. I am sure the 42 chiefs in my riding, and many across the north, could certainly have come up with a better use for that $3.6 million that went to the bureaucracy and bloated the pockets of executive staff.
That is completely unacceptable, but that is what we get after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, more spending, leading to higher inflation and a carbon tax that is driving up the cost of living for everyone. It is not just food that it is impacting. Of course, we are speaking about food security with this report, but it is energy as well.
One in five Canadian families are now living in energy poverty. I do not have a statistic for the north off the top of my head, but I am sure common sense would indicate that this would be even higher in the north, where it becomes even more expensive and even more necessary to have home heating and that use of energy.
It does not seem like the government gets it. The government does not understand the pain that its policies are inflicting on people across the country, particularly in the north. Either that or maybe the government just does not care. Either way, it is clear that it is time for a common-sense Conservative government that will axe the tax and make life and food more affordable for people across the north. We will listen to people living in the north to ensure we provide the services that are needed in an efficient manner. We will work toward building economic opportunities that can lead to self-determination and ensure that everyone can live in a food-secure household.
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- Feb/29/24 10:52:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I also had the opportunity to sit with my colleague at the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. I would like him to speak in a little more depth about nutrition north Canada, which was studied in committee. We hear that it cannot resolve the whole situation of food sovereignty or food security in the north.
Does my colleague see other possible solutions or arrangements? How can the nutrition north Canada program be improved to ensure food security in the north?
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