Nunavik’s health board says food security projects are on the rise to circumvent distribution problems in the region

NationTalk: Nunatsiaq News – Newviq’vi is one of three grocery stores in Kuujjuaq. It offers a $1 stamp for every $25 spent at the store, which can be accumulated to use as a future discount. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)

By  Cedric Gallant – Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About 60 per cent of Quebec Inuit are facing food insecurity, with one-third indicating they have had to reduce food intake or disrupt their eating patterns because of it.

Statistics Canada published results from its Indigenous Peoples Survey, conducted in 2022, in August.

Respondents answered 18 questions meant to determine whether households both with and without children were able to afford the food they needed over the previous 12 months.

Out of nearly 16,000 Quebec Inuit surveyed, approximately 9,500 felt they were in a state of food insecurity. Just over 3,000 respondents reported they felt severely food insecure.

The question of food security in Nunavik goes beyond buying power, said Jordyn Stafford, food security manager with the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.

Stafford said she prefers the term food sovereignty, as it takes into account access to traditional and country food.

“It is a huge priority in how we go about creating a more food-secure Nunavik,” she said in a video-conference interview.

“It is about if you have the bullets, have the vehicle or have the gas to be able to go out and hunt, and harvest as well.”

Stafford’s work relies on the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami food security strategy, which points to six solutions to food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat.

Those solutions include increasing Inuit self-determination, reducing Inuit poverty, providing support for vulnerable families, investing in food security programs, supporting harvesting and sharing systems, and addressing deficits in Inuit food system infrastructure.

When these factors are not met, Stafford said, it leads to “astronomical rates of food insecurity.”

She said the region saw a boom in the growth of food security programs due to an increase in funding that was borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those resources are now dwindling.

“Now we have more people seeking to start projects, and less funding to work with,” said Stafford, adding there is a lot of really interesting work underway on that issue in the region.

The health board has supported around 40 local food projects in Nunavik, including having family houses cook meals to non-profits like Inukjuak’s Sirivik Food Centre providing a space to cook food, teach youths how to cook and promote country food.

Statistics Canada data from the Indigenous Peoples Survey, done in 2022, breaks down the state of Quebec Inuit’s food security in five categories on the basis of the household’s ability to afford food. (Graphic by Cedric Gallant)

Stafford points out that the data shown by Statistics Canada also includes Inuit who are not in Nunavik, which dilutes the results.

She said the Qanuilirpitaa survey, done in 2017, presents a more accurate picture of Nunavimmiut health, with data made and owned by Inuit.

Qanuilirpitaa is a comprehensive health survey that documents the physical and mental health status of Nunavik Inuit, through a partnership between Nunavik’s regional organizations, Quebec’s National Institute of Public Health, and Laval, McGill and Trent Universities.

The report shows 78 per cent of Nunavimmiut felt food-insecure, which didn’t just mean they didn’t have the ability to buy food, but they also didn’t have the ability to get food by any means.

“There is quite a large discrepancy when you look at those two numbers,” Stafford said.

“Both of them are rates of food insecurity that are not acceptable.”