Illustration by Olivia Thomson

In 2021, Aaron Beaumont decided it was time to create more queer connections in New Brunswick. While doing their undergrad at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, Beaumont’s work in fat studies led them to learn more about fat activism online. After realizing that most groups were based in the U.S., and the few Canadian groups that existed were decidedly not in New Brunswick, Beaumont took matters into their own hands.

They created QT Fatties, a mostly online, and sometimes in person, community for queer and trans fat folks living in New Brunswick. Four years later, it has transformed into a space Beaumont had been dreaming of: one where trans fat folks across the province can connect.

QT Fatties uses Discord to plan both virtual and physical events geared towards other fat, trans queers. They’ve hosted clothing swaps and art markets, and have had online monthly meetups. They’ve also run mutual aid fundraisers for people in need of gender-affirming care.

Sam Walsh, who does administrative work for the group, explains that their Discord channel is where most of the community gets together. “There’ll be messages in the Discord sometimes like, ‘I want to do this. Anyone available to meet up and we can just hang out?’ Which I think is really awesome. It’s changed from being all on Aaron organizing, to being a little bit more community based.”

Beaumont founded the group in the hopes that more queers could find and help each other navigate being fat and queer in a largely rural province. “There was no activism happening in the province, more specifically, [around] accessibility. By that I mean clothing, gender affirming items, access to healthcare. All of the things that are already hard to access in this province—but you add body size and fatness on and that makes it more challenging,” they explain. “So, I wanted to make some of those things free and supportive and more accessible for folks.”

Walsh also says it was important to have a group based in the Maritimes, since a lot of resources are based on the West Coast. “Having something that’s local, where you’re able to connect with people that are in the Maritimes is really nice because some of the experiences that we’re dealing with are a bit different. Particularly when it comes to the medical system or accessing gender-affirming care.”

Some of these needs, Beaumont explains, stem from much of New Brunswick being not only rural, but also conservative, and generally lower income, especially compared to other provinces. Because of that, they make sure QT Fatties events take place in the province’s three major cities as well as virtually to remain accessible to all who need it.

“Fat activism is really grounded in disability justice. When we think about accessibility, online platforms, chats, whatever it may be, is what’s most accessible to a lot of disabled folks. I’m disabled myself and sometimes, in-person events are just not possible for me. [Online meetings] help in terms of rurality, but also disability accessibility,” Beaumont says.

The feedback QT Fatties has received from those it serves has been positive—but not everyone understands why it needs to exist. Beaumont says that simply means there’s more work to be done.

“There has been general questioning around like, ‘Why do we need a group specifically for fat people?’ Also, people being uncomfortable with the word ‘fat.’ I don’t think that has been a barrier to our events, but that has been things that come up online. Even though we’ve been doing this for four years people are still uncomfortable with just the idea of using the word fat.”

Still, members and organizers of QT Fatties feel grateful for its existence, especially in a politically tense time where we need activism and community more than ever.

Photo by Jim Feng; Design by Valerie Thai

Severe and increasingly regular hurricanes, increased temperatures altering fishing grounds and crop development, drastic shoreline erosion, and the destruction of vulnerable ecosystems. These are all climate change impacts that are already happening on Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) and will only get worse in the future without immediate climate action.

As a low-lying island province nestled in the Atlantic, P.E.I. is heavily romanticized in pop culture and tourism ads as an idyllic, pastoral province. With a major housing crisis, an underfunded healthcare system, high levels of poverty and food insecurity, and a fragile economy that is very vulnerable to climate change, the reality for most islanders is very different from this romanticized picture.

P.E.I., also known as Epekwitk by the Mi’kmaq, is a largely agricultural province, with almost half of the island used as farmland. Agriculture as a sector is highly susceptible to climate change due to unpredictable weather and rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures. According to Sally Bernard, a certified organic grain farmer on P.E.I., “climate change is just like this concrete umbrella that we’re carrying around. It’s just looming at all times.”

Agriculture on P.E.I., and most of Canada for that matter, is largely industrial and conventional agriculture, which is characterized by the heavy application of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, intensive irrigation practices, and the use of monocropping, which is the practice of planting a single crop on vast areas of farmland year after year. Farms on P.E.I. are shrinking in number but growing in size, and this consolidation of farmland has been ongoing for decades. The local agricultural sector is dominated by agribusinesses, which are corporations that produce or distribute goods and services related to farming and the farming itself. While P.E.I. has several main crops, these agribusinesses have entrenched the monocropping of potatoes into P.E.I.’s land use patterns with devastating environmental consequences. In recent years, the island has borne witness to a drastic reduction in soil health, a significant loss of crop diversity, and many fish kills (which result when fertilizer or pesticide runoff creates an anoxic event in local waterways, thus destroying an aquatic ecosystem including fish and other organisms). When farmers work under a contract with these agribusinesses, they are generally expected to yield a certain amount of crop. This is not to say that local potato farmers disregard the environment, but rather that they face many external pressures and often work within tight profit margins. There are many local environmental organizations, including watershed groups whose mandates are to help manage and restore a local ecosystem, working with farmers to improve environmental outcomes. According to a representative of a local watershed group who wishes to remain anonymous, “[Farmers] are often very willing to work for [environmental] groups or with groups. They don’t want fish kills. They’re community-minded…. But there’s also a lot on a farmer’s radar.”

While industrial agriculture is the dominant form of agriculture on P.E.I., monocropped agriculture is not economically or environmentally resilient and small shocks can disrupt the sector. This vulnerability is evident in the current potato export crisis on P.E.I., as millions of pounds of potatoes are unable to be shipped to the U.S. due to the discovery of a contagious crop disease on a local farm. Crop diseases are often associated with industrial agriculture through poor soil quality and a lack of crop diversity. Despite high rates of food insecurity on P.E.I., these farmers have been forced to destroy over 136 million kilograms of edible potatoes.

The dominance of industrial agriculture on P.E.I. is being challenged by local agroecological farmers. Agroecology is a social movement, body of knowledge, and agricultural mode developed in concert with the transnational peasants movement La Via Campesina and their mission to empower small farmers, fishers, and Indigenous land protectors globally. This style of farming prioritizes on-farm biodiversity, livable wages for farmers, and respect for the non-human environment.

In short, agroecology is the practice of ecological farming while working within the confines of one’s natural ecosystem, thus promoting resiliency through biodiversity. Agroecology can be thought of as a large umbrella term that many farming methods could fall under, including intercropping (growing multiple crops together to promote soil health), agroforestry (growing crops in cultivated forests to promote carbon capture in soil), planting trees near bodies of water to prevent fertilizer runoff, crop rotation, utilizing cover crops to prevent soil degradation in the winter, rotational grazing of livestock, using organic manures, and many more. Nancy Sanderson is a small-scale farmer who grew up on a conventional farm in Saskatchewan and began farming agroecologically with her partner after moving to P.E.I. She describes agroecology as “trying to work with nature rather [than] fight against it wherever possible.” These farming methods create vibrant agro-ecosystems and provide natural ecosystem services including pollination, pest control, and nutrient cycling.

Agroecological farming can also sequester carbon through improved soil health, making it a powerful tool in the fight against further climate change. Methods such as no-till or low-till farming, planting cover crops to prevent soil erosion, and rotational grazing of livestock have all been demonstrated to capture atmospheric carbon and store it in soils, similar to the way that trees store carbon during their life cycles. Adam MacLean is a sheep farmer from central P.E.I. “My role as a farmer is to harness as efficiently as possible the sun and the rain and sequester a … ton of carbon,” says MacLean. Genuine resilience to climate change does not just mean the ability to weather vulnerabilities, it also means removing or mitigating the root stressors causing harm in the first place.

Agroecology shares some methods with Certified Organic farming in Canada, a system where farmers are certified by an outside body as using certain environmental practices on their farm, including forgoing non-organic pesticides. Agroecology takes additional steps toward promoting ecosystem health, however, and encourages community-based agricultural values like collective land ownership, respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, and achieving gender and racial equity within agriculture and beyond.

From an economic perspective, agricultural research also indicates that agroecology can be far more productive per hectare than conventional monoculture methods. Agroecological farming is also greatly resilient to economic and environmental disasters. Multiple studies and surveys conducted across South and Central America, where agroecology is more common than it is in Canada, found that agroecological farming is much more resilient to hurricanes and other “natural” disasters that are becoming more frequent and severe in the ongoing climate crisis.

This resilience is noteworthy for agriculture on P.E.I., as weather variations that impact crops are becoming much more regular. In early September of 2019, Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the Canadian Maritimes, causing widespread devastation and crop loss. With sustained winds of over 155 km/h and heavy rainfall, many Maritime farmers reported major crop damage.

From a climate justice perspective, P.E.I.’s total greenhouse gas emissions are negligible compared to the rest of Canada, but P.E.I. will be disproportionately impacted as a geographically and economically vulnerable province, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. Resilience is an increasingly relevant concept to conversations on climate change. While neoliberal governments and corporations attempt to individualize the concept of resilience and make it a matter of personal responsibility to prepare oneself for the climate crisis, climate change is a systemic problem that requires increased system resilience. While individual agroecologists are making meaningful efforts to improve their on-farm environmental outcomes, they often lack governmental support and are also frustrated by governmental inaction on climate change in Canada and beyond.

Despite the clear benefits of agroecology, various levels of government have failed to provide enough support for the growth of agroecology as a movement on P.E.I. due to the disproportionate power of the agribusiness sector and the Canadian export model of agriculture. There are many powerful agribusinesses on the island, and a few are vertically integrated, meaning that they control all stages of the production process including seed development, agro-chemical application, packaging, shipping, and processing.

Many agroecological farmers and environmental groups believe that the provincial and federal governments favour local agribusinesses and their contracted growers over agroecologists. During the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, little relief was offered to smaller-scale and agroecological farmers who also could not access many federal or provincial supports designed to support industrial-scale farms and agribusinesses. Many local agroecologists found this hard to swallow, as they believe that subsidizing larger-scale producers allows those producers to maintain artificially low commodity prices that make agroecological goods seem highly priced in comparison to consumers.

Agriculture in Canada, including in P.E.I., is largely export-oriented, meaning that the majority of food produced in Canada is produced for export to other countries while we also import a great deal of food. Canada is the fifth largest agricultural exporter in the world and is the dominant exporter of common crops such as durum wheat, soy, canola, and oats. This export orientation means that government subsidization tends to prioritize monocropping these cash crops over more environmentally sound methods.

Jordan MacPhee is an agroecological vegetable farmer from central P.E.I. who farms with carbon sequestration in mind. According to MacPhee, agroecological farming produces many positive externalities for the environment and the broader community: “You’re … rehabilitating [the land] and you’re bringing carbon in from [the] atmosphere, you’re … not leaching [contaminated water] out into the waterways, you’re not poisoning … the lungs and the intestines of your neighbours by putting nitrates into the groundwater and air … there’s so many side benefits that are invisible in the short term.” However, these benefits often do not result in financial gains for those agroecologists, especially in the early years of farming. “When you get home from the market, and you’ve worked 80 hours that week, and you only make 200 bucks, and you do the math and you made $2.50 an hour. That’s when it’s like, what am I doing?” he says. MacPhee mentioned that with experience and shared knowledge, agroecological farming can provide a livable income even in the current economic system. However, many individuals who are willing to provide their communities with environmental and social benefits through agroecology do not survive the initial startup phase of farming due to a lack of financial support and the exceedingly low number of agriculture schools in Canada that teach agroecological methods.

There are certainly local and federal government programs aimed to support the growth of smaller-scale agroecological farming, including small grant programs, a provincially funded mental health program for island farmers, and bureaucratic positions to oversee the growth of agroecology on P.E.I. However, many farmers view them as inconsequential and piecemeal strategies relative to the resources and financial support received by industrial-scale farms. Many local agroecologists believe that helping to provide farmers with a livable income whether through a universal basic income, direct farmer subsidization, or better grant programs is a way to support community resilience in the fight against climate change. Financial security allows farmers to weather the impacts of climate change, invest in mitigation strategies, and choose farming methods that sequester carbon over conventional farming methods that often provide a steadier income.

While the provincial government of P.E.I. has adopted some of the most ambitious emissions reductions and climate change mitigation targets in the country, with commitments to reach net zero energy consumption by 2030 and net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, 25 percent of provincial carbon emissions come directly from the agricultural industry. Instead of adopting agroecology as a climate change mitigation strategy or compensating agroecologists for their positive environmental externalities, the provincial government continues to subsidize a style of agriculture that degrades soil quality, releases significant greenhouse gas emissions, and often harms local biodiversity.

Agroecology is certainly not a silver bullet to climate change, but its burgeoning success can provide hope amidst a time of converging climate, economic, and health crises born of the capitalist world order. While we should hold our governments to account and expect them to support drastic climate change mitigation policies, including the pursuit of agroecology, the past several years have shown that we cannot wait for colonial, capitalist governments to set the pace of change required to combat these converging crises. Agroecology in Canada as a movement still has not reckoned with its role in the climate justice movement, how agroecologists can support Land Back and Indigenous sovereignty while farming in a colonial country, and how to adopt food justice frameworks that prioritize the food needs of marginalized communities. To spread the seeds of agroecology further, agroecologists and their allies can work in concert with the climate justice and Indigenous sovereignty movements to promote and adopt food systems that are rooted in community, equity, and food justice instead of the environmental and labour exploitation borne under the industrial international food system.

Graphic by Valerie Thai

The average grocery bill for Canadians has increased by 170 percent over the last two decades, according to Canada’s Food Price Report 2021. This is especially so over the last two years—since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020, Canadians have seen a major bump in their grocery bills.

Food production issues resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have touched every province and territory in Canada. The pandemic caused border and facility closures, labour shortages (including brief restrictions on temporary foreign workers), and shifted consumer demand from foodservice to food retail as restaurants grappled with shutdowns. New safety measures and procedures, such as physical distancing, meant processing plants were operating below capacity and efficiency.

Meanwhile, the price of oil was down in 2020, in turn lowering energy and distribution costs for food products. However, this weakened the Canadian dollar, shooting import costs up.

Atlantic Canada

Provinces on the Atlantic coast are highly vulnerable to systemic variables, as most food production and processing is done outside the region. It’s expected that the Atlantic region will continue to see costs rising above the national average. One food bank in Charlottetown, P.E.I., reported a 10 percent user increase in May 2021, up from the previous year, due to swelling food and gas prices.

British Columbia

B.C. agricultural producers have suffered from severe drought and wildfires over the past two years. BC Cattlemen’s Association estimated that the province lost approximately 3.5 million hectares of land to forest fires in the last five years, meaning cattle had less green space to graze. While B.C. farmers would typically purchase feed from the Prairies to compensate, those provinces, too, were experiencing dry conditions. It could be three to five years before the beef industry sees some resolution.

The Prairies

Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba all saw record heat levels and little rain in 2021. While some droughts are cyclical, last year’s dry conditions were particularly unusual, exacerbated by climate change. With less supply, processors must pay more for their inputs, especially wheat and canola—an expense destined to catch up with consumers.

Ontario and Quebec

Despite the hefty price of meat, residents in Ontario and Quebec have decreased their meat budget the least among Canadians at 46 percent compared to Albertans’ 57 percent. Ahead of Thanksgiving 2021, a Toronto butcher estimated turkey was up a dollar per pound compared to 2020. A CTV news report said retailers are taking the brunt of consumers’ frustrations. In Montreal, the two-dollar increase of a six-pack of yogurt ($5.99 to $7.99) has forced some customers to skip the product altogether.

The North

Food prices in the North are so high that one Inuk woman, Kyra Flaherty, started using TikTok to bring awareness to the exorbitant costs and their impact. Despite a federal food subsidy program, northerners still face food insecurity every day, owing to long-distance shipping expenses. This issue existed long before the pandemic.

In addition, traditional food sources are threatened by climate change: animals’ migration patterns are changing; travel required for hunting, trapping, and fishing are limited because of ice made unstable by warming temperatures; and low water levels make canoe trips difficult.

“house” by waferboard is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In Neepawa, Manitoba—population 4,609 as of 2016—any rental unit that comes on the market is immediately snapped up.

The town’s economic development officer, Marilyn Crewe, says a pork processing plant run by HyLife Foods LP has gone from employing 350 people to 1,500 in the space of 12 years.

“You need to understand …in the ’90s, the town of Neepawa had a population of 3,500,” she says.
“What this has done for Neepawa is that it has created a very tight rental market, and a very tight housing market.

So we are continually trying to work on that as a municipality but, I mean, our vacancy rate in Neepawa is
non-existent, practically.”

The national average for rental vacancy rates in centres with populations between 2,500 and 10,000 dropped by about half since 2015, according to data released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in January, going from 6.4 percent to 2.5 percent. Urban centres, defined by CMHC as those with populations over 10,000, have seen only a slight decline over the same five-year period, from 3.5 percent to 3.2 percent. Manitoba has one of the lowest vacancy rates for small centres in the country at 1.9 percent, second only to Quebec at 1.5 percent.

Crewe says there needs to be flexible support from other levels of government. She recognizes her booming community is an anomaly in rural Manitoba and that a plan addressing its housing needs would not necessarily work for places that are struggling to maintain their populations.

Massive change to the local job market is only one of the possible pressures small and rural communities are wont to face, however. Catherine Leviten-Reid, associate professor in the MBA in Community Economic Development program at Cape Breton University, says there are many factors present in small markets that are not typically an issue in large cities, including resource development projects and rental housing being used by healthcare workers coming in on rotation, and other visiting workers.

“I think people may kind of fail to appreciate some of the tension in rural rental markets,” she says. “So first of all, absolutely, there are people who rent in rural areas.”

Cities face their own challenges when it comes to rental markets and housing in general—including short term vacation rentals, something both urban and rural markets share—but Leviten-Reid argues there is more information to be had about housing conditions in large centres. While CMHC releases data every year for cities with populations over 10,000, it only releases information about smaller centres once every five years.

“The alarm bells go off if there is a vacancy rate that goes down below a certain percent,” she says. “But in these rural areas, there’s no baseline. You just end up with these anecdotal stories about how the rental market is being impacted.”

Further, the rental market study conducted in smaller places only takes into account the primary market, which is apartments in buildings that contain three or more units, which are not as common in small towns as they are in larger cities.

Overall, vacancy rates in small centres have trended downwards across the board. According to CMHC data tables, the most dramatic drops were seen in Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia, each falling about seven percent. Prince Edward Island went from 3.9 percent in 2015 to asterisks, which indicate that data was suppressed to protect confidentiality or that the data was not statistically reliable, in 2020. Tiny sample sizes are common in data concerning places with relatively small populations.

“I think this highlights that rural communities have rental markets, which as we discussed are often ignored, and that a renter looking for a place to live in small town Nova Scotia or Quebec, for example, faces challenges in finding housing,” Leviten-Reid says. “It’s important to find out what is going on behind these numbers.”