Earlier this November, a community in Northern Saskatchewan had 27 residents diagnosed with scurvy.
Scurvy is caused by a severe lack of vitamin C. It is a disease most famous for its association with 16th to 18th century pirates who had insufficient access to fresh foods. It is now being found at higher rates in Canada, and doctors are being told to be aware of scurvy as a potential diagnosis moving forward.
Scurvy cases are meant to be incredibly rare and seeing a large group of cases, such as the phenomenon in Saskatchewan, is even more alarming.
Multiple CBC articles point to food insecurity as a potential factor in these scurvy cases. Food insecurity is on the rise in Canada.
Using Statistics Canada’s data from ten provinces, the food insecurity research program PROOF states that a whopping 22.9 per cent of Canadians lived in food-insecure households in 2023. In 2020 and 2021, food insecurity had been falling until it began to rise to 15.6 per cent in 2022. And it has yet to be seen what the data holds for 2024.
However, with food prices rising even higher than inflation, a pain we’ve all been feeling this year, we can make an educated guess that food insecurity will be in an even worse position once we have the numbers.
These increases in food insecurity are largely seen in households with tighter budgets. And poverty is on the rise across Canada.
But what makes northern communities especially vulnerable to a rare disease like scurvy? In a nutshell, corporate greed and colonization.
Northern communities are among the most food insecure. This is in part due to colonization and its depriving Indigenous folks of traditional food systems, such as traditional knowledge of plants and hunting. Communities who once had independent food systems now, at best, rely on a hybrid of traditional food and southern import. This new reliance, brought on by colonization, is a significant factor in northern food insecurity.
Additionally, the ecosystems on which northern communities rely are deteriorating due to climate change. Harvesting, hunting and fishing are difficult and sometimes impossible. Making reliance on retail grocers more and more prevalent.
It’s long been known that northern communities experience higher grocery costs than their southern neighbours, and inflation, as well as rising food prices across the board, are no doubt hurting these communities further. While corporate greed isn’t exclusive to northern groceries, there’s a particular question of government subsidy given to northern grocery retailers, that’s meant to offset the high cost of food transportation.
Researcher Tracey Galloway did a study tracing subsidy dollars given to companies and whether they end up benefiting the consumers, as they are meant to. Galloway said that more than one-third of the subsidy can’t be accounted for. We can presume that this high gap can most likely be accounted for in the company’s pockets, or profits. That’s millions of dollars unaccounted for. There must be accountability.
To prevent further cases of scurvy and any other diseases that may arise, Canada must take urgent action to address food insecurity.
Without meaningful intervention, scurvy will not remain an isolated phenomenon but a symptom of a much larger, preventable health crisis. The question now is whether Canada will continue to overlook these communities or take the necessary steps to amend their previous neglect.
