What a case of scurvy tells us about Canada's politics and economy

Canada is a wealthy country. It’s certainly wealthy enough that you wouldn’t expect to read that doctors are being warned to watch for scurvy, an affliction caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, as economic insecurity restricts access to nutritious food.

The current media attention on scurvy was prompted after the Canadian Medical Association Journal published on Monday a report of a 65-year-old woman diagnosed with the condition in a Toronto emergency room. The authors of the report note that the woman’s case “presents a complex example of food insecurity manifesting as an uncommon diagnosis.” 

Uncommon, indeed, as one tends to think of bygone centuries and sailors long at sea when hearing about scurvy. But whether we’re talking about 1724 or 2024, the common underlying issue is access to nutritious food, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables. And in 2024, in Canada, millions struggle to access these vital foods.

In August, Food Banks Canada (FBC) warned that they expected a rise in the number of Canadians who would access a food bank. Kristin Beardsley, the organisation’s CEO, expressed concern that with over a third of Canadians saying they felt financially worse off than in the previous three months, and Statistics Canada reporting that just under half of the country were struggling to meet expenses amidst rising prices, “the food bank system will not be able to support the tidal wave of people needing support.”

According to FBC, there were a record 1.9 million visits to food banks in Canada last year, which “far surpassed” the record set the previous year. Food bank use was up 78.5 per cent over March 2019. A third of visitors were children, roughly 14 per cent are on provincial disability support, 12 per cent are Indigenous and just under 27 per cent are newcomers to the country.

In Ontario, Canada’s biggest economy, food bank access hit an eight-year high, with 7.6 million visits between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024. 

Roughly one in five Canadians are food insecure, and their food insecurity doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Food bank clients cite grocery and housing costs alongside insufficient work hours and low wages as reasons for requiring assistance. In sum, poverty, exacerbated by insufficient government assistance and, as they say, events.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre blames the rising cost of food on “NDP-Liberal carbon taxes and inflation.” He’s right about inflation and entirely wrong about the carbon tax, which is estimated to contribute 0.15 per cent to inflation and less than 1 per cent to the rising cost of food, and for which most households are rebated more than they expend. And even to say he’s “right” about inflation is to be generous, given that the federal government can only do so much – which is to say very little – about foreign wars, climate change, and supply chain constraints caused by a global pandemic.

Poilievre also fails to mention the effects of Canada’s grocery oligopoly, which has jacked up food prices beyond the rate of inflation and is raking in massive profits while people struggle to feed themselves, suffer from malnutrition, and, now, develop scurvy. It’s not for nothing that two grocery giants, Loblaws and Sobeys, are under investigation by the Competition Bureau for alleged anti-competitive behaviour. 

Neither Poilievre nor any politician in power has been particularly outspoken, either, about an economic structure in this country that has allowed millions to go without adequate work hours or wages to make ends meet. You won’t find many prime ministers or premiers, past or present, having a hard look in the mirror and asking themselves whether the national or provincial welfare states are just – or even adequate. 

In a country with a GDP per capita of just under $60,000, in the top three dozen globally, and with a median household income of $70,500 after tax, you might expect a bit better than 20 per cent of the population struggling with food insecurity — or a quarter planning to work through their retirement years to survive, or 10 per cent living below the poverty line. 

A single reported case of scurvy in a country of over 40 million people stands out as a story not because it points to an epidemic of the deficiency, but because it points to an underlying social, political, and economic deficiency reality that so many can identify with – that in a rich country, there are in fact many people who can’t afford to meet basic needs, including the most basic need of all, healthy food. That ought to be headline news every day.