this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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Scurvy in Canada Is a Symptom of Our Sick Politics (thetyee.ca)
submitted 3 weeks ago by streetfestival@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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Last year, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article on a case of scurvy diagnosed in an elderly woman in Toronto. It deserved attention because scurvy, a condition resulting from lack of vitamin C, is virtually never reported in advanced countries like Canada.

This year we have learned of 27 more cases, all diagnosed last year or this year, in the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in northern Saskatchewan.

Live without vitamin C for three or four months and you will begin to feel bad. You’ll be exhausted and irritable, and your arms and legs will hurt. Your gums will swell and start to bleed easily. Your teeth will loosen in their sockets, and you’ll have bad breath. Your skin will be rough and dry and will bruise easily. Wounds won’t heal quickly; in severe cases, old scars will open again. Left untreated, scurvy can result in internal bleeding, convulsions, organ failure and jaundice.

According to Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount 2024 report, food banks had two million visits last March — six per cent higher than in March 2023, and 90 per cent higher than in 2019.

A third of food bank users are children. Forty per cent of users are on social assistance or disability supports, and 18 per cent are currently employed — the highest percentage ever recorded.

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[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

is virtually never reported in advanced countries like Canada.

Lac La Ronge isn't in an advanced country like Canada, it's so far out in to the middle of nowhere that it's 2.5 hours to the nearest place you could call a city, and even that doesn't even have 40k people. It has 5 months every year where the average high temperature is below freezing.

They have effectively no industry there to support their population. They have a bit of tourism, and provide some services to a few mines/forestry places that are still hundreds of kilometers away. That's about it.

There's no financially viable way to get fresh fruit and vegetables that deep into the north at reasonable prices, and there never will be unless we manage to pull off some sort of free energy miracle with fusion. You can't even grow them there under lights, power is $0.60/kwh once you pass a small residential threshold.

The government should just provide everyone north of the 53rd parallel with yearly supplies of a multi-vitamin. It would probably be easier.

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Another A+ example of how the government can solve the Indian problem as cheaply as possible...

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The government shouldn't be on the hook to provide modern amenities in the middle of nowhere. It makes no sense to do so, they require economies of scale to function. Subsidizing rural areas doesn't make any sense.

This is true for anyone who wants to live out in the sticks, I don't care what race you are. Your choice of location affects your amenities. You're free to move anywhere in Canada if you want different options of what's available where you are.

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You do know why they live out in the sticks, right? They live on Reserves, i.e. land that the Government of Canada "reserved" to move native peoples onto so the government could move settlers onto that previously inhabited land.

And yes, the Government of Canada is legally required to provide services to those Reserves where they are currently located (partially because of the above actions). If the Government of Canada wants to, I wouldn't be surprised if there are opportunities for moving Reserves but that would have to be voluntarily or we'd just be replaying the sins of the past.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They were not moved to this region from the southern party of the province that isn't the middle of nowhere, they are from that region.

and no, the government isn't legally required to provide fresh fruit and vegetables to the reserve. Pretty much the only thing they're required to provide is education, and some annual money.

[–] grindemup@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Sorry to say, but this is a very colonial mindset, so much so that you did not bother to look up their treaty. As it happens, Canada has a specific obligation under Treaty 6 to provide agricultural support/development, which they have failed to do and thus have offered a settlement to the Lac La Rouge Indian Band.

You should also acknowledge that centuries of oppression, genocide, and environmental exploitation are also violations of the treaty signed by the Crown, and failures to hold up the Crown's promise to prevent pestilence and famine... you know, like scurvy.

Please educate yourself before speaking up on matters of First Nations and treaties and propagating misinformation.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world -4 points 3 weeks ago

Have they received their $600 million? With that money they could set up an endowment that could take care of their community forever. Then they wouldn’t be dependent on trying to squeeze blood out of a stone from a political process that’s rigged against them.

This, by the way, is why I’m skeptical of arguments for universal basic income. When your livelihood depends on a political process you are extremely vulnerable to having political opinion go against you and then you are in a world of hurt.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca -5 points 3 weeks ago

The government provides medical care there already, and both detected and treated the scurvy situation. They aren't shirking their duties on that front.

I don't have any problem with them living there, if they want to do so they can go right ahead, but you can barely grow shit at 55N due to the length of the growing season, let alone with the lack of good soil at La Ronge, what kind of bullshit agricultural support do you think is even possible there? It's not farm land, it will never be farmland.

If you want to live there like you did traditionally, maybe you should live there like you did traditionally.

The native peoples of that area already know how to prevent scurvy, so why aren't they eating the local sources of Vitamin C? Probably because their people are not foraging and hunting sufficiently, or their population has grown too much for the local land to sustain them. Both of which are their own fault, not the governments.

If I moved out into the middle of nowhere with 100 people, I shouldn't expect the government to start flying in a doctor and subsidizing flights of fresh vegetables to support us.