Canada is not going to be told what to do or how to do it...on poverty and hunger

Memo to Olivier de Schutter:
Topic: Report on Poverty in Canada
A national food strategy, based on empirical evidence from a long-form census, linked with reporting standards for provinces spending transfer payments, especially at a time of relative economic health, all of them reasonable, even somewhat visionary ideas, have no place in the current oxygen-deprived chambers of Ottawa.
You see, Mr. Envoy, Ottawa is not open to problems of the hungry, the dispossessed, the clients of foodbanks, and the people at the bottom of the widening income, food, housing, health and education gap. For you see, Sir, the widening income gap can no longer be restricted, for political purposes to income, but must include, in our public discourse, as it always has in reality, all facets of a human life of dignity, productivity and self-respect.
Unfortunately, Sir, the current Canadian government is neither interested in, nor supportive of a standing among the world community of nations that would point to its compassion and sensibility to the growing underclass, nor is it interested in being examined critically by the national media, on issues which it can and does readily pawn off (using a (con)strict(ed) interpretation of the constitution) on the provinces, so that its political reputation is not sullied by reports like the one you have delivered.
Ottawa does not see Canadians as eager for and aspiring to climbing out of the degradation of uemployment, underemployment, under-nourishment, as a national issue in which all Canadians have a vested interest, and thereby implicate the need for national leadership on such a vital file. They have a view far too similar to that taken by too many corporate executives, that ordinary people are takers, not givers.
"Takers," in the establishment view of both Ottawa and its corporate funding sources, defines ordinary people as grabbing, clutching even stealing time, or services, or even chattels from those in charge, and not as willing, even eager contributors, to both the corporate goals and to such national commitments as the elimination of hunger, poverty and debasing denigration of the indignities that accompany scarcity, in a land of plenty. Takers are those devious, even creative and unscrupulous individuals who are determined to take advantage of any opportunity that peeks through the clouds on their horizons as being offered by the employer or the government. It is the same stance as that taken by the Republican candidate for president in the 2012 American election, that 47% are dependent on government handouts and refuse to take responsibility for their lives, (Romney to his Florida fundraiser, secretly recorded).
However, in Canada, sir, there would be no publicly elected representative who would be so crass as Romney was, as to get caught in the web of such a self-declared sabotage. We are, indeed, much more discreet, and also more arrogant and insensitive in many ways, but we certainly do not want the world to see through our collective mask of superiority.
Looking for those taking advantage of an Employment Insurance program into which all Canadians have paid, is more important to the Ottawa gang, than assuring that transfer payments to provinces actually deliver programs, including training for new job opportunities, so that there is a co-ordinated national effort on issues that face the nation. Locking up for longer sentences those whose lives have already been deprived of the basics of good parenting, sound education, healthy nutrition and successful entry into the world of work, Ottawa calls them criminals, is more important than gathering the details of their impoverishment (long-census data retrieval) and then analysing that data in order to design effective, both as to cost and to results, programs to alleviate such a blight on our national reputation, not to mention the angst that these people shoulder every day, in their struggle for a decent life.
In such a dichotomized world, where both the corporation and the government sees itself as "the haves" and the workers/citizens as the "have-not's" there can be only a patronizing attitude from the one to the other, and in reverse, an attitude of contempt coming from the lower levels of our streets and communities.
And, it is clear, as you are more than aware, that such a dynamic cannot and will not take kindly to your report, based as it is on a very different perception of federal-provincial co-operation and collaboration, on data-based design and delivery of creative policy and programs, and on a cornerstone of equality of access and opportunity of all to the nations relative fiscal health.
We thank you for your report, and for the courage and insight you have demonstrated, in spite of the resistance you encountered in Ottawa.
However, do not look to Ottawa for even the most meagre implimentation of your recommendations...we do not even implement most of the recommendations of most of the plethora of commissions whose legacy is preserved in the archives of our national library, far away from public scrutiny, and political embarrassment, and dug into rarely by the occasional eccentric doctoral candidate looking for fodder for a dissertation, also to be buried in the archives of his or her university.

Government policies impeding fight to end poverty, UN food envoy says
By Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press, in Globe an dMail, March 3, 2013
The United Nations right-to-food envoy says the Harper government’s controversial decisions to scrap the long-form census and negotiate a free trade deal with Europe will make it more difficult to fight poverty in Canada.

Those are among the many cutting observations made by Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to food, who will release his report Monday in Geneva at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.
The report calls on Ottawa to create a national food strategy to fight hunger among a growing number of vulnerable groups, including aboriginals and people struggling to make ends meet on social assistance. It says the strategy should spell out the levels of responsibility between federal, provincial and municipal governments.

Throughout the 21-page report, Mr. De Schutter also takes direct aim at some of the core items of the government’s agenda, saying they undermine access to food.
These include the controversial decision to cancel the long-form census in 2009, the ongoing Canada-EU free trade negotiations, the scrapping of the Canadian Wheat Board, and how Ottawa oversees the money it transfers to the provinces for social services.
The report essentially serves as Mr. De Schutter’s rebuttal to the bitter and personal public criticism he faced from cabinet ministers during his 11-day fact finding visit to Canada last May.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said Mr. De Schutter was “ill-informed” and “patronizing.” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney called him “completely ridiculous.”
Mr. De Schutter’s report is sure to magnify the disdain the Harper government has directed at UN agencies and processes in recent years.
In his report, Mr. De Schutter aligns himself directly with government critics who viewed the scrapping of the 35-year-old long-form census as an attack on the ability of Statistics Canada to compile an analytical portrait of the country.
“First, in order to effectively combat hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of who is hungry, food-insecure and malnourished,” the report says.
“The special rapporteur is concerned that changes in the current budget will make the collection and analysis of data more complicated, particularly by changes to data collection through the elimination of the requirement for individuals to complete the long-form census.”
The report also raises concerns about the dismantling of the National Council of Welfare, because it “provided a forum for data collection and comparison of ... social assistance rates across the country.”
If the government had the benefit of that information, the report says, it could “support evidence-based policies that move towards the eradication of hunger and malnutrition, including obesity, and to monitor progress.”
Mr. De Schutter also aligns himself with critics of the negotiations to craft a comprehensive free trade pact between Canada and the European Union – a deal that Ottawa hoped to have finalized by the end of last year.
His report says initiatives to improve food and nutrition and promote local markets, including “buy local” initiatives, might be negatively affected by the provisions of the proposed trade pact.
“They may also be undermined by the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, currently in draft form, which would prohibit municipal governments from using procurement of goods and services valued over $340,000 in a way that favours local or Canadian goods, services or labour,” the report states.
“Numerous municipalities across the country have opposed this restriction on the ability of local authorities to promote urban-rural linkages and local economic development through institutional purchasing, and have requested exemptions.”
Mr. De Schutter also criticizes the government for ending the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board last year, and comes down firmly in favour of Canada’s various supply management schemes in dairy, poultry and eggs.
Supply management is an obstacle in the Canada-EU free trade negotiations and is a contentious issue for Canada as it tries to forge a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
“In contrast, the various supply management schemes in dairy, poultry and eggs present advantages both for food producers and taxpayers,” the report says.
“These legislated marketing tools have been designed to impose disciplines on sellers at a commodity-specific level and to replace a farmer-against-farmer competitiveness with a united and concerted effort by farmers to sell collectively for mutual advantage.”
The report also reiterates Mr. De Schutter’s earlier criticism of Ottawa for failing to ensure provinces spend transfer payments on social services.
The report says Canada has fared “reasonably well compared to its peers” in weathering the global economic downturn, “however, the gaps between those living in poverty and the middle- and high-income segments of the population are widening.”
It calls on the federal government to do more in a time of relative prosperity.
It concludes that a growing number of people across Canada remain unable to meet their basic food needs.
Mr. De Schutter said a significant number of people are living on welfare and, because of the increased cost of housing, they don’t have adequate access to a well-balanced diet.
In 2007-08, 7.7 per cent of households reported experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity. That figure rose to 8.2 per cent in 2011.
Food banks, the report says, are growing to address the widening gap.
“The inadequacy of social protection schemes to meet the basic needs of households has precipitated the proliferation of private and charity-based food aid.”
The report says Canada is not meeting its obligations under international conventions it has signed.
It singles out Canada for not acknowledging the right to food under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The special rapporteur is concerned about the growing gap between Canada’s international human rights commitments and their implementation domestically,” the report says.
Mr. De Schutter said last year that his report will play a role in defining Canada’s international reputation and will come up during assessments of Canada’s human rights protections.
Ottawa, however, has repeatedly dismissed appeals for national strategies on poverty and housing, saying that’s an issue best left to the provinces. Past pleas to the UN by First Nations for changes to public policy have also fallen on deaf ears.