Take care to not make the same mistakes that other municipalities have made
To the Expositor:
I understand that Central Manitoulin is considering a bylaw on backyard chickens and may soon be receiving a petition from residents in favour of permitting this.
I therefore wish to add the following evidence to the record for consideration by your staff in the drafting (or re-drafting of a better) bylaw, and by mayor and council in the debate and vote.
The United Nations has issued declarations, and Canada is a signatory to international treaties about human rights to sufficient, affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate foods.
Also, God’s Laws, the Magna Carta, English Common Law, Canadian Constitution, Bill of Rights, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Canadian Case Law do not abrogate these international rights and/or support and enshrine those rights.
Therefore, safe, fresh, affordable, and nutritious food is a human right, to access, trade, buy and/or produce for personal use.
Neither Canada, nor Ontario can delegate nor restrict a power they do not possess, nor intended to delegate to Municipalities through the Municipal Act, nor the Planning Act, nor any other Act.
I respectfully suggest that it is beyond the authority (ultra vires) of any municipality to deny, restrict, limit, abrogate, or interfere with these nationally and internationally enshrined and God given rights.
Any attempt, by you or others, to misinterpret these acts so as to wrongly assume a Municipality has the colour of right to attack human food rights is patently false and misguided.
I suggest chicken eggs and backyard chickens to produce those eggs are a clear and excellent example for full application of those human rights to produce food for oneself.
Food Banks in Canada started as a “temporary measure” to help people in the 1980 recession.
Food Banks are now everywhere across Canada, from sea to sea to sea. In spite of this, in 2021, Canadian Public Health Association reported that 15.9 percent of Canadians (5.8 million people) couldn’t afford, or had insecure access, to affordable, nutritious food. In the North, remote areas and First Nation communities, food insecurity is much higher (ie. 25 percent to 75 percent of families are affected). Note that Manitoulin suffers membership in all three of these worse-off categories.
In Canada, food bank usage has been doubling and re-doubling every 18.6 years.
Locally, Manitoulin Family Resources operates the largest food bank on Manitoulin. From 2011-2014, they had a 75 percent increase in food bank usage. In 2016, they gave 832 Manitoulin families a Christmas hamper of food, which was a 49 percent increase over 2015. They reported a doubling of clients during COVID, and a 37 percent increase in 2022 over the previous year (a doubling every 1.89 years). In 2022, they helped 4,289 people, from 1,569 households.
Are these exponential increases in food bank dependency sustainable?
Most people know, understand and believe: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
I believe we need a new saying: “Give a man an egg at the food bank, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to raise backyard chickens, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
I suggest backyard chickens, plus neighbours who can share with those who can’t, could be an excellent start to solving this chronic food bank dependency.
Chicken eggs are called “nature’s vitamin pill” by nutritional experts; the perfect food. Grass pastured, free range chickens (ie. backyard chickens) have been shown to produce eggs even more nutritious than those typically offered in grocery stores: 30 percent to 700 percent higher in vitamins, essential fats and proteins and minerals.
For example, grass-pastured free range chicken eggs typically have 700 percent higher beta carotene, which the human body metabolizes into Vitamin A. Health Canada and others have reported that the vast majority of Canadians are chronically deprived and mal-nourished for Vitamin A. I therefore suggest any municipality that attempt to rob its citizens of the best and least expensive source of Vitamin A (and other similar nutrients) is misguided or evil.
Copying from the bylaws already enacted by other municipalities must guard against copying the mistakes already made by others.
For example, Canada’s Supply Management System, Chicken Farmers of Ontario, Chicken Farmers of Canada, Egg Farmers of Ontario, Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada, CFIA, animal welfare regulations, OSPCA, Poultry Health Handbook and other similar sources generally recognize that chicken coops need to provide one square foot of floor space per laying chicken. In spite of this, some municipalities have demanded four sq. ft. per hen based on erroneous assumptions, illogical whims, arrogance and other errors or sins. This unnecessarily drives up costs 400 percent with marginal or no benefit for the chickens; and in winter, the body heat of the chickens is unable to adequately heat the coop because it is four times too big, thereby making the situation less comfortable for the birds.
Commercially produced eggs are in trouble. Over 67 million chickens have been euthanized in North America in the last three years due to bird flu. Some experts suggest that this, plus inflation, carbon taxes, green energy initiatives, supply management and similar forces may drive grocery store price of eggs to $5/egg, or $60/dozen by 2024.
Nobody I know can afford $60/dozen for eggs. Backyard chickens can save the day.
Each municipality in this world needs a policy to strive towards self-sufficiency for food. Others have already done so, and achieved this essential goal.
In Summer 2022, the cost of chicken feed on Manitoulin increased by about 50 percent. Similar increases occurred for supply management eggs and chicken producers. Backyard chickens can and will consume all or most kitchen scraps, saving them from municipal collection as solid wastes that get landfilled and converted to methane over the next 100 years at municipal dumps; methane being 60 to 80 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Not everybody can grow their own wheat, but almost everybody could raise their own backyard chickens for healthy, affordable eggs.
Therefore, bylaws that are enlightened and compliant to sustainable food goals should allow up to 19 hens per family member in residence. I suggest the bylaw allows a family with higher needs to seek special permission for more hens.
Now is the time for municipalities to help their citizens, and protect them from the evils that soon comes. I suggest it is the municipality’s urgent duty to do so.
Glenn Black
Providence Bay
