High Food Prices, Hunger and Poverty Up in the North

Image obtained via quinet on Flickr Creative Commons

At the grassroots level, the government’s attitude has angered many people – particularly from First Nations communities – and driven them to protest.

Last Saturday, Leeslee Papatsie – founder of Facebook group Feed My Family, with more than 18,000 members – organized a protest in an empty parking lot across from her city’s grocery store where more than 30 members of the community gathered.

They say the limited number of retailers leaves them little choice as to where they can buy food; and the new Nutrition North Program provides subsidies on healthy, perishable foods directly to the retailers rather than the shippers, like the old Food Mail Program did. Even Aglukkaq “has previously blamed retailers,” reads a Huffington Post article.

Ron Elliot, MLA for the High Arctic Communities (Grise Ford, Resolute, Arctic Bay), concedes that the Nutrition North program has worked in subsidizing nutritious foods; but the price of some basics, such as baby formula, diapers or flour, are still way too high and residents have no other choice but to pay the high prices.

Northwest Company owns most of northern Canada’s grocery stores. The vice president of Northwest Company, Michael McMullen, says the high cost of doing business in the north is due to transportation costs. When comparing the amount of cash needed to stock a Giant Tiger store in Winnipeg (where Northwest Company is located) and one across the border in Manitoba, he says the former would cost less than $200,000, while the latter would need more than $2 million. They would need ten times the inventory in the north to do the same level of business as in the south, he clarified. He also noted that there has been a 15 percent reduction in costs through the Nutrition North program.

[pullquote]Inuit living in the territories made about $43,378 less than non-aboriginals, with a yearly average income of $16,669 according to Statistics Canada .[/pullquote]But only the items on the eligibility list are subsidized, so infant and women’s products are not included. The list is set to be trimmed this October.

Other citizens from the south, including some of the government officials mentioned above, have posed the question: why not move or hunt?

According to various reports by previous UN Human Rights Bodies and by Jennifer Wakegijig, Nunavut’s territorial nutritionist, deeply rooted income inequality and poverty issues plaguing Aboriginal residents make these options quite arduous.

In 2005, Inuit living in the territories made about $43,378 less than non-aboriginals, with a yearly average income of $16,669 according to Statistics Canada .

Wakegijig also found that, among other issues, three of four Inuit pre-schoolers are food insecure; that half of the children between 11 and 15 years-old go to bed hungry; and that two-thirds of Inuit parents run out of food on a regular basis. Added to this is the fact that the average age in Nunavut is 24, meaning that most of the population is not within age to contribute to household incomes.

As for moving, Elliot stated, “If you can’t afford to feed your family, you can’t afford to fly.” Indeed, within Nunavut a one-way ticket south may run up to $2,000. Hunting, according to Papatsie, can be a two to three day expedition (missing work), and the equipment, which includes snowmobiles and other expensive gear, are simply way too pricey for someone living paycheque to paycheque; Elliot estimates the price to hunt is around $150 per day. According to Inuit Tapirisat Kanatami, Canada’s national Inuit group, more than 42 percent of Inuit agree that hunting is too expensive. Former MP, Jack Anawak, also agrees.

Manitoba’s premier, Greg Selinger, says he is working with local private food providers to try to find a solution and to lower the price of basics such as milk, which is about $7 per litre. Together with politicians from the three northern territories as well as from Labrador and northern Quebec, Selinger is pressuring the federal government to expand its $54 million Nutrition North Program, and to implement a national strategy that would ensure that retailers pass on the savings of subsidies through lower prices. Manitoba has also implemented school nutrition programs, funded community gardens and greenhouses, and is giving out loans to residents to buy large freezers.

The Nunavut government has made poverty and food security top priorities in their agendas as well. It has already implemented a school-breakfast program throughout all its communities, as well as cooking and prenatal nutrition classes. It has also formed a Food Security Coalition with representatives from six different government departments and Inuit organizations to ask, among other things, for aid in order to build better infrastructure and thereby reduce transportation costs.

The Conservative government has not yet issued an apology for its comments towards De Schutter’s missions or expressed any game-plan to tackle the rampant hunger problem up in our Great North.

Sources:

– CBC
– CTV
– HuffingtonPost
– ipolitics.ca
– NationalPost
– Yahoo News (Human Rights advocates demand federal government apology)
– Yahoo News (Canada Food Envoy Fight)
– Yahoo News ( Northerners blast high prices for basic food)