Promote and support efforts to improve access to safe, stable, nutritious, and affordable food sources for the urban Indigenous community. This includes wild game, country foods, and other culturally significant sources of nutrition.

Needs identified: Systems for sustainable country food provision in community programming for urban Indigenous people

Traditional foods are nutritionally and culturally significant for Indigenous people. Access to traditional foods is particularly difficult in urban areas. Organizations like First Light face barriers to providing traditional foods to the urban Indigenous community, including a lack of retailers selling traditional foods in bulk; the cost of the traditional foods which are available from retailers; and regulations regarding how food can be obtained, transported, and served. While First Light’s programming contributes to food security for urban Indigenous people, systems-wide solutions need to be found.

Food First NL: Concludes a promising pilot and explores scaling initiative to other areas

Food First NL, through the Labrador Anchor Collective, is making significant progress in providing country foods in health services facilities in the Labrador-Grenfell zone of Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services and is working to scale this work to other regions. This work has included pilots which integrated traditional meat into menus at two healthcare facilities (the Labrador Health Centre and Happy Valley–Goose Bay Long Term Care), along with supporting means to process the locally harvested game and to support sustainability of the local caribou population. The Impact Report from this project suggests that momentum from this initiative will support current and future initiatives to provide access to country food in healthcare facilities. This initiative is an important example to lay the groundwork for similar initiatives in healthcare facilities in other areas of the province.

In St. John’s, a new facility that is being operated in partnership between Food First NL and Stella’s Circle includes space for a community freezer and/or other infrastructure to support access to country foods, with details to be developed through consultation with community partners in the coming months.

First Voice: Formed an Indigenous Health Action Circle which is identifying barriers and building partnerships

First Voice formed an Indigenous Health Action Circle which first met in February 2024. The Action Circle has identified a number of barriers to increasing access to wild game, country foods and other culturally significant sources of nutrition. Primarily, food regulation systems (e.g. the Canadian Food Inspection Agency) have policies which restrict how food can be obtained, transported, and served. These policies have developed alongside market food supply chains (e.g. large scale farms and grocery stores) and cannot easily apply to how culturally significant food (e.g. wild game) would be obtained. This means that community organizations and health institutions face regulations which cannot easily be overcome when attempting to offer country foods. Institutions, such as hospitals, may additionally face restrictions on procurement, where all food for the institution is sourced through a single entity.

CBC & First Light: Episode of First Light Fridays discussed urban Indigenous food security

In May 2023, an episode of First Light Fridays with the CBC discussed issues facing the urban Indigenous population of St. John’s regarding food security and access to country foods. Advocacy like this helps increase public awareness of issues facing the urban Indigenous community and will help support action on this Call for Change.