Excerpt: Food Secure Canada (FSC) is the largest alliance of food movement actors in Canada and its biannualAssembly is the largest food movement event in the country. Since its formation in 2001, FSC hasprioritized building relationships with Indigenous peoples by, for example, convening an IndigenousCircle, facilitating significant participation of Indigenous communities in the 2012 People’s Food PolicyProject and ensuring strong Indigenous representation at its Assemblies. Nevertheless, at FSC’s mostrecent Assembly (November, 2018), a number of Indigenous people and people of colour walked outof the final day’s activities, asserting that FSC has not done enough to address their concerns and theirspecific approaches. This situation reveals the tensions between settler-led2 food movements on theone hand, and Indigenous efforts for food sovereignty on the other that co-exist with long-termcollaborations. This paper attempts to tease out some of the sometimes glaring, sometimes insidiousways that food movements have struggled to meaningfully integrate Indigenous concerns, and offerinsight on possible ways forward.
