Aglukkaq says activists hurt Inuit ability to feed families - Politics. A federal cabinet minister slammed activist groups who she says interfere in Inuit traditions, blaming them for food security problems in the North. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who's from a hamlet in Nunavut called Gjoa Haven, met with a UN food security official on Wednesday, but said he didn't understand the real problems faced by the Inuit. She said environmentalists and activists were the problem behind any food insecurity. "He’s ill-informed. I found it a bit patronizing and [just] another academic studying us from afar who's going to make comments about the challenges that we have," Aglukkaq said following her meeting with Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food.
Food security, she said, is "about the fights that we have with groups like [the] European Union that want to stop the seal hunt and/or [the] Pew Foundation who wants to put a moratorium on fishing and/or the polar bear activists. " 'Activist groups' include Coca-Cola. Food security not an issue for “Aboriginal people” because “they hunt every day,” says Aglukkaq. APTN National NewsOTTAWA–Indigenous people in Canada don’t face food security issues because “they hunt every day,” said Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq in the House of Commons Wednesday as she fended off opposition attacks fueled by the findings of the UN special rapporteur on food issues. Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said in a press conference earlier in the day that he was “struck” by the “desperate situation” Indigenous people faced in the country.
De Schutter was in Canada for nearly two weeks to investigate food issues in the country. While he visited some First Nations communities, he did not make it up to Canada’s more remote communities where the cost of healthy foods remains a constant concern. Aglukkaq, however, dismissed the rapporteur’s findings, saying he was nothing more than an “ill-informed academic.” Aglukkaq said she tried to “educate” De Schutter during a face-to-face meeting about the real situation of Indigenous people in Canada.