FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 1
Food insecurity in the Canadian North: Community resilience in the face of climate change
The Northern jurisdictions of Canada, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon,
shoulder a range of health inequities, one of the most obvious of which is food insecurity, which
has been escalating in the North despite remaining mostly unchanged in the rest of the country
(Tarasuk, Mitchell & Dachner, 2016).
At the same time, the North is grappling with other challenges precipitated by climate
change such as infrastructure damage due to melting permafrost and increasing extreme weather
events. These challenges are complex, often feed into each other and will likely amplify existing
inequities such as food insecurity. Nevertheless, change was always a familiar feature in the
North (Arctic Council, 2016) and while the scale and pace of change by rising global
temperatures is vast and swift, Northern communities are taking steps to build community
resilience and undertake preemptive planning.
Seven categories of capital are identified by the Arctic Council as being foundational to
the resilience: natural capital, social capital, human capital, infrastructure, financial capital,
knowledge assets and cultural capital (Nilsson et al., 2016). Food security, especially when
considered from an Indigenous perspective, intersects with all these components and can
therefore be considered as one indicator of a community’s resilience.
This paper will provide an overview of the current state of food security in the North
while taking into account both non-Indigenous and Indigenous perspectives as aboriginal people
make up 86.3% of Nunavut’s population, 51.9% of the Northwest Territories and 23.1% of the
Yukon’s populations (Statistics Canada, 2016). This will be followed by a summary of current
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 2
food security initiatives, discussed through the lens of the 2016 Arctic Resilience Report’s
recommendations. In recognition of the highly regionalized nature of food security,
community-level statistics and examples will be utilized where possible.
How food security is measured and its current state in the Canadian North
The Government of Canada employs the United Nations’ definition of food security
which encompasses “physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food” that
sustains dietary needs and healthy, active living. Food insecurity is further categorized into
marginal, which occurs when a household must “worry about running out of food and/or limit
food selection”; moderate, which is defined as a “compromise in quality and/or quantity of
food”; and severe, which is when households “miss meals, reduce food intake and at the most
extreme go days(s) without food” (Tarasuk et al., 2016, p. 4). Economic access, i.e. a
household’s ability to afford food, is the prime indicator of food security (Tarasuk et al., 2016;
Pegg, 2016). This is a narrower definition of food security in comparison to Indigenous
perspectives but it does serve as a starting point for analysis.
The standard measure for household food security in Canada is the Household Food
Security Survey Module (HFSSM), a series of eighteen questions that capture a picture of a
household’s food security over the past year. It was first applied nationally as part of the 2004
Canadian Community Health Survey (CHHS) and has been a feature of the CHHS ever since.
However, it is designated an optional module in alternative years: provinces/territories can opt
out of administering this module, making national data incomplete. The CHHS was redesigned
in 2015 and Health Canada recommends against analysing pre and post-2015 data together due
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 3
to the changes in module design (Health Canada, 2017). The post-2015 dataset is limited and it is
likely for this reason that most reports and studies focus on data dating to 2014, which was a year
in which the HFSSM was optional.
During the decade since the Government of Canada first collected national food security
data in 2004, Nunavut has consistently reported significantly higher rates of food insecurity
compared with the rest of the country. Yukon and the Northwest Territories’ food insecurity
rankings fluctuate but, in general, food insecurity is worst in the Canadian North, followed by the
Maritimes (Tarasuk et al., 2016). Yukon did not participate in the HFSSM in 2014, but both the
Northwest Territories and Nunavut reported unprecedented levels of food insecurity: 24.1%
households in the Northwest Territories and 46.8% of households in Nunavut were food
insecure. In comparison, the percentage of food insecure households in the Maritimes, the region
with the second-highest rates of food insecurity, hovered at around 15% (Tarasuk et al., 2016).
In fact, both Nunavut and the Northwest Territories witnessed an increase in food
insecurity —in 2004 for example, only 38% of Nunavut households were food insecure —
(Tarasuk et al., 2016). More disturbingly, when the situation is analysed through the three
categories of food insecurity, we find that few food-insecure families classify as marginally
food-insecure. In 2014, approximately 91% of Nunavut food-insecure households experienced
moderate or severe insecurity; in the Northwest Territories, this figure came to 74% (Tarasuk et
al., 2016).
Low-income households, single-mother households and race were linked to being at
greater risk of food insecurity. Of relevance to the North, being a resident of a rural area did not
significantly increase the risk of food insecurity (Tarasuk et al., 2016) but Indigenous
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communities experience disproportionately higher rates of food insecurity (Tarasuk et al., 2016;
Pegg, 2016).
An interesting companion to the above data is the 2007–8 Inuit Health Survey (IHS)
which offers more localized insights into food food security in Inuit communities. In particular,
the IHS also examines community consumption of traditional/country foods alongside
modern/market foods, an important piece of the Northern food security picture largely omitted
by the HFSSM. The IHS was carried out in Inuvialuit where 46% of households reported being
food insecure; this statistic came to 44.2% in Nunatsiavut and 70.3% in Nunavut (Egeland,
2010). In comparison, the 2007 levels of food insecurity captured by the HFSSM was 16.5% in
the Northwest Territories; 15.7% in Newfoundland and Labrador and 35.4% in Nunavut.
(Tarasuk et al., 2016). The wording and questions used in the IHS were almost identical to that
of the HFSSM so methodological discrepancies cannot be the sole reason behind the elevated
rates of food insecurity reported by the IHS.
What does it mean to be food insecure?
The above statistics frame food security largely around a household’s financial ability to
access food. Indigenous definitions of food security, however, are more holistic and also
encompass the right to safeguard the land, the right to self-governance and self-determination,
the right to apply and honour Indigenous knowledge and practices, and the right to teach younger
generations how to grow into the role of community providers through harvesting the land (Inuit
Circumpolar Council-Alaska, 2015). In the words of Alaskan Inuit, food sovereignty is
paramount to food security and is about “the entire Arctic ecosystem and the relationships
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 5
between all components within […] food is a lifeline and a connection between the past and
today’s self and cultural identity” (Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska, 2015, p. 4-5). Thus, in the
Northern context, there are two layers of food security: access to traditional/country foods and
access to store-bought/market foods. The transition from the former to the latter is an additional
dimension that bears nutritional, cultural and wellbeing repercussions the North, particularly for
Indigenous communities.
The direct correlation between general food insecurity and negative health indicators is
well known. Tarasuk et al. (2016) note that food insecurity is “tightly linked” to physical health
and mental wellbeing (p. 6) and list depression, asthma and heart disease among the diseases
related to food insecurity. It is a vicious circle: the inability to consume sufficient and good
quality, nutritious food can prompt new or worsen existing health conditions.
With regards to the shift away from traditional foods, this transition is marked by a
change in nutrient intake that affects both physical and mental health. Traditional foods are
generally higher in protein, omega-3, fatty acids, antioxidants; in comparison, modern foods are
higher in carbohydrate and saturated fats (McGrath-Hanna, Greene, Tavernier, & Bult-Ito,
2003). Together, lifestyle and nutrition changes have contributed to higher rates of obesity,
cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dental diseases in Arctic communities, while
cerebrovascular diseases/injuries, which are related to hunting, have decreased. In parallel,
Arctic communities have also experienced poorer mental health with rising rates of anxiety,
depression and other mental health disorders; studies in the late twentieth century found that
Inuit communities had higher rates of suicide than the rest of Canada (McGrath-Hanna et al.,
2003). The debilitating and enduring effects of colonization, loss of culture and abuse on a
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population’s mental wellness indicators cannot be underestimated. However, it is worth noting
that the nutritional the composition of traditional foods, in particular the presence of fatty acids
and selenium, are known to support stronger mental health, and it may be worthwhile to study
the effects of shifting rapidly from such a diet (McGrath-Hanna et al., 2003).
The ethnographic work conducted by Kirmayer and his team in 1994 offers more insights
into the relationship between traditional foods and wellbeing and reveals a recurring theme
among Inuit communities: blood is essential to physical and mental health and the consumption
of traditional foods revitalizes the quantity and quality of blood in a human body. Kirmayer et al.
(1994) cited examples where interviewees would describe the consumption of seal or beluga to
relieve malaise, general depression and indifference and wrote of the cultural meanings of
traditional foods: for elders, eating beluga skin specifically counteracted “feelings of depression
that occur when they are no longer able to participate in camp life”. The cultural significance of
beluga and health is summed up poignantly: “To be without beluga as food is to be slowly
drained of an essential element of the identity of the Inuit person” (Kirmayer et al., 1994, pp.
59-60).
For the Inuit, traditional foods are “physically and spiritually craved and needed form the
land, air and water” (Circumpolar Arctic Council-Alaska, 2015, p.5). When considered from this
angle, the link between the loss of traditional foods and mental/spiritual wellness stretches
beyond a nutrient shift, and can be considered another facet of colonialism eroding Indigenous
culture and identity. Although the sources cited here pertain to the Inuit, many other Indigenous
cultures possess a similarly strong connection between identity, food and land.
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Causes of food insecurity in Canada’s North
As with much of Canada, low income is concomitant to food insecurity (Tarasuk et al.,
2016), and many in the North are low-income households; for example, there are three times
more low income households among the Inuit compared to southern Canada (Pegg, 2016).
Unlike the rest of Canada, however, Northern households are also faced with much higher costs
of living and must spread limited budgets over food and other equally expensive essentials. A
2006-7 survey conducted by the Department of Indian & Northern Affairs found that it costed
$195-225 to feed a family of four for one week in southern Canada but the same scenario would
necessitate $350-450 in the North (Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2012). The Inuit Circumpolar
Council (2012) point to “remoteness, limited transport infrastructure, difficult climatic
conditions, high global prices for food commodities and oil” as key reasons behind elevated
costs for modern/market foods. Across the communities of Inuvialuit, Nunavut and Nunatsiavut,
the IHS consistently found that “unemployment, low income and high food costs” were primary
reasons for food insecurity (Egeland, 2010). Even for households able to afford market foods,
selection is limited and families may lack the familiarity and skills needed to identify how to
maximize nutrition use (Pegg, 2016).
While traditional/country foods carry the benefits of cultural well-being, nutrition and
generally, greater affordability, more households are consuming market foods (Pegg, 2016; Inuit
Circumpolar Council, 2012 ). A Food Banks Canada report cites loss of traditional knowledge
partly due to colonization; hunting expenses; limited access to animals due to the location of
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 8
modern settlements and changes in animal migration migration patterns; a growing preference
for modern foods among the youth (Pegg, 2016).
As well, there are concerns over the safety of traditional foods over fears of contaminants
which infiltrate and accumulate in the Arctic food chain, particularly in the fatty tissue of
animals towards the top of the food chain, such as whales and seals, that are important to the
Inuit diet (Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2012). Blood and breast milk among Arctic communities
have rates of contamination that are among the highest on Earth (Inuit Circumpolar Council,
2012). The Inuit Circumpolar Council (2012), note that lower income families generally
consume more the traditional foods and are therefore at greater risk of consuming contaminated
food..
Of the three regions that participated in the IHS, concern over contaminants ranged from
20% of households in Nunatsiavut to 49% in Inuvialuit, a very regional pattern (Egeland, 2010).
There may exist a disjoint between scientific and culturally-acceptable thresholds for
contaminants in food. When conducting interviews with Inuit communities in 1994, Kirmayer et
al. found that scientists view contamination in terms of a chemical concentration in an animal,
such as mercury concentrations in fish, while the Inuit view animals as simply either good or
bad. Discourse on traditional/country food safety and security must address this cultural
dimension as well as regional concerns.
While most literature consider country foods to be generally less expensive, the IHS
found this to vary regionally: 76.1% of respondents in Nunavut agreed that country foods was
cheaper than market foods but this percentage fell to 43.3% in Nunatsiavut (Egeland, 2010).
Nevertheless, across all three research regions of Inuvialuit, Nunavut and Nunatsiavut, the
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 9
majority of households expressed being able to consume less country foods than they wished:
86% of Inuvialuit households, 81% of Nunavut households and 75% of Nunatsiavut households
expressed wanting to consume more country foods than what was available. Primary barriers of
access to traditional foods across all three regions are lack of an active hunter in the household,
lack of transportation and the expenses for gas and hunting supplies. Other, less prominent
reasons included scarcity and/or difficulty of harvest and lack of time or poor weather (Egeland,
2010). These findings are echoed by Lambden, Receveur, Marshall & Kuhnlein (2006) who also
emphasized strong regional differences in their survey of forty-four Arctic communities,
including Inuit, Yukon First Nations, Dene and Métis households. Shifting cultural preferences,
particularly among younger generations may also be behind the decrease in consumption of
traditional/country foods (Circumpolar Arctic Council, 2012).
As described previously, the Inuit hold a more holistic understanding of food security that
also recognizes threats to environmental, cultural and community wellness and threats to Inuit
self-governance as impediments to food security (Circumpolar Arctic Council-Alaska, 2015).
Climate and global changes: Bringing new unknowns to the food security equation
Climate change lowers the predictability of traditional food supply as both humans and
animals adapt to changing landscapes. Animals have to the locate new food sources or breeding
grounds and may also have to compete with southerly species that are increasingly welcomed
north by warming temperatures such that animal migratory patterns will deviate from the routes
etched in oral history, making hunting more difficult and possibly resulting in the “obsolescence”
of traditional knowledge (Pegg, 2016, p. 4).
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Changing animal migrations may locate animal movement further away from human
settlements, increasing the time and fuel needed for travel. Communities also need to remap
hunting and travel routes due to the dangers posed by shoreline erosion, thinning ice and stronger
winds out at sea (Inuit Circumpolar Council Council, 2012; Circumpolar Arctic Council-Alaska,
2015).
Extreme weather events are expected to increase along with climate change and this will
generate unpredictables impact on the price of market foods, especially when such events strike
food producing countries. One example is the turn of the century drought in Australia and
Canada which subsequently inflated wheat prices by 100% (Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2012).
Factors that worsen climate change are situated in a global context, beyond the control of
Northern communities who can do little to rein in global gas emissions. In fact, other drivers of
Northern food insecurity are similarly global in scope. Industrialized countries are the main
source of pollutants that contaminate the Arctic food chain; global policies determine the price of
fuel which can further heighten the freight costs of food; and global demand for biofuel
competes for resources to farm food (Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2012). Ironically, in many
countries, policies for biofuel were implemented to offset dependence on fossil fuels. In a similar
vein, policies implemented to conserve animals are also impacting the hunting and subsistence
rights among Indigenous communities. Examples include the EU ban on seal imports which
devastated rural economies in Newfoundland (Huitric, Person & Rocha, 2016) and community
members in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut finding greater dependence on market foods after being banned
from hunting caribou (Inuit Tapiriit Kantami, 2018). The causes of species endangerment may be
global but the “burden of conservation” (Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska, 2015, p. 14) falls on
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 11
the North. Thus, Northern food security is situated in a global context of fluctuating food and
fuel prices. It is a context wherein a shift in policy in one part of the world can constrain
Northern attempts at building food security.
Resilience theory as applied to Northern food insecurity
The term “resilience” has gained much currency in the discourse on climate change and
disaster management and speaks of a system or entity’s capacity to withstand change and
uncertainty. Among the wide spectrum of definitions for resilience, this paper utilizes the one put
forth in the 2016 Arctic Resilience Report: “The capacity of people to learn, share and make use
of their knowledge of social ecological interactions and feedback, to deliberately and effectively
engage in shaping adaptive or transformative socio-ecological change” (Carson & Sommerkon,
2016, p.2). This definition is particularly applicable to the North as it grounds human agency in
the interweave of social and ecological systems: it acknowledges human limitations vis-à-vis
nature but honours human capacity to consciously guide its own adaptation or even
transformation. Transformation is also very relevant to the Northern context as it embodies the
possibility of purposefully navigating change in a manner that dismantles undesirable systems
while building on positive aspects that retains a community’s core identity and values (Carson &
Sommerkorn, 2016). This sidesteps the critique that resilience theories preserve the status quo,
including structures that entrench oppression (Carson & Sommerkorn, 2016), such as legacies of
institutional racism.
The Arctic Resilience Report lists natural capital, social capital, human capital,
infrastructure, financial capital, knowledge assets and cultural capital (Nilsson et al., 2016) as
prerequisites of resilience. For example, the availability of country foods is inherently dependent
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 12
on natural capital that is activated via cultural and human capital—human skills and generations
of Indigenous Knowledge allow families to harvest the land and seas. Human capital also, in
tandem with infrastructure and financial capital, makes it possible to build sustainable businesses
and supply chains to import market foods to the North. Building knowledge assets is a “social
process” (Nilsson et al., 2016, p.171) that, combined with social capital, the ability to collaborate
and problem-solve, and cultural capital, can form a framework for observing and managing
change tailored to the needs of the North.
Interventions: community-based action and governmental policy
Food sharing is a traditional practice among the Inuit (Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska,
2015) and represents an example where cultural capital enhances access to the natural capital of
country food for the community as a whole. The 2007 IHS found country food sharing to be a
common practice across Inuvialuit, Nunatsiavut and Nunavut, though sharing rates varied
regionally, ranging from 65 to 80% of households. Besides hunting/trapping, country foods were
most frequently obtained from family/friends and, less commonly, through community freezers
and community hunter/trappers’ organizations (Egeland, 2010).
Traditional food sharing networks are also being supplemented by many other
community-based initiatives such as including school breakfasts; cooking programs that impart
food skills (e.g. processing and preservation of foods, nutrition awareness) for both market and
country foods; “group purchase” programs where remote communities order market foods to be
bought and transported in at wholesale prices; community and backyard vegetable gardens or
greenhouses; research; soup kitchens and food banks (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, 2018). Food
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 13
Banks Canada reports that food banks are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, but stigma is still
attached and funding is highly regionalized and dependent on the resources available in a
community (Pegg, 2016).
Communities are also strengthening their food security by planning ahead with an eye on
climate change. Paulatuk, in the Northwest Territories, for example, has drawn up a
comprehensive climate change adaptation plan that covers culture, health/wellbeing, subsistence
harvesting, infrastructure and economy (Pearce, Ford, Caron, Prno & Smith, 2010). With regards
to increasingly unpredictable hunting conditions, the plan calls for enhanced land-based
programs that develop youths’ hunting skills with support from elders and mentors; a monitoring
program to assess emergent changes to wildlife caused by climate change; and group hunts to
offset increasing hunting costs. The plan acknowledges a greater dependence on market foods
and the advocates the import of healthier foods and providing more education on budgeting and
nutrition to smooth the transition to the market foods (Pearce et al., 2010).
Returning to seven categories of capital listed by Nilsson et al. (2016) as being a
prerequisite to resilience, we find that all of the above initiatives conjoin cultural, human,
natural, social capital and knowledge assets. Most, if not all, initiatives are community-led as
locals are best positioned to identify, manoeuvre and grow such capital. In Paulatuk for example,
community members pinpointed emerging climate-related challenges at a local level. As
community members were familiar with the strengths (i.e. capital) of their town, they were able
to recommend solutions tailored specifically to their needs and identified areas that could be
addressed through local action, as well as areas that called for external support such as
government grants (Pearce et al., 2010).
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Indeed, of the seven types of resilience capital described by Nilsson et al. (2016),
infrastructure and financial capital are two that are germane to partnerships that extend beyond
the community. Government support is usually very much involved with infrastructure
development and program grants/subsidies. The Paulatuk climate adaptation plan was funded by
the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (2017), which offers various funding
and grant streams for community-led initiatives. Funding from the three levels of government
also support many of the community-based food security initiatives, many of which are
collaborations between local communities and regional food security non-profits (Inuit Tapiriit
Kanatami, 2018). Such partnerships allow the sharing of expertise and stronger coordination of
advocacy work.
This structure of community-led projects supported by federal/regional governments and
stakeholders aligns well with the recommendations of the Arctic Resilience Report which
highlights the capacity for self-organization as the single most important determinant of
community resilience. Self-organization is dependent upon social, human and knowledge capital
but at the same time enables communities to maximize their utilization of resilience capital.
Self-organization also underlines the importance of transformation as part of the definition of
community resilience since existing institutions and policies maintain a legacy of undercutting
Indigenous communities’ capacity to self-organize. (Huitric et al., 2016). Community
self-organization can be supported by governance and policy that is flexible, enabling (Nilsson et
al., 2016) and conducive to cross-scale understanding (Huitric et al., 2016), which is essential
because food insecurity and climate change drivers are global in scope but demand localized
responses. In addition, governments must also be self-aware, adaptive and must enable
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 15
continuous learning that reflects on current assumptions and methods in order to respond swiftly
to change and to comprehend the range of work being carried out by various stakeholders
(Nilsson & Meek, 2016).
Concluding remarks: how can the situation be improved?
Improving Northern food security can be summed up as the two-pronged approach
advocated by Lambden et al. (2006): lower the costs of market foods and enable access to
traditional/country foods. This approach is actively implemented through community-based
initiatives and community-led climate change-planning which are particularly effective due to
the highly regionalized nature of food insecurity. Many such initiatives embody key principles
for resilience, such as promoting ecological diversity, synthesizing different knowledge systems;
monitoring and navigating change through innovation and learning from crises (Huitric et al.,
2016). Communities can continue to nurture these characteristics if supported by policies that are
informed by the Indigenous definition of food security and that bolster financial support, provide
space for self-organization and provide cross-scale coordination.
More concrete examples of possible government support include policies that enhance
traditional sharing systems through the form of transportation subsidies that would facilitate
sharing between villages (Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska, 2015). The government can also
explore the commercialization of country foods (Nunavut Food Security Coalition, 2014) which
would provide an alternative source of revenue. The government can also consider restructuring
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 16
the Nutrition North subsidy such that it subsidizes nutritional value rather than transportation
costs to best meet current Northern needs (Pegg, 2016).
This paper provides a very shallow overview of Northern food security and
acknowledges the absence of primary sources which is important in developing a full
understanding of food security as it is experienced by Northern families. Local-level examples
were used throughout the paper to provide a more grounded understanding of the topic but they
are not representative of all communities. The aforementioned model of local-led initiatives with
cross-scale support also applies well to research and policy development on food security.
FOOD SECURITY IN THE CANADIAN NORTH 17
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