Critical Response On The Article Canada'S Food Security Is Vulnerable To American Political Chaos

The central claim of this piece is the importance of local food security. The author argues that the community and government need to take precautions in order to maintain food security. This blog comes from a website formed by a group of Hamilton citizens. The article was written in June 2018 and reflects recent issues that arise from Trump’s presidency and Ontario’s new premier, Doug Ford. With that in mind, the piece is directed towards Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative (PC) party. Additionally, the author, Karen Burson, writes to inform the general public about the risks associated with the new progressive party and their possible influence on Ontario’s food security. Through the piece, she shapes the public’s opinion on the new Ontario leaders and the uncertainty of the food system. One weakness associated with the use of a blog is that the information provided is less reliable than academic journals. The article adopts a persuasive technique that is heavily biased towards the author’s opinion. In this case, the author’s work focuses on food programs and advocacy which therefore leads to biases in favor of food security projects.

At the same time, the information provided is, therefore, opposed to those against ex. local food acts. The positive thing about working with blogs is that it gives the readers another point of view on a possibly controversial topic while also allowing the readers to relate to the opinions of another citizen. Throughout this paper, the author used moral and ethical reasoning’s to support her arguments. One example is the importance of the Local Food Act to support local farmers and to provide affordable healthy food to everyone. This example represents an argument that is focused on the ethics of human life the need for fresh and healthy food. In addition, the author utilized A posteriori reasoning, specifically qualitative observations to support her arguments. One example is her reference to the “expert opinion” of Wayne Roberts on both the CAN-US border and on urban agriculture.

The author refers to Roberts to mention the risks of the Canadian food supply due to American borders as well as the improvement of the local food supply with urban agriculture. Equally important, the author used A priori reasoning in defining the Local Food Act as “legislation to protect and improve food security”. The article does not contain enough evidence to convince the reader of the importance of local food security and the need to maintain it. The article provides some examples of A posteriori and moral/ethical arguments that help support their position but that being said, the piece lacks quantitative arguments to help authenticate the claims being made. Additionally, it lacks evidence supporting the perceived threat of the PC party against food security programs and the Greenbelt. The author briefly mentions the risks but provides no evidence to support the statement. Most of the evidence provided in the article was not cited, so therefore the sources are unknown and we are unable to determine if the sources are trustworthy. However, some evidence was cited from Wayne Roberts, from the Toronto Food Policy Council. The council is a “subcommittee of the Board of Health to advise the city of Toronto on food policy issues”, which confirms that the information came from a reputable source.

Some evidence like those provided by Wayne Roberts is from secondary sources, while others that are not cited are unknown. The author’s argument for the need to protect and maintain local food security makes sense but lacks evidence and credible information for support. The few pieces of evidence that were provided did support the claim. One example was the CAN-US border situation which indicated that if Trump decided to close the border between Canada and the US, Canadians would run out of fresh food in 3 days. This emphasizes the need to improve local food security in Ontario. The evidence provided by the author is appropriate for the point being made because the blog is a social science piece that focuses on qualitative observations and moral/ethical reasoning’s. One positive factor about this piece is that there are no obvious errors in reasoning. The author identifies a counter-argument which highlights the use of urban agriculture such as community composting centers as a technique to improve local food supply in Ontario.

This article fails to support the argument that food security is an important issue that is at risk and therefore needs to be protected. The author mentions the risks of possible food security threats with little supporting evidence. Additionally, the author fails to incorporate credible and trustworthy sources. Overall, this piece is unreliable and therefore, I do not believe in what the author states.