The Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls on all levels of government, businesses, and educators to recognize health disparities among Indigenous Peoples as the direct result of government policies. This session will introduce the importance of Canada’s colonial context as it applies to food and nutrition policy, including the Indian Act, Treaties, land, and taxation. We will discuss the importance of a balanced and inclusive perspective in determining policies that promote health for all. A sugar-sweetened beverage tax will be discussed as a case study to analyze policies using a decolonizing lens that centers the voices of First Nations and urban Indigenous communities in Manitoba.
Dr. Natalie Riediger is a settler researcher and Associate Professor in the Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She is a CIHR Early Career Investigator Award recipient and has received research funding from CIHR, Canadian Celiac Association, SSHRC, Universities Canada, Mitacs, and the Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research. Dr. Riediger completed her PhD research in partnership with Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation and in the Department of Community Health Sciences also at the University of Manitoba, earning the Governor General’s Gold Medal in 2015. In 2021, she received the Terry G. Falconer Emerging Researcher Rh Award for Outstanding contributions to scholarship and research in the Interdisciplinary category for her early career research in the area of food and health equity. Dr. Riediger is a mixed-methodologist who works closely with Indigenous communities and researchers in a variety of disciplines, including sociology, gender studies, law, nursing, and psychology.