As a result of their deliberations committees may make recommendations which they include in their reports for the consideration of the House of Commons or the Government. Recommendations related to this study are listed below.

Recommendation 1

That Environment and Climate Change Canada expand and ensure consistent, adequate, and long-term funding for Indigenous-led programs to manage protected areas, test water quality and monitor development and changes to the climate, such as the Indigenous Guardians Pilot.

Recommendation 2

That Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency enable the creation of new meat and traditional food processing facilities in the North supporting local harvesters; and that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada work to increase animal production and create training programs for animal husbandry and butchering in the North.

Recommendation 3

That Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada work with Indigenous Peoples and Northerners to launch a full external evaluation of the Nutrition North Canada program; that the program’s mandate be changed to improve food security outcomes in northern and isolated communities; and that, throughout this process, the Department consider, in co-development with Indigenous Peoples and Northerners:

• Ways to ensure that Indigenous Peoples and Northerners have direct input into how the subsidy is used in their communities, including which food items should be subsidized;
• Expanding the Harvesters Support Grant or establishing additional measures to increase access to traditional foods;
• Conducting a gender-based analysis plus of the program’s benefits, with a particular focus on the distribution of benefits between low and high-income households and different household compositions;
• Establishing processes and new evaluation measures to ensure that Nutrition North Canada is transparent and accountable, and that it focuses on the needs of the most vulnerable individuals and families;
• Adding a social programming component to Nutrition North Canada;
• Making the Nutrition North Canada retail subsidy available to agricultural producers as well as community cooperatives, non-profits and community organizations, such as food banks, which provide food and services in some remote and isolated communities;

• Providing the subsidy to more than one store per community, wherever possible;

• Exploring the possibility of expanding eligibility criteria to include remote and isolated communities that may not lack year-round road or marine access, but where the proportion of household income spent on food and rates of food insecurity are disproportionately high;
• Expanding the list of eligible items to include non-food items sold in participating stores and used for hunting, fishing, and gathering; and
• Decreasing the administrative burden required to join the program.

Recommendation 4

That the Government of Canada, recognizing that northern food insecurity is a complex problem rooted in poverty which cannot be solved by the Nutrition North Canada program alone, work with Indigenous Peoples and Northerners to explore economic development opportunities and options such as income supplements or other social assistance programs to alleviate household poverty and increase the income levels of food‑insecure households in the North; and that any new measure be indexed to the cost of living, population growth and inflation in the North.

Recommendation 5

That Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, recognizing that food sovereignty is a precondition to food security, enable Indigenous Peoples and Northerners to make their own decisions with respect to their food systems, including by:

• Focusing on the North’s existing and well-established food systems;
• Providing long-term, sustainable funding and resources to support community‑based projects, and to strengthen food production and processing capacity at the community level;
• Exploring innovative technologies to support local food production, processing, transport and storage; and
• Establishing new co-developed mechanisms and governance models to address gaps in existing policies and programs.