A/HRC/22/50/Add.1 Aboriginal populations living off-reserve and new immigrant households9 confront increased food insecurity in comparison to the average Canadian household. The Special Rapporteur was disconcerted by the deep and severe food insecurity faced by Aboriginal peoples living both on- and off-reserve in remote and urban areas. In the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where the greatest concentration of Inuit populations resides, food insecurity in 2007/2008 was 11.6 per cent, 12.4 per cent and 32.6 per cent respectively.10 First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey (RHS 2008/10) indicates that 17.8 per cent of First Nations adults (age 25–39) and 16.1 per cent of First Nations adults (age 40–54) reported being hungry, but did not eat due to lack of money for food in 2007/2008. Though the situation of food insecurity is monitored through surveys such as the Canadian Community Health Survey, the Inuit Health Survey and the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study, data on food insecurity in Métis populations was not found. III. The legal and policy framework A. The legal framework 9. Canada's record on civil and political rights has been impressive. Its protection of economic and social rights, including the right to food, has been less exemplary. 10. As a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada has a duty to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food. Yet, Canada does not currently afford constitutional or legal protection of the right to food. The 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects a number of civil and political rights, but has no substantive provisions protecting social and economic rights, broadly, and the right to food, more specifically. While section 7 (protecting the right to life, liberty and security of the person) and section 15 (guaranteeing the right to equality before and under the law ) provide avenues for the protection of the right to food, and the judiciary has repeatedly affirmed that international human rights norms constitute persuasive sources for constitutional and statutory interpretation,11 case law has yet to recognize explicitly the right to food. 11. The Canadian Human Rights Act also does not protect economic and social rights. Similarly, while each province has human rights legislation, in many cases, listing "social condition" or "source of income" as a protected class under the law, none codifies the right to food or economic and social rights more broadly. At the federal level, however, poverty and socio-economic status are not recognized as a prohibited ground for discrimination, though a panel appointed by the Minister of Justice to review the Canadian Human Rights Act found, in 2000, “ample evidence of widespread discrimination based on characteristics related to social conditions, such as poverty, low education, homelessness and illiteracy,” and recommended that “social condition" be included as a prohibited ground for 9 10 11 In 2007/2008, 12.6 per cent of recent immigrant households were food insecure, in comparison to 7.5 per cent of non-immigrant households, and 7.8 per cent in non-recent immigrant households, see Health Canada, “Household Food Insecurity in Canada in 2007-2008” (see footnote 5). Health Canada, “Household Food Insecurity in Canada in 2007-2008” (see footnote 5) See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food, para. 21. 5