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. The learning objectives are: To understand and explain the relevance of colonialism, the Indian Act, Treaties, land, and taxation to nutrition policy in Canada. To distinguish between a decolonizing lens to research and policy, and the status quo perspective To apply aspects of a decolonizing lens to policy analysis
Dr. Miyoung Suh is a Professor in the Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences at the University of Manitoba and a Principal Investigator in two departments at the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre: the Division of Neurodegenerative Disorders and the Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research in Health and Medicine. As a Registered Dietitian academic member, Dr. Suh served as the Director of the University Dietetics Program, and currently is helping the new UM Mater of Applied Human Nutrition program, combining graduate course work and dietetic practicum. Dr. Suh is a nutrition lead of a global leadership initiative (Canada Israel International Fetal Alcohol Consortium, CIIFAC) focused on reducing the impact of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders through perinatal nutrition strategies using preclinical and clinical models. This research received support from Research Manitoba and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries (1.35M). More recently she has received a CIHR grant to address these prenatal nutrition strategies, which was competitively ranked 1st place for nutrition. Dr. Suh is a UM Health Research Liaison with Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) in northern Manitoba, where a Smart Vertical Farm has been established to improve access to affordable and nutritious fresh food. Her research developing anti-diabetic functional vegetables with OCN is pivotal for promoting a healthier community by decreasing the severity of chronic diseases. This project is part of the ‘Implementing Smart Cities Interventions to Build Healthy Cities (SMART) Training Platform’, funded by CIHR Healthy Cities Research Initiative (4.95 M over 6 years), co-led by Dr. Suh with Drs Ma.