UN spanks Canada on food security [General]
2012 May 17
Give it a rest Zym. The guy is a total boob even the liberals were embarrassed by this idiot from the un.
blogs.canoe.ca
blogs.canoe.ca
2012 May 17
The Liberals should be embarrassed - they are as responsible as the Conservatives for the situation. And Sun News Network? Seriously? Sorry but I can't take those guys seriously - not in the least.
Are you suggesting there is no poverty in Canada and that it is not true that 800,000 Canadian households have trouble providing nourishing food for their families?
Are you suggesting there is no poverty in Canada and that it is not true that 800,000 Canadian households have trouble providing nourishing food for their families?
2012 May 17
Note that the Canadian parliament already unanimously vowed in 1990 to solve this problem. Big words. No actions.
www.thestar.com
I feel ashamed to be a Canadian today.
One of our best friends, the U.N., exhorted us Wednesday to make our “land of plenty” a prosperous place for the unacceptably large number of us who are poor.
“Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty,” Olivier De Schutter, the U.N.’s right-to-food envoy, told an Ottawa press conference.
“Yet today one in 10 [Canadian] families with a child under 6 is unable to meet their daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right-to-food strategy.”
None of that shames me. I know my fellow citizens want to do better. They want, for instance, Ottawa to stop reneging on Parliament’s unanimous commitment, back in 1990, to eradicate child poverty by 2000.
We already know that a poor population is an unhealthy and under-educated one. As a practical rather than ethical matter, we can’t afford that in a globally competitive world.
We know we are held back by skills shortages across vocations and regions. That poverty and subsistence incomes are a drag on economic growth, diminishing consumer purchasing power, among other things.
We know that chronic poverty is linked with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and psychiatric disorders, and with crime, substance abuse and other anti-social behaviours. And that poverty is expensive. Poverty related obesity alone – a North America-wide crisis – costs Canada an estimated $5-billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity. Canada’s productivity rate – a chief measure of economic vibrancy – lags that of many of our global rivals.
The U.N. reminder is a useful one. It echoes concerns expressed by business leaders during the awareness-raising activities of the Occupy movement, and alarming reports last year on child poverty and income inequality from the Conference Board of Canada, a business-related think tank.
No, what shames me is the churlish response of my federal government to the U.N’s honest, good-faith call to action.
Jason Kenney, Tory immigration minister and designated hitman on the admittedly scathing U.N. report, managed to put out of mind his own government’s lecturing to China on its abysmal human-rights practices, and to Washington on its folly in not promptly approving a pipeline megaproject that poses environmental risks for U.S. citizens.
“It would be our hope that the contributions that we make to the United Nations are used to help starving people in developing countries, not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada,” Kennedy said Wednesday.
Actually, the wealthy nations could use a lecture, on, say, the 2008-09 meltdown of their quick-buck financial system that imposed a recession on the world, disproportionately afflicting developing nations.
Kenney said the U.N. itself ranks Canada among the best countries in which to live. What he didn’t say is that we’ve slid by that measure, now ranking sixth on the U.N.’s Human Development Index, trailing Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, the U.S. and New Zealand. In 1992 and from 1994 to 2000, Canada ranked first.
If anything, De Schutter was overly diplomatic about the challenges we face. Three million of us are enduring some measure of deprivation, from dire poverty to struggling to make ends meet. That includes more than 600,000 children.
We not only have a growing gap between rich and poor, but it’s growing faster in Canada than most rich countries. Our middle class hasn’t seen a pay raise in 30 years. Meanwhile, Brazil has been narrowing its income gap, by an average of 1.5 per cent a year, over the past decade.
De Schutter called Wednesday for a Canadian right-to-food strategy. Which at least bears consideration, given that the Tories have strategies for exhausting taxpayer funds on U.S. fighter jets that can’t fly, and prisons we don’t need with crime rates in sustainable decline.
We know what that strategy requires: An increase in minimum wages, affordable housing units, and enriched daycare slots, for a start. And restoring taxes to where they were in 2000. That would give Ottawa an extra $48 billion to lift our people from misery and better assure Canada’s economic prospects this century.
Weak minds react with weakness to wise counsel. There’s also the moral repugnancy in our selective regard of outside advice.
When an alarmist International Monetary Fund and Wall Street Journal declared in the mid-1990s that Canada was flirting with fiscal ruin, the Chretien government eradicated the federal deficit lickety-split. It did so largely on the backs of the poor and working poor, among the reasons Ottawa broke its promise to impoverished Canadian children.
We can recognize that double standard for what it is – a rapid response to any threat to the comfortable, but a “shoot the messenger” reaction when a friend speaks truth to us about our sins.
www.thestar.com
I feel ashamed to be a Canadian today.
One of our best friends, the U.N., exhorted us Wednesday to make our “land of plenty” a prosperous place for the unacceptably large number of us who are poor.
“Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty,” Olivier De Schutter, the U.N.’s right-to-food envoy, told an Ottawa press conference.
“Yet today one in 10 [Canadian] families with a child under 6 is unable to meet their daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right-to-food strategy.”
None of that shames me. I know my fellow citizens want to do better. They want, for instance, Ottawa to stop reneging on Parliament’s unanimous commitment, back in 1990, to eradicate child poverty by 2000.
We already know that a poor population is an unhealthy and under-educated one. As a practical rather than ethical matter, we can’t afford that in a globally competitive world.
We know we are held back by skills shortages across vocations and regions. That poverty and subsistence incomes are a drag on economic growth, diminishing consumer purchasing power, among other things.
We know that chronic poverty is linked with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and psychiatric disorders, and with crime, substance abuse and other anti-social behaviours. And that poverty is expensive. Poverty related obesity alone – a North America-wide crisis – costs Canada an estimated $5-billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity. Canada’s productivity rate – a chief measure of economic vibrancy – lags that of many of our global rivals.
The U.N. reminder is a useful one. It echoes concerns expressed by business leaders during the awareness-raising activities of the Occupy movement, and alarming reports last year on child poverty and income inequality from the Conference Board of Canada, a business-related think tank.
No, what shames me is the churlish response of my federal government to the U.N’s honest, good-faith call to action.
Jason Kenney, Tory immigration minister and designated hitman on the admittedly scathing U.N. report, managed to put out of mind his own government’s lecturing to China on its abysmal human-rights practices, and to Washington on its folly in not promptly approving a pipeline megaproject that poses environmental risks for U.S. citizens.
“It would be our hope that the contributions that we make to the United Nations are used to help starving people in developing countries, not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada,” Kennedy said Wednesday.
Actually, the wealthy nations could use a lecture, on, say, the 2008-09 meltdown of their quick-buck financial system that imposed a recession on the world, disproportionately afflicting developing nations.
Kenney said the U.N. itself ranks Canada among the best countries in which to live. What he didn’t say is that we’ve slid by that measure, now ranking sixth on the U.N.’s Human Development Index, trailing Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, the U.S. and New Zealand. In 1992 and from 1994 to 2000, Canada ranked first.
If anything, De Schutter was overly diplomatic about the challenges we face. Three million of us are enduring some measure of deprivation, from dire poverty to struggling to make ends meet. That includes more than 600,000 children.
We not only have a growing gap between rich and poor, but it’s growing faster in Canada than most rich countries. Our middle class hasn’t seen a pay raise in 30 years. Meanwhile, Brazil has been narrowing its income gap, by an average of 1.5 per cent a year, over the past decade.
De Schutter called Wednesday for a Canadian right-to-food strategy. Which at least bears consideration, given that the Tories have strategies for exhausting taxpayer funds on U.S. fighter jets that can’t fly, and prisons we don’t need with crime rates in sustainable decline.
We know what that strategy requires: An increase in minimum wages, affordable housing units, and enriched daycare slots, for a start. And restoring taxes to where they were in 2000. That would give Ottawa an extra $48 billion to lift our people from misery and better assure Canada’s economic prospects this century.
Weak minds react with weakness to wise counsel. There’s also the moral repugnancy in our selective regard of outside advice.
When an alarmist International Monetary Fund and Wall Street Journal declared in the mid-1990s that Canada was flirting with fiscal ruin, the Chretien government eradicated the federal deficit lickety-split. It did so largely on the backs of the poor and working poor, among the reasons Ottawa broke its promise to impoverished Canadian children.
We can recognize that double standard for what it is – a rapid response to any threat to the comfortable, but a “shoot the messenger” reaction when a friend speaks truth to us about our sins.
2012 May 17
That is a bit of a puzzling response, smoker guy. Are you suggesting that only the NDP care about whether or not people can afford to put food on their tables? As I already mentioned above, in 1989 (mistakenly said 1990 above) Parliament passed a unanimous all-party resolution to eliminate child poverty by 2000.
www.parl.gc.ca
Are you suggesting that the NDP was the only party really serious about this? Given that the 2 mainstream parties have been in power ever since I guess it would seem to be correct. Or more truthfully, the other 2 parties clearly don't give a rat's ass about it.
According to the above document, Canada is far behind a good number of OECD countries on this front - with 11% of children living in poverty (and therefore having trouble getting nutritious food). That is a lot better than the US at over twice that rate, but a lot worse than Denmark which sits at a respectable 2.4%. And incidentally a quick google of Denmark politics tells me that the Right had their fair share of years of rule in the last 20 some years since Canada's hot-air declaration.
Oh, and it will be a long cold day in Ottawa in July when I vote NDP ...
www.parl.gc.ca
Are you suggesting that the NDP was the only party really serious about this? Given that the 2 mainstream parties have been in power ever since I guess it would seem to be correct. Or more truthfully, the other 2 parties clearly don't give a rat's ass about it.
According to the above document, Canada is far behind a good number of OECD countries on this front - with 11% of children living in poverty (and therefore having trouble getting nutritious food). That is a lot better than the US at over twice that rate, but a lot worse than Denmark which sits at a respectable 2.4%. And incidentally a quick google of Denmark politics tells me that the Right had their fair share of years of rule in the last 20 some years since Canada's hot-air declaration.
Oh, and it will be a long cold day in Ottawa in July when I vote NDP ...
2012 May 17
What would it take for the average Canadian to TRULY care about anything ... Child Poverty ... The Environment ... The Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor ... any big issue.
(Are we just diverted by Hockey and Hollywood?)
As was seen previous comments here, Canadians got to be hit hard before they take to the streets, like in Cape Breton, in 1925.
Good thing we got the tar sands and forests and minerals ... if not, would we become a Greece/Spain or even more likely .... the next Iceland.
www.pressenza.com
(Are we just diverted by Hockey and Hollywood?)
As was seen previous comments here, Canadians got to be hit hard before they take to the streets, like in Cape Breton, in 1925.
Good thing we got the tar sands and forests and minerals ... if not, would we become a Greece/Spain or even more likely .... the next Iceland.
www.pressenza.com
2012 May 17
Captain they are called oil sands. Since some people want to use this form for political issues this video applies to Canada as well. Less government is better government. Canada is second in the world when it comes to giving food to poor nations.
freemarketamerica.org/
freemarketamerica.org/
2012 May 17
Food and politics are inseparable Ken V, and these forums are about food. I've drifted a bit in the last few days from direct "politics of food", but not in this thread.
Incidentally, speaking of Denmark and taking to the streets in Cape Breton, I was reading an article a few months ago that I'm trying to dig up again now. It was about a social revolution in Scandinavia in the early 20th century (IIRC) which has left such a big mark on society that there are certain issues that are just assumed to have already been resolved and the Right won't touch them - simple things like sexual equality, minimum standards of living, and so on. It was quite interesting. Was kind of hoping the occupy movement would have turned into something like that but I guess as Captain Caper says, it will take a lot to get Canadians to throw off their Timmies and take to the streets.
Incidentally, speaking of Denmark and taking to the streets in Cape Breton, I was reading an article a few months ago that I'm trying to dig up again now. It was about a social revolution in Scandinavia in the early 20th century (IIRC) which has left such a big mark on society that there are certain issues that are just assumed to have already been resolved and the Right won't touch them - simple things like sexual equality, minimum standards of living, and so on. It was quite interesting. Was kind of hoping the occupy movement would have turned into something like that but I guess as Captain Caper says, it will take a lot to get Canadians to throw off their Timmies and take to the streets.
2012 May 17
Ken V: Having spent the better part of my childhood in the tar sands, I can assure you that "oil sands" is a rather recent re-branding.
And though discussion has gone off topic in recent days, I do appreciate zymurgist drawing our attention to food-related news items, as I agree that food and politics often intersect.
And though discussion has gone off topic in recent days, I do appreciate zymurgist drawing our attention to food-related news items, as I agree that food and politics often intersect.
2012 May 18
Oil Sands is to Gaming
As Tar Sands is to Gambling.
When my cousins wife brought her family to financial ruin by addictively playing the video lottery terminals (VLT's), she wasn't gambling .... She was 'Gaming'!
Another true life food story from Cape Breton. Food story because they were the very first in my family to ever have to go to the food bank ... to survive.
As Tar Sands is to Gambling.
When my cousins wife brought her family to financial ruin by addictively playing the video lottery terminals (VLT's), she wasn't gambling .... She was 'Gaming'!
Another true life food story from Cape Breton. Food story because they were the very first in my family to ever have to go to the food bank ... to survive.
2012 May 18
Well I can see this forum is a socialist gathering. By the way there is no tar in oil. I bet some people here think that Omar Kadar and his family should all be allowed to walk the streets of Canada as well. We are all entitled to our opinions. This un person is trying to bring European socialist policy's to Canada something that I do not agree with. Seems to be working for them LOL. The union is about to go belly up. Food and politics probably do intersect giving some people the chance to get up on their soap boxes thought I would try to tell the other side of the story. The crowd is unreceptive yikes four thumbs down to the free market wow.
2012 May 18
Good Lord... tar sands have been tar sands since the 1800s, people who work in the tar sands call them the tar sands, just because Ezra Levant tells you otherwise Ken, it doesn't make it so. You don't agree with ensuring Canadians can feed themselves? Well yeah, I'd imagine most folks outside of Free Dominion would be pretty unreceptive to that.
And not that it'll make it through, but the EU is not close to collaps because of the confederation's social democracies (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland). So yeah, y'know, not true. At all. Sun News and various rageaholic websites are doing you a disservice.
And not that it'll make it through, but the EU is not close to collaps because of the confederation's social democracies (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland). So yeah, y'know, not true. At all. Sun News and various rageaholic websites are doing you a disservice.
2012 May 28
I'll say it again .. with explanation this time.
Oil Sands is to Gaming
As Tar Sands is to Gambling.
You see City of Vegas could not attract families to it's sin city if the focus was gambling , so they changed it to gaming. Such a fun and family oriented word.
... and so the Government of Alberta and the Oil Industry did the following ....
Then in 1993,
the Alberta Chamber of Resources
convened the National Oil Sands Task
Force (the Task Force), a collective
of oil industry and government
representatives, to draft a framework
for making the oil sands an economically
attractive resource. ....... The strategy also called
for efforts to improve public perception
of the dirty sounding “tar sands.” The
term “oil sands” was selected as the new
brand name for tar sands, and they
were framed as “a national prize.”
(The most accurate name(s) would be Bitumen Sands or Asphalt Sands)
Ref:
www.pembina.org/pub/203
and
National Oil Sands Task Force, The Oil Sands: A New Energy
Vision for Canada (1995), p. 5
Oil Sands is to Gaming
As Tar Sands is to Gambling.
You see City of Vegas could not attract families to it's sin city if the focus was gambling , so they changed it to gaming. Such a fun and family oriented word.
... and so the Government of Alberta and the Oil Industry did the following ....
Then in 1993,
the Alberta Chamber of Resources
convened the National Oil Sands Task
Force (the Task Force), a collective
of oil industry and government
representatives, to draft a framework
for making the oil sands an economically
attractive resource. ....... The strategy also called
for efforts to improve public perception
of the dirty sounding “tar sands.” The
term “oil sands” was selected as the new
brand name for tar sands, and they
were framed as “a national prize.”
(The most accurate name(s) would be Bitumen Sands or Asphalt Sands)
Ref:
www.pembina.org/pub/203
and
National Oil Sands Task Force, The Oil Sands: A New Energy
Vision for Canada (1995), p. 5
2012 Jun 6
This is not a simple issue. When the Parliament passed the resolution I had a warm feeling. Unfortunately I had peed my pants. Who is going to vote againt alleviating povery. Unfortunately no one in the history of the world has figured out how to completely eradicate poverty and hunger. I have concerns that when we speak of rights we usually forget to determine who has the responsibility to fulfill those rights. Are those rights completely unconditional?
I am all for never having another hungry child in Canada again. I am not convinced that increasing the minimum wage or subsidizing farmers will do anything to accomplish this. I think that this is long beyond a right/left issue and goes to the structures of society.
PS. I like the sands no matter what they are called. I hope we get a pipeline going West to supply China, South to supply the States, and East to the rest of Canada. Maybe we can use these funds to address some of our social needs.
I am all for never having another hungry child in Canada again. I am not convinced that increasing the minimum wage or subsidizing farmers will do anything to accomplish this. I think that this is long beyond a right/left issue and goes to the structures of society.
PS. I like the sands no matter what they are called. I hope we get a pipeline going West to supply China, South to supply the States, and East to the rest of Canada. Maybe we can use these funds to address some of our social needs.
zymurgist
www.cbc.ca
UN special rapporteur for food Olivier De Schutter said he was in Canada to launch a conversation over a national food strategy, and he certainly started a debate.
Discussion centred on whether Canadians have trouble affording to feed themselves, with the government arguing De Schutter was wasting his time and advocates for the poor urging politicians to arrange for wide-ranging meetings to create a national food strategy.
De Schutter warned Wednesday that inequality is getting worse, with many Canadians having problems getting the healthy food they require.
The 11-day visit to Canada involved looking at whether poor people in Canada have adequate diets and at social policies to support people with low incomes, he said. De Schutter said his role is to help countries identify blind spots in public policies that would be easier to ignore — and that he didn't see why he should mince his words.
"We have a large number of Canadians who are unacceptably too poor to feed themselves decently," he said.
"We have in this country more than 800,000 households who are considered food insecure.... This situation is of great concern to me."
Canada has a standard of living that is envied throughout the world, he said. But inequality is increasing and the top 10 per cent of the country is 10 times more affluent than the bottom 10 per cent. Taxes and benefits reduce inequality much less than in most OECD countries.
Canada fails to adapt its social assistance benefits and minimum wage to the rising costs of basic necessities, including food and housing, he added. Food banks are not a solution but a symptom of failing social safety nets.
'Discredit to the United Nations'
The Conservative government struck early, with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney suggesting De Schutter is wasting his organization's money by visiting a developed country.
"Canada sends billion of dollars of food aid to developing countries around the world where people are starving," Kenney said.
"It would be our hope that the contributions we make to the United Nations are used to help starving people in developing countries, not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada. And I think this is a discredit to the United Nations."
De Schutter says most of his missions are in developing countries, but he estimates Canada has two to three million people who can't afford the diets they need to lead healthy lives. He says one million First Nations people and 55,000 Inuit are "the desperate situation" in which they find themselves.
"The right to food is about politics. It’s not about technicalities. It’s a matter of principle and it’s a matter of political will. I think these comments are symptomatic of the very problem that it is my duty to address," he said.
Consumers educate themselves about food
NDP MPs urged support for farmers and policies that ensure the working poor can feed themselves in the wake of De Schutter's report.
"This government says if you have a job, you won’t be poor. That’s not true," New Democrat MP Malcolm Allen said Wednesday.
At the same time, consumers are trying to re-educate themselves about where their food comes from, because much of it isn't grown locally, he said. Many farmers have to work off-farm to earn a living or export all their product to other countries to survive.
Hunger and consumer groups also called for a national strategy in Canada to deal with the quality, availability and price of food.
Representatives from Food Secure Canada, the National Farmers Union, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, called for a plan to connect farms with communities and to deal with a problem that sees families struggling to feed themselves.
Paul Slomp, youth spokesman for the National Farmers Union, said they agree that Canada’s food system is in dire need of attention. In the last 20 years, he said, the number of farmers under the age of 35 has decreased from 77,000 to a little more than 24,000.
"Parents who are farming are telling their kids it’s not worth the stress and it’s not worth the debt," he said.
"Canada needs to make sure that farmers have a viable income in growing food for Canadians."
The groups, representing a variety of interests and each with different demands, all called for a national food strategy.
"On a sort of common sense basis, we live in Canada. Kids should not be going to school hungry," said Diane Bronson, executive director of Food Secure Canada.