Hello everyone, my name is Connor Cowan and my partner is Pete MacIntosh. We are currently in grade 12 and are taking the Social Justice course at Brooklin High School located an hour east of Toronto. Throughout the semester, we were to research an ongoing social justice issue and figure out how we can make a change that has not already been done. This is when we decided on the cost of Indigenous food compared to the rest of Canada. Below is some information on the topic if you are not familiar with it already. We would appreciate if you took a few minutes out of your day to learn about our nations original people and their ongoing struggles. 

The cost of living for Indigenous People compared to the rest of Canada is substantially different. This is an issue that has occurred for what feels like an eternity while the Canadian government has done very little to improve Indigenous People’s living standards even though they have made promises in numerous federal elections to help them. Food costs in northern communities in Canada are unreasonably high compared to other parts of the nation. Food costs in Indigenous communities have risen 400% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic which has made it extremely difficult for Indigenous communities to survive. Some examples of high food costs include the following; a 40-pound bag of dog food ($162), a box of diapers ($53), dishwasher detergent ($29), laundry detergent ($52), a bag of chocolate chips ($42), case of water (24 500ml bottles) ($104) (Impact). Having these absurd prices for Indigenous peoples who are known to have high poverty levels and a lack of jobs is truly unjust and it shows that the Canadian government has never really cared to fix this issue in our country. After going through numerous articles and websites pertaining to the high food costs in Indigenous communities in Canada, it is evident that there is still lots of work to be done with the help of the Canadian government and other organizations. 

After doing some research and brainstorming, many solutions came to mind but unfortunately, we only chose our top three.  These three solutions seemed very clear and we felt that they would be the most beneficial to the social justice issue of high food costs for Indigenous Canadians. The first solution would be to Make a food card system that allows them to get food like a food bank, allowing them to have more food and money left over. The second solution would be to allow Indigenous people to hunt and persevere longer so they don’t have to rely just on store-bought food but also on the food they've caught. The third and final solution would be to have monthly shipments of crops & vegetables so they can plant and grow their own.

Our hopes with this petition is to bring more attention to a topic that has been not been talked about enough. We feel that now is the time our country treats Indigenous people with the respect they always deserved.