Bringing home the right to food in Canada: challenges and possibilities for achieving food security

Abstract

We offer a critique of Canada's approach to domestic food security with respect to international agreements, justiciability and case law, the breakdown of the public safety net, the institutionalisation of charitable approaches to food insecurity, and the need for 'joined-up' food and nutrition policies. We examined Canada's commitments to the right to food, as well as Canadian policies, case law and social trends, in order to assess Canada's performance with respect to the human right to food. We found that while Canada has been a leader in signing international human rights agreements, including those relating to the right to food, domestic action has lagged and food insecurity increased. We provide recommendations for policy changes that could deal with complex issues of state accountability, social safety nets and vulnerable populations, and joined-up policy frameworks that could help realise the right to adequate food in Canada and other developed nations.

Searching for Progress on Food Security in the North American North: A Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis of the Peer-Reviewed Literature + Supplementary Appendix (See Article Tools)

“…These include the right to be in control of development, as set out for example in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and also the basic human right to food, as set out in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A question is how effective local and regional efforts to secure food security can ultimately be if governments do not take steps to recognize these rights, as is the case in the United States (Chilton and Rose, 2009), or to enforce these rights once recognized, which evidence suggests is the case in Canada (Rideout et al, 2007). We have the policies and the tools and the toolkit, conceptual and methodological, to improve urban and rural food security in the North, but do we have the political will to do so?…”

“…In Canada, the right to access country food has been ratified through multiple domestic and international agreements (Rideout et al, 2007), and access to country foods is further protected by the Constitution Act of 1982 and through the Canadian legal system's general recognition of Aboriginal title. In Alaska, where Aboriginal title has been extinguished by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (Thériault et al, 2005), some protections still exist in the state constitution and state law.…”

Food as a human right during disasters in Uganda

“…As observed by Dowler and O'Connor (2012), and Rideout et al (2007), weak commitment by the State in ensuring its obligations against threats of hunger and food insecurity have created opportunities for humanitarian agencies to operate even in situations where the Government has the capacity, mandate and primary obligation. In Uganda, the Uganda Red Cross (URC), which is by legal design a neutral auxiliary agency, contributes a seemingly leading role in the Government during emergency response and relief operations across the country.…”

Rights-based approaches to addressing food poverty and food insecurity in Ireland and UK

“…Such practices legitimate the bureaucratic and substantive inadequacies of the welfare systems and insecure employment for insufficient wage, and institutionalise demeaning distribution systems which create and sustain dependency (Riches, 2002(Riches, , 2011Rideout et al, 2007).…”