By Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan

Canada has traditionally supported the United Nations as the best vehicle, however imperfect, for promoting world peace, justice, human rights and prosperity. The UN, for its part, ranks Canada as among the best countries in the world to live — currently sixth out of 187 countries.  But now the two are arguing over poverty and hunger in Canada.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food recently visited Canada, the first developed country he inspected. Not mincing words, Olivier De Schutter, asserted: “Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty. Yet today one in 10 families with a child under six is unable to meet its daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right to food strategy.”

The envoy met people in several cities and in Aboriginal communities. Cabinet ministers refused to meet him and blasted him. Health Minister Leona Aglukkag, however, held a last-minute meeting with him but called him “ill-informed and patronizing” and said he should tackle environmentalists who are trying to block Inuit access to seals, polar bears and fish in the North.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney stated: “I think this is completely ridiculous. Canada is one of the wealthiest, most democratic countries in the world... We believe that the UN should focus on development in countries where people are starving and we think it’s simply a waste of resources to come to Canada to give them political lecturing.”

Food is a fundamental human right under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other UN instruments.

De Schutter stated: “What I have seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. Canada is much admired for its achievements in the area of human rights, which it has championed for many years.

But hunger and access to adequate diets, too, are human rights issues — and here much remains to be done.” He concluded that 900,000 households with 2.5 million people cannot afford adequate diets in Canada.

The UN envoy won kudos as well. New Democratic Party chief and leader of the Opposition Thomas Mulcair said: “I think Canada has no excuse to have millions of people who cannot feed themselves adequately. We are one of the richest countries in the world and it’s unacceptable that we have hundreds of thousands of elderly people who live in poverty and can’t feed themselves. It’s unacceptable that in a country as rich as Canada we have children who go to school on an empty stomach.”

Liberal Party Interim leader Bob Rae added that the government should recognize the problem of poverty in Canada “rather than attacking the person who delivers the message.” Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo thanked the UN envoy for consulting First Nations and highlighting their plight. 

A recent First Nations survey indicates that 17.8 percent of First Nation adults aged 25-39 and 16.1 percent  aged 40-54 reported being hungry. This compared with 7.7 percent of other Canadians.

“As Minister Kenney pointed out, we are a wealthy nation with a high standard of living and M. De Schutter was right that our privileged status makes it even more unacceptable that one in 10 families with a child under six are food insecure,” commented Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The UN envoy urged Canada to adopt a national food strategy that would emphasize local food production, reform food subsidies for the North, ensure a living wage for low-income people and harmonize attempts to deal with hunger across the country.

Canadians take pride in their country as being one of the best in the world. But they know that the Aboriginal people live in largely Third World-like conditions and that the gap between rich and poor Canadians is growing. The visit of the UN rapporteur will be a blessing if his report forces the members of the Canadian government to give up their complacency and act with determination to improve the lives of Canada’s Aboriginals and the poor. After all, they were elected to serve the people.

Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge. He has received the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.