Shipping is something that anyone who lives in Inuit Nunangat knows the ins and outs of: how to shop online, what not to ship, and what to ship. Amazon Prime and others before it have offered free shipping in certain circumstances in certain locations, but it's a challenge for sustainability. Just a very small package, even from the capital of Nunavut, Iqaluit, to Ottawa can be as much as $50 for something that's a kilogram or a kilogram and a half, and isn't more than a foot in diameter.
When there are companies like Amazon Prime that offer free shipping, it is something that people flock to and use in greater proportions than you'd see in the south. There's always a risk, however, that the service will be taken away at any moment.
The challenge is that we don't have equity in the way in which goods flow across this country, especially essential services and essential goods. For us in our 53 communities, only one is serviced by a year-round road. Our ports, our airstrips really are our essential infrastructure. We don't have rail systems. The fact that we don't have any of these components of our infrastructure drives the prices up for all of the things that come into our communities, whether they're perishable or non-perishable.
I think we are still in a nation-building phase for the Canadian Arctic and Inuit Nunangat. This example of one particular online retailer and the free shipping that they offer is just a small part of a much larger picture that I think we need to fix.