Indigenous Food Sovereignty in Canada: Policy Paper 2019

Source: Stephen Penner, Kathleen Kevany, Sheri Longboat

Year: 2019

“Indigenous Nations in Canada have and continue to deal with a colonial food system that leaves many of these nations located in, what can be best described, as food wastelands, and at worst, imposes a lifetime sentence to a food prison (Finley, 2014). As we walk toward a path of reconciliation, it would be wise to acknowledge that Indigenous people had a well-developed, complex and thriving social-economic systems prior to colonial contact. Recognizing the depth of their intra-generational knowledge and deep understanding of the land can facilitate the development of a meaningful national and Indigenous food policy. One that recognizes mino-pimatwisin (Anishinaabe for good life) and maligit (balance) in Quajimajatuqangit (Inuktitut for Inuit Traditional Knowledge) nidiawemaginidog (Anishinaabe for “all my relatives”). Resulting in a robust and meaningful Indigenous food production system.”

Indigenous Food Responses to COVID-19 in Health Care

Source: Nourish

Year: 2020

In June 2020, Nourish hosted two conversations about food responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in health care by/for Indigenous communities. The purpose of the calls was to share learning focused on health care led interventions and document ongoing activities across the country responding to the particular needs in Indigenous communities. The hope is to identify strategies working well and document gaps that exist.

Building healthier Northern and Indigenous communities through Nourish

In the face of the pandemic and a growing awareness of systemic anti-Indigenous racism in the health care system, Nourish worked with leaders from several communities to strengthen food security, celebrate Indigenous ways of knowing, and increase understanding of Indigenous realities. The following is an excerpt from our final report to the Frontline Fund, whose support made this work possible.

---

With the onset of the pandemic, food insecurity was exacerbated and Indigenous communities, especially those that are rural and remote, experienced increased pressure on their food systems as a result of disruptions in food supply chains, reduced ability to travel and harvest, and fewer occasions to celebrate and share food together.

In response, Nourish took a multi-phase approach by supporting community initiatives, facilitating knowledge exchanges, addressing systemic anti-Indigenous racism in health care, launching a national learning series, and creating opportunities for health care and community leaders to learn on the land from local Indigenous leaders.

PHASE 1 - Food Rx grants & knowledge exchanges

Nourish awarded five $50k Food Rx grants to mobilize community-led, innovative, capacity-building projects that supported both food security and Indigenous foodways. Food Rx initiatives built and promoted Indigenous leadership and centered Indigenous foodways and values, supporting the transformation of health services to better reflect Indigenous understandings of food sovereignty and wellbeing.

Nourish hosted two virtual Food Rx grantee knowledge exchanges to facilitate networking, sharing, and peer learning between grantees, the Nourish team, and the Indigenous and Allies Advisory. Participants appreciated this space to share their insights, innovations, successes, challenges and questions.

PHASE 2 - Short film

Nourish produced a short film exploring food security, experiences of anti-Indigenous systemic racism in health care, and the power of traditional Indigenous foodways. Called "Why does hospital food matter for reconciliation?" it resonated with many across the country, and has been viewed 3347 times in English (as of June 17, 2021), with a version available with French subtitles as well.

PHASE 3 - National Action Learning series

In April 2021, Nourish launched a national education Action Learning series called Food is Our Medicine (FIOM). The Action Learning series highlights and amplifies Indigenous voices and perspectives to contextualize Indigenous foodways work through multimedia resources, and contributions of Indigenous leaders in medicine and systems change.

Additionally, FIOM features the work of several Indigenous artists in its visual identity and beadwork (the first 200 learners to complete the learning journey will be gifted a handcrafted beaded pin). FIOM provides health care leaders with knowledge and tools to decolonize food in health care and use it as an organizational pathway to deepen conversations about systemic racism and reconciliation.

Land-based learning grants

With the end of the pandemic in view, seven teams in the Nourish Anchor Cohort will have access to grants up to $7k to participate and host on-the-land learning and relationship-building with Indigenous partners and knowledge keepers in their area. This program will start off in a good way with a Cultural Mindfulness session on June 28, hosted by George Couchie from Nipissing First Nation, with the goal of sowing the seeds or building upon existing relationships between health care, community organizations, and Indigenous communities.

Along with supporting Nourish programming, the Food Rx grants are addressing the unique challenges found at the complex intersection of three factors within health care: the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic anti-Indigenous racism, and food (in)security.

The entire process of this work was guided by the Nourish Indigenous and Allies Advisory, with participation from a wider circle of Indigenous leaders.

Getting Back To Normal? Not If “Normal” Means Indigenous Food And Health Insecurity

With the summer solstice behind us and the prospect of a post-COVID “two dose” summer ahead, many are anticipating a return to normal. But the COVID era has revealed health inequities and structural realities that make return to “normal” untenable.

Incidents in the last twenty months, including the death of Joyce Echequan in a Quebec hospital, a higher death toll from overdoses than from COVID in Indigenous communities, and the continued-unearthing of mass graves of children at Indian Residential Schools, highlight that systemic racism has flourished in our collective silence and inaction. 

This is not a baseline to which we can return.

As we reopen, we must all confront a question that stands between a return to normal and advancing toward a future that affirms the self determination of Indigenous peoples.

Read more in the policy brief from Elisa Levi and Hayley Lapalme.

Revitalizing Native Foodways

Source: Kaylena Bray, Melissa K Nelson

Year: 2015

“At a time when food has become better known as a commodity rather than a life source, it is more pressing than ever to remember that food, in its deepest, truest essence, is a gift. It’s a gift that connects us to the land, plants, animals, and waters, that nourishes us, feeds our minds and our bodies, and guides us in our original roles as human members of our sacred ecosystems. As Indigenous peoples, we have a sacred responsibility to take care of our foods and of all the elements of life – soil, water, air, seeds, fire, prayers – that create it.”

Indigenous Food Systems Network Website

Source: Indigenous Food Systems Network

Year: n.d.

“The Indigenous Food Systems Network Website was developed by the WGIFS and is designed to allow individuals and groups involved with Indigenous food related action, research, and policy reform to network and share relevant resources and information.”

Valerie Segrest at TEDxRainier

Source: Valerie Segrest at TEDxRainier

Year: 2014

“The Indian tribes around the Puget Sound have practiced sustainable balance with its foods for thousands of years, but now the prairie lands and mountain berry meadows are disappearing and salmons runs are dwindling. Valerie Segrest, a member of Muckleshoot tribe and native foods educator tells us to listen to the salmon and cedar tree, who teach us a life of love, generosity and abundance, and to remember when we take better care of our land, we are taking better care of ourselves.”

A Conversation on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (Part 2)

Source: Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin and guests

Year: 2020

“This discussion includes the importance of dismantling structural racism in the food system, how Covid-19 speaks to the inequities of our broken food system, and how intertwined the social and environmental implications of food are for Indigenous peoples.”

Indigenous Food Sovereignty

Source: Food Secure Canada

Year: 2011

"We are a group of community-based activists, scholars and storytellers who work on issues of food sovereignty. We come from diverse regions of Turtle Island and share fundamental beliefs towards the land and all she stands for. We represent fishing, hunting, and gathering peoples and bring an understanding of the impact of colonialism on our regions. Indigenous food systems include all of the land, soil, water, and air, as well as culturally important plant, fungi, and animal species that have sustained Indigenous peoples over thousands of years of participating in the natural world. "

Traditional Foods & Recipes on the Wild Side

Source: Native Women’s Association of Canada

Year: 2012

“This booklet is intended to provide some cultural context, as well as information about traditional foods. You’ll also find a few recipes on the wild side!”

Gifts from Our Relations: Indigenous Original Foods Guide

Source: National Indigenous Diabetes Association

Year: 2020

“The National Indigenous Diabetes Association (NIDA) presents this resource booklet entitled “Gifts from our Relations”, which consists of commonly consumed traditional foods (plants/animals) that are Indigenous to our lands. Colonization, the reserve system, and residential schools have had significant negative impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ land bases, territories, and connections to the land. Regular harvesting and consumption of original foods has been largely replaced with a commercial supply of western, processed, non-nutritive foods. As noted by the Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “...original foods were viewed by missionaries, educators and doctors as being diseased and inferior; in residential schools, teachers taught children to dislike their own foods and inculcated them with the poor eating habits of a non-Indigenous institution.”"

Pathways to the revitalization of Indigenous food systems: Decolonizing diets through Indigenous-focused food guides

Source: Taylor Wilson, Shailesh Shukla

Year: 2020

“The 2019 Canadian Food Guide (CFG) was launched in January 2019 with a promise to be inclusive of multicultural diets and diverse perspectives on food, including the food systems of Indigenous communities. Some scholars argue that federally designed standard food guides often fail to address the myriad and complex issues of food security, well-being, and nutritional needs of Canadian Indigenous communities while imposing a dominant and westernized worldview of food and nutrition. In a parallel development, Indigenous food systems and associated knowledges and perspectives are being rediscovered as a hope and ways to improve current and future food security. Based on a review of relevant literature and our long-term collaborative learning and community based research engagements with Indigenous communities from Manitoba, we propose that Indigenous communities should develop their food guides considering their contexts, needs, and preferences.”

Reconciling Ways of Knowing Webinar Series

Source: Reconciling Ways of Knowing

Year: 2020

“In our first dialogue in this series, Why Do We Need to Reconcile Ways of Knowing? leaders working at the confluence of Indigenous and scientific knowledge and decision making discussed the events, issues and relationships that made it clear that a national-scale dialogue to facilitate just reconciliation between the ways of knowing and ways of being of Indigenous Peoples and Canadians, and their respective governments, is needed.”

Cooking Wild Game for an Event? Resource folder

Source: Understanding Our Food Systems Project (Thunder Bay District Health Unit and the Indigenous Food Circle)

Year: 2020

The Understanding Our Food Systems Project from the Thunder Bay District Health Unit and the Indigenous Food Circle share a series of resources, including info sheets, guidelines, application forms, and other materials for serving wild game at events.

Community Champions for Safe, Sustainable, Traditional Food Systems

Source: Kathleen Yung, Casey Neathway

Year: 2019

“This study will describe how the First Nations Health Authority supported increasing access to the processing and sharing of safely preserved traditional foods through the facilitation of a Community Champion model and the development of accompanying resource materials. Engaging Community Champions recognized the positive social impacts of sharing foods and traditional food systems, including access to nutrient-rich harvested foods, while the curriculum development and engagement of environmental health professionals ensured advice given would lead to decreased risks of foodborne illness.”

Assembly of First Nations Report: Traditional Foods: Are they Safe for First Nations Consumption?

Source: Assembly of First Nations

Year: 2007

“This paper focuses on the critical issue of First Nations exposure to environmental contaminants through the consumption of traditional foods. It discusses the potential health risks and benefits to First Nation communities, as well as, other issues of concern with respect to the economic and socio-cultural aspects of traditional food systems. The Environmental Stewardship Unit (ESU) of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) has reviewed relevant research on this subject and will provide an overview of the current situation in this paper.”

Increasing Indigenous Children’s Access to Traditional Foods in Early Childhood Programs

Source: Provincial Health Services Authority, British Columbia

Year: 2016

"Traditional Indigenous foods are part of a healthy diet. Moreover, traditional foods also have cultural and spiritual value and can contribute to the health of young First Nations and Métis children, many of whom experience food insecurity. Early childhood programs are ideal settings to introduce, explore and share traditional foods. However, in licensed childcare settings, the current food regulatory system effectively excludes the type, frequency and/or where traditional foods can be served."

We are not being heard: Aboriginal Perspectives on Traditional Food Access and Food Security

Source: Bethany Elliott, Deepthi Jayatilaka, Contessa Brown, Leslie Varley, and Kitty K. Corbett

Year: 2012

“Aboriginal peoples are among the most food insecure groups in Canada, yet their perspectives and knowledge are often sidelined in mainstream food security debates. In order to create food security for all, Aboriginal perspectives must be included in food security research and discourse. This project demonstrates a process in which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal partners engaged in a culturally appropriate and respectful collaboration, assessing the challenges and barriers to traditional foods access in the urban environment of Vancouver, BC, Canada.”

Towards Improving Traditional Food Access for Urban Indigenous People

Source: Robyn Ermine, Rachel Engler-Stringer, Patricia Farnese, Glenda Abbott

Year: 2020

“Our purpose in carrying out this project has been to support the development of actions that can remove barriers to traditional foods in urban environments for Indigenous people. Traditional foods are hunted, trapped, fished, gathered and cultivated to various extents depending on the community and their respective traditional territories. Communities and organizations across the country are finding innovative ways to bring traditional foods to urban residing Indigenous people, but they are often navigating the relevant policies and regulations on their own. This situation places the burden of navigating current policies and regulations on Indigenous communities.”