More Than a Meal: Food Injustice as Part of Canada’s Black History

Black History Month invites us to reflect not only on Black excellence and resilience, but also on the systems that have shaped—and constrained—Black lives in Canada. One of those systems is food.

Access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food has never been evenly distributed. For many Black communities across Canada, food insecurity is not a temporary crisis, but the result of long-standing structural inequities rooted in racism, economic exclusion, and neighbourhood disinvestment.

Understanding food injustice is part of understanding Black history—past and present.

Food Insecurity Is Not New. It Is Historical (Yes, Even in Canada)

Black communities have been present in Canada for over 400 years. From enslavement in New France and British North America to segregation in housing, education, and employment, Black Canadians have long faced systemic barriers to land ownership, wealth accumulation, and food security.

Communities such as Africville in Halifax were deliberately under-resourced and eventually displaced, cutting residents off from land, livelihoods, and food autonomy. These patterns did not disappear—they evolved.

Research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that racialized neighbourhoods today continue to experience lower public investment and fewer essential services, including access to affordable grocery stores.

Food Apartheid in a Canadian Context

During Black History Month, it is important to name that food inequity is not accidental. Many advocates, including those at Food Secure Canada, use the term food apartheid rather than “food desert” to reflect the role of policy, racism, and power in shaping food access.

In many predominantly Black neighbourhoods across Canadian cities, residents are more likely to encounter:

• Convenience and dollar stores instead of full-service grocery stores

• Higher prices for fresh produce

• Limited availability of culturally significant foods

Research from the University of Toronto shows that Black households in Canada are more than three times as likely to experience food insecurity as white households—even when income is taken into account.

This disparity is one of the clearest indicators of structural racism in Canada’s food system.

Labour, Income, and Time Poverty

Black History Month is also a moment to recognize the relationship between labour and food access.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that Black Canadians are more likely to work in low-wage or precarious employment, earn less than non-racialized workers with similar qualifications, and experience underemployment.

These realities create time poverty: less time and energy to travel to grocery stores, prepare meals from scratch, or navigate complex food systems. When healthy food requires more time, money, transportation, and effort, it is no longer a matter of personal choice—it is a structural constraint.

Culture, Food, and Survival

Black food traditions are rooted in survival, creativity, and care. Many dishes associated with the African diaspora emerged from scarcity and exclusion, yet are often mischaracterized as “unhealthy” without acknowledging their historical and cultural context.

Colonialism, enslavement, and restrictive immigration policies disrupted access to land and traditional foodways, while Western nutrition standards continue to devalue culturally meaningful foods.

Food justice during Black History Month must include:

• Respect for cultural food knowledge

• Access to culturally appropriate ingredients

• Support for Black-led food initiatives

Food is not just nourishment. It is memory, identity, and resistance.

Health Inequities Reflect Structural Conditions

Public health data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows higher rates of diet-related illnesses—such as diabetes and obesity—within racialized communities. These outcomes are often framed as individual failings, but they are the predictable result of unequal food environments.

When communities are systematically denied access to healthy food across generations, health inequities are not surprising. They are structural.

Black History Month Is Also About the Future

Black History Month is not only a time to look back. It is a call to action.

Building food justice in Canada means:

• Investing in Black-led and Black-serving food programs

• Supporting community food sovereignty, not just emergency relief

• Addressing income inequality and precarious labour

• Treating food access as a public responsibility, not a privilege

For us, this means moving beyond charity alone and toward systems that centre dignity, self-determination, and equity.

Honouring Black history includes confronting the systems that still shape daily realities—including who gets to eat well, and who does not.