Scurvy in Canada Is a Symptom of Our Sick Politics
Scurvy in Canada Is a Symptom of Our Sick Politics
Last year, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article on a case of scurvy diagnosed in an elderly woman in Toronto. It deserved attention because scurvy, a condition resulting from lack of vitamin C, is virtually never reported in advanced countries like Canada.
This year we have learned of 27 more cases, all diagnosed last year or this year, in the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in northern Saskatchewan.
Live without vitamin C for three or four months and you will begin to feel bad. You’ll be exhausted and irritable, and your arms and legs will hurt. Your gums will swell and start to bleed easily. Your teeth will loosen in their sockets, and you’ll have bad breath. Your skin will be rough and dry and will bruise easily. Wounds won’t heal quickly; in severe cases, old scars will open again. Left untreated, scurvy can result in internal bleeding, convulsions, organ failure and jaundice.
According to Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount 2024 report, food banks had two million visits last March — six per cent higher than in March 2023, and 90 per cent higher than in 2019.
A third of food bank users are children. Forty per cent of users are on social assistance or disability supports, and 18 per cent are currently employed — the highest percentage ever recorded.
is virtually never reported in advanced countries like Canada.
Lac La Ronge isn't in an advanced country like Canada, it's so far out in to the middle of nowhere that it's 2.5 hours to the nearest place you could call a city, and even that doesn't even have 40k people. It has 5 months every year where the average high temperature is below freezing.
They have effectively no industry there to support their population. They have a bit of tourism, and provide some services to a few mines/forestry places that are still hundreds of kilometers away. That's about it.
There's no financially viable way to get fresh fruit and vegetables that deep into the north at reasonable prices, and there never will be unless we manage to pull off some sort of free energy miracle with fusion. You can't even grow them there under lights, power is $0.60/kwh once you pass a small residential threshold.
The government should just provide everyone north of the 53rd parallel with yearly supplies of a multi-vitamin. It would probably be easier.
Another A+ example of how the government can solve the Indian problem as cheaply as possible...
The government shouldn't be on the hook to provide modern amenities in the middle of nowhere. It makes no sense to do so, they require economies of scale to function. Subsidizing rural areas doesn't make any sense.
This is true for anyone who wants to live out in the sticks, I don't care what race you are. Your choice of location affects your amenities. You're free to move anywhere in Canada if you want different options of what's available where you are.