Food envoy underscores United Nations’ impotence

The last time the name of the UN’s right-to-food envoy Olivier de Schutter came up, we argued there was probably enough food left over from the Victoria Day weekend to feed the entire country of Sudan. Canada is not wanting for food. Yet, as expected, De Schutter’s final report to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council condemned Canada Monday for the “growing number of people who are food-insecure” — insisting that upwards of 4.3-million Canadians, or 8% of our population, basically don’t know how to find a supermarket or a food bank.

De Schutter is just another reason in a long list that explain why the UN is increasingly becoming a joke.

Reminder: In 2010, the UN elected Libya to its human rights council at the very same time its mad dog leader, Moammar Gadhafi, was running a human slaughterhouse.

To earn his cushy keep, however, De Schutter had to blame someone for all the bare shelves and empty food warehouses he dreamed up during his 11-day Canadian tour, so he irrationally blamed the Harper government for undermining access to food by, among other things, abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board and abandoning the long-form census.

What the long-form census has to do with sticking a fork in a chicken is beyond us. And, as for the wheat board, when has a freer market had a negative impact on food supply?

This, of course, is De Schutter’s tit for tat after being subjected to criticism during his “fact-finding” mission in May.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq called him “ill-informed” and “patronizing,” while Immigration Minister Jason Kenney called him “completely ridiculous.” Canada’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Elissa Golberg, also criticized De Schutter for his ignorance of the aboriginal culture and the Inuit preference for traditional food that is hunted and fished — which is why there is no Marks & Spencer food court in, say, Nunavut.

De Schutter didn’t go to the Arctic, of course. There’s no five-star hotel.

Instead, he spent less than two weeks in Canada, and then almost a year writing his 21-page report. That’s right. Only 21 pages. What a workload.