A presentation and discussion
In March 2014, the Council of Canadian Academies released its long-awaited report, Aboriginal Food Security In Northern Canada: An Assessment of the State of the Knowledge.
Listen to two of the report authors, Treena Delormier and Chris Frugal, discuss the report and its findings. Following their presentation, two Northern and Remote Food Network members, Norma Kassi and Joseph Leblanc, led a discussion about policy recommendations stemming from this report.
This webinar was hosted by Food Secure Canada on Thursday, 19 June 2014.
Presenters
Treena Delormier
Treena Wasonti:io Delormier is a Kanienke'há:ka (Mohawk) woman from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawá:ke. She holds bachelor and masters degrees in nutrition from McGill University and is professional dietitian. Treena completed her PhD at Université de Montréal in Public Health in the Health Promotion option. Treena's research practice emphasizes community-based research with Aboriginal communities and participatory research approaches. Her research interests include food, nutrition and health, social perspectives of food, qualitative methodologies, public health and health promotion, food security, traditional food systems, diabetes and obesity prevention, and aboriginal conceptions of health. Since 2012, she is Assistant Professor at University of Hawaii at Manoa in the department of public health sciences where she is faculty on the new Native Hawaiian & Indigesnous Health Master of Public Health specialization. She is also a member of the Community Advisory Board of the 20 year Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) community-university partnership.
Chris Furgal
Dr. Chris Furgal is an Associate Professor in the Indigenous Environmental Studies Program at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He is cross-appointed to the Departments of Indigenous Studies and Environmental Resource Studies and Sciences. His current research focuses on environmental health risk assessment, management and communication with Aboriginal communities throughout the Arctic. Outside of his teaching and research, Dr. Furgal is a co-founder and co-director of the Nasivvik Centre for Inuit Health and Changing Environments along with Dr. Eric Dewailly.
Discussants
Norma Kassi
Norma was raised and educated in Old Crow, Yukon. She is Vuntut Gwitchin (People of the Lakes) and a member of the Wolf Clan. She co-founded Arctic Institute of Community-Based Research and worked as Co-Director until she was elected Chief of Vuntut Gwitchin in November 2010. As Co-Director of AICBR, Norma was engaged in Community Based Health Research, particularly with Yukon First Nations. This work included identifying health research priorities with Yukon First Nations communities, capacity building and training of First Nations in the area of health, and developing ways to translate knowledge that is inclusive, sustainable and beneficial to the communities. Norma is a board member at Food Secure Canada.
Joseph LeBlanc
Joseph LeBlanc has been engaging in indigenous food sovereignty and security issues for the past eight years. In this time, he has worked with First Nations communities throughout Northern Ontario on various food system issues including forest food contamination, community and forest gardening, non-timber forest product development and marketing, community and economic development, and forest food system planning and mapping. He is currently a PhD Candidate in Forest Sciences at Lakehead University, conducting community-based research pertaining to Aboriginal perspectives of food security and natural resource management. He is also a founding board member and the current president of True North Community Co-operative and was recently awarded the Northwestern Ontario Visionary Award.
