The Toronto Star and the poor, helpless Indians

The title of this post is meant to be offensive because, although they seem to care, the Toronto Star continuously paints Inuit as helpless and unable to survive without the assistance of white man's industriousness. I am embarrassed to support this paper with my money sometimes. Not because they disagree with me (I would pay them to do that), but because they are so thin on analysis and critical thinking much of the time.

One of their favourite whipping boys is the cost of food in remote Native communities. Not long ago, they were trying to raise shock and awe about the cost of a litre of milk or a loaf of bread -- $5.99 as I remember. In an article today, they are troubled by the fact that a 12-can case of Coke costs $27.47, a 2-litre bottle of milk costs $8.99, a 700-gram box of Minute Rice costs $6.29, and a small tin of Maple Leaf Vienna sausages costs $2.59.

First, a very simple premise: since these things are probably delivered by small plane, weight and volume are premium products.

Let's talk about the $5.99 loaf of bread first of all, which is the price for a loaf of Wonder Bread. That is a high price, of course. It is likely expensive because it is perishable and has a short shelf life, even with the preservatives they add to it. It also takes up a lot of space because there is a lot of air in bread. And much of that weight is the moisture content. Do you know what is in bread in its most basic form? Mainly flour and water, with small amounts of dry yeast, sugar, and salt. Assuming water is available locally, most of our problem is solved. Negligible amounts of sugar and salt are involved (teaspoons and tablespoons), and yeast has a long shelf life if kept cool and dry. The other important point is that white flour has a long shelf life -- a year, easily. Whole wheat flour has a lesser shelf life, but is still given in terms of months. But wheat berries can last many years. The article also complains about unemployment. If bread is costing $5.99 a loaf for some of the lowest-quality bread imaginable, what are the chances that a small bakery operation seeded with a wheat grinder and oven, and served by annual or semi-annual deliveries of wheat berries and yeast, would not only yield cheaper and more nutritious and unadulterated bread, but also jobs for the community? Is a $5.99 loaf of Wonder Bread really so preferable -- less healthy, more expensive, somewhat stale, and providing no jobs?

So, that's bread considered. How about the milk? Well, again, I assume that the chief problems are perishability and weight: liquid is very heavy, and milk does not last very long. Is dried milk not good enough? Not only is it very light and takes up relatively little volume, but it also has a much longer shelf life than fresh milk. The nutrition is retained.

A 700g box of Minute Rice costs $6.29? Well, a 700g box of Minute Rice costs about half that where I live. But why would anyone eat Minute Rice at that price when a 10kg bag of standard white rice -- more than 10 times as much food -- could be bought for maybe twice the price? Isn't that a basic question to ask?

After the above, I assume you know what I would have to say about the canned Vienna sausages. Or maybe you don't. But I know the Mennonites in Waterloo make summer sausage that hangs in my kitchen for months, unrefrigerated and not perishing, and is comprised of meat cured with salt and smoke (and small amounts of sodium nitrite for safety). Why are canned Vienna sausages required?

Are we meant to just take this and not say anything? That is a pretty outrageous price for a 12-can case of Coke. But why does anyone need Coke, and what would it cost if only the syrup was sent, the water provided locally, and machines used to carbonate the water on demand, as they do in virtually all fast food restaurants and movie theatres? Failing that, why not Kool Aid? Or any other drink in powder form? A dry powder that you add to your own water stores more easily and for longer without going bad, and is much cheaper to transport, taking up less volume and weighing far less.

What else? What about dried beans? Do you know how much lighter and compact a 2kg bag of dried chick peas is when compared to the equivalent amount in cans, when the cans have not only their own weight against them, but also the weight and volume of the brine and the chick peas themselves, having absorbed so much water by being pre-cooked?

A favourite meme in the thinkalikers that bask in the glow of stories like this is that alcoholic drinks costs less than milk in some of these communities. It is often said with incredulity, sometimes connected with a hint of "no wonder they are drunk all the time" (though this is not actually said). But let's not forget that alcoholic drinks have a very long shelf life, and milk has a very short one -- especially if unrefrigerated. And we're not supposed to say that this alcohol may come to town via Native bootleggers. Being non-perishable, it is an ideal product for the slow and casual supply channels of bootleggers.

I once confronted someone in person about the milk-is-more-than-alcohol meme with the added suggestion that maybe they could raise their own cows rather than depending on other people to provide milk for them (this would admittedly be difficult in Nunvaut due to the weather conditions -- cows do not tolerate cold well, but it was just to make a point, and the context of the discussion concerned Ontario reservations). In response, I didn't receive any objections to the practicality and was simply told that they used to have buffalo but we wiped them out. Notwithstanding the fact that they could once again raise buffalo today without interference, he had got the wrong Indians -- it was the Indians that once inhabited the Great Plains in the US that kept buffalo and it had nothing to do with the Canadian situation. But what's the difference between Indians, I guess? They are just poster children for those who have problems with Western civilization -- all of them, without distinction, apparently. And these people don't like stereotypes?

The Inuit in Canada are treated like Africans are treated in all the world -- they are used when convenient to win political arguments, but when you try and find out who really cares by their actions then you struggle to find anything at all. And they are treated with the racism of unspoken low expectations -- that they can't do better because they are who they are -- by those who always seem to decry racism the most.

And this doesn't even consider the fact that these people -- the Inuit -- live separately from us and in places that we would not find tenable because they ostensibly have a unique way of life that makes it possible for them to survive in these places. If that's not the case, why are they separate from us? The article quotes a need for ATVs, snowmobiles, guns, and bullets in order to hunt caribou. Presumably, they manufacture none of these things themselves. So, why, again, are these people living separately from us, within a dependent, unsustainable and cartoon caricature of the lifestyles of their ancestors?

I don't get it.