[homeles_ot-l] Report of UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food in Canada

Wed May 23 12:19:48 EDT 2012

FYI . . . two messages on the UN report on Right to Food in Canada – one from Linda Lalonde and one from Rob Reiner at Canada Without Poverty.

Lynne Browne

Executive Director, Alliance to End Homelessness 

613-241-7913 ext. 205, lbrowne at ysb.on.ca <mailto:lbrowne at ysb.on.ca> 

1.     From: Linda Lalonde [mailto:linda_lalonde_ottawa at yahoo.com] 
Sent: May-17-12 8:37 AM
To: Linda Lalonde
Subject: Report of UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food n Canada

Hi folks,

As many of you know, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has been visiting Canada since May 6th. He has been travelling through the country to investigate whether or not Canadians are able to avail themselves of their right to have food as guaranteed by both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. His inital report was released yesterday here n Ottawa and is at: http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/201205_canadaprelim_en.pdf.

The process from here is that he will write a complete report whch will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next March. Canada will then be called upon to respond to the rights violations that he will be setting out.

Below is Ted Schrecker's blog post from CHNET today. 

As many of you know, I was at several of the meetings that Olivier De Schutter had while he was here as well as his press conference yesterday. I will be sending out a summary from them soon.

Linda.

Food security: Canada gets a warning 

http://www.chnet-works.ca/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=30&Itemid=50  

Olivier De Schutter <http://www.srfood.org/index.php/en/special-rapporteur-> , the second United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, is one of the most thoughtful thematic mandate holders <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/Themes.aspx> , as they are called in UN-speak. (There are currently 36 such mandates.) His reports and commentaries <http://www.srfood.org/>  provide articulate critiques not only of the policies of specific national governments, but also of an international agri-food system that is conspicuously failing <http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20120306_nutrition_en.pdf>  to protect and fulfil the right of all to an adequate diet – one of the most basic social determinants of health. 

The preliminary report of Prof. De Schutter's mission to Canada <http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/201205_canadaprelim_en.pdf> , which wound up on May 16, is sobering reading for a country that is often prone to self-congratulation on its human rights record. He points out that according to the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey, 7.7 percent of Canadian households reported moderate or severe food insecurity – this before the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent recession – and "was disconcerted by the deep and severe food insecurity" faced by aboriginal people, the legacy in part of a "long history of political and economic marginalization." 

His report directly links food insecurity and increasing reliance on food banks <http://foodbankscanada.ca/getmedia/dc2aa860-4c33-4929-ac36-fb5d40f0b7e7/HungerCount-2011.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf>  to low incomes and the high cost of housing – a link that has been referred to in earlier postings. "In the view of the Special Rapporteur, social assistance levels need to be increased immediately to correspond to the costs of basic necessities," and minimum wages should be set at a living wage level as required by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights <http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm> , to which Canada is a state party. 

Population health researchers have effectively documented the extent of food insecurity in Canada; the work of the University of Toronto's Valerie Tarasuk <http://www.phs.utoronto.ca/faculty_template_new.asp?GetFile=vTarasuk> is especially powerful in this respect, as are the reports of the Toronto Department of Public Health <http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2011/hl/bgrd/backgroundfile-42223.pdf> . We have perhaps not taken advantage of opportunities to frame food security as a human rights issue, a matter of priorities. Maybe food security for all is just more important than freeway widenings or fighter aircraft ... or maybe we don't even need to make those choices. Prof. DeSchutter pointed out that: "The tax-to-GDP ratio of Canada ... is now in the lowest third of OECD countries. Consequently, Canada has the fiscal space to address the basic human needs of its most marginalized and disempowered." I've made a similar observation in a previous posting <http://www.chnet-works.ca/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=25&Itemid=50&lang=en> . 

Predictably, the official response was less than cordial. Cabinet minister Jason Kenney <http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1179208--jason-kenney-blasts-un-food-envoy?bn=1> , at roughly zero risk of food insecurity, referred to "lectures to wealthy and developed countries" as "a discredit to the United Nations." He might want to have a talk with Department of Justice lawyers about the nature of obligations under human rights treaties, but that's a topic for another day. Clearly, Prof. De Schutter's intervention gives a boost to those who would address the politics and priorities that deprive people in such a "wealthy and developed country" of food security.  

2.     From: Rob Rainer [mailto:rob at cwp-csp.ca] 
Sent: May-23-12 12:09 PM
To: Rob Rainer
Subject: Prime Minister: Who speaks for Canada on poverty in Canada?

To our national network we copy our letters to Prime Minister Harper and to Citizenship and Immigration Minister, Hon. Jason Kenney.  Our questions to the Prime Minister and the Minister arise following comments by various Cabinet members in the wake of preliminary findings on food security in Canada, by Mr. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.  

For more information on Mr. De Schutter’s mission and media coverage etc., see http://foodsecurecanada.org/.  For his preliminary report, click here <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12159&LangID=E> .  For basic information on the right to food, click here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_food>  and here <http://www.srfood.org/index.php/en/right-to-food>  (the latter being from Mr. De Schutter’s web site).  And for key information on hunger in Canada, including a link to Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount 2011 report, click here <http://foodbankscanada.ca/Learn-About-Hunger/About-Hunger-in-Canada.aspx> .

Rob Rainer

Executive Director / Directeur executif

CANADA WITHOUT POVERTY / CANADA SANS PAUVRETÉ

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