Poverty and Capitalist - Divide and Conquer

The April issue of The Walrus (https://thewalrus.ca/) was all about food - what we eat, where it comes from, who does not have enough etc. Two articles, in particular, attracted my interest. One was about the difficulty for Indigenous people to access traditional foods from the land, the second article was about the issue of food security (or the lack thereof) for people who live in poverty. Predictably, the former article shaped the discussion of Indigenous people's food insecurity around colonialism. It argued in part that the reasons why Indigenous people could not hunt etc were the repressive and destructive rules of the government whose purpose was to destroy First Nation's culture and to force assimilating. The second article, specifically towards the end focused on the fact that the issue of food insecurity could not be solely be resolved by building bigger or better food banks, or by teaching people to cook in groups or to participate in community gardens. Food insecurity is the result of poverty - and that is the issue that must be addressed.

I would hope that there is no one left in Canada ( perhaps a naive hope) who would disagree with the fact that the federal government and its agents have had since its inception, a clear and specific policy of forcing Indigenous people to assimilate into the European world. These policies not only rejected First Nation's values but systematically did all that it could to eradicate those values and the cultures that created them. The damage caused by these policies has been destructive and long-lasting. However, we could ensure that all Indigenous people had both the opportunity and the support to be able to hunt and fish as often as they wanted to where ever they wanted to (including the National Parks) and it would still not be enough food. Whether or not everyone accepts it or not - the world has changed since the 1700s. There are not enough animals in the wild to feed all of the people. Climate change, extraction of resources (the economies that support our education and health care) and the growth in the population all have ensured that we cannot go back.

It is clear that all Canadians (including First Nation communities and individuals) are experiencing food insecurity because they lack sufficient funds to buy food. It seems to me that rather than have the poor and the Indigenous people competing with each other for scarce government dollars to supplement national programs to feed them, they should be allies in the fight to eradicate poverty. The fight should not be about whose need is greater or who have suffered worse in the past - there should not be some sort of competition about who most deserves the help. Such fighting amongst those who need assistance will only reinforce the capitalist ideology that those who control the resources and the means of production have the right to decide who gets the hand-out. Capitalist ideology expects to be able to divide and thereby conquer. And they have been successful.

If Canadians want to ensure that no one goes to bed hungry, that no one has to decide if they should purchase needed medication or food or that no child misses a school trip because there is no money in the family bank account - then all Canadians must agree that everyone has the right to earn/get sufficient money to support themselves in a reasonable fashion. Not because they are Indigenous, not because they are immigrants, not because they live with a mental illness - but because they are Canadians.

If this is to happen - we need to stop suggesting that one group's needs are more important than another's. The band-aid approach of "fixing" symptoms rather than the underlining problem has never worked. We need to fix the problem of some people not being allowed to benefit from the society that they, in some way contribute to.