Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2010

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Am I out of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You've got 15 seconds left.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Fogarty, do you want to quickly throw in that comment about the storage issues you were talking about?

[Peter Fogarty]

That is the biggest concern. Products in our grocery stores have expiration dates on them, be they cookies or canned goods. All products have best-before dates. Even we, the grocers, must be very careful. Everyone here checks the expiration dates on canned goods. If we here, in Ottawa, or in Montreal, were to order canned goods once a year, I'm not sure that we'd carry quality products.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Fogarty.

Thank you, Ms. Crowder.

I'm going to take one of the government spots.

Monsieur Joubert, what is Canada Post's outlook about this transition from the food mail program to Nutrition North? Is it something Canada Post is welcoming? Do you have an opinion on this change and how the transition has gone?

[Richard Joubert]

The best comment I can make is that we are working very closely with INAC to ensure that we have the smoothest transition possible. The people of the north are Canada Post customers, and they're going to continue to be Canada Post customers long after the food mail program has changed over to Nutrition North. Therefore, we're going to work very closely with the communities, very closely with our suppliers, and very closely with INAC to ensure as smooth a transition as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's until next April; then it wraps up.

[Richard Joubert]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'll come back to our two retailers who are here today.

Over the several days that we've been doing this study, we have certainly heard a lot of points raised about the difficulties of pricing the non-perishable items. You mentioned some good points around the best-before dates, and so on. We realize that the premise of Nutrition North Canada is to get the non-perishable products that can be warehoused, some of which you mentioned today--canned goods, water, diapers, health products, and things of that nature--to go by sealift or by way of a winter road. Then you can get the price of transportation way down and offer goods to your customers at a much lower price, perhaps even lower than what you would have been able to do with the food mail program. That's a certain premise.

In terms of this perishability issue, you mentioned ketchup, Campbell's soup, canned vegetables, and things of that nature. What are the timelines? Don't they normally have at least a two-year shelf life? I'm thinking that if they have such a long shelf life, in one full-year cycle you would be able to order it in, warehouse it at least for one year's demand, and meet that demand from a warehouse. Wouldn't that be reasonable?

[Rita Novalinga]

It would be, if we had a warehouse. That's my first answer.

It always depends what it is. For pie filling, it would be one year, but I cannot see anything healthy after one year. How can you have a...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Most wouldn't be less than one year, I wouldn't think.

[Rita Novalinga]

It's six months.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In some cases it's six months? Okay.

On this warehousing issue, you mention a $2 million warehouse for a community of 200. That idea, I would agree, is way outside the picture, way outside possibility, but wouldn't it be possible to contract some of the warehousing space that one would need for a community like that, either with the shipper or within the community already? Is that something you've considered?

[Rita Novalinga]

We would certainly consider that if there was infrastructure. There is a housing crunch up north. All the houses are filled to capacity. There is no infrastructure, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's okay.

Now to Mr. Kusugak. Thank you for your answers.

Go ahead, sir. I saw you had your hand up. I've got 30 seconds for your answer as well.

[Jose Kusugak]

Okay, 30 seconds. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to point out that we are in a great nation, Canada. The Arctic is really not a third world country. As much as I appreciate a year or two years' storage, I think in Canada we ought to be able to have reasonably fresh things to eat. If you go from my community of Rankin Inlet to Ottawa right now, it's amazing how fresh the stuff is at any of your grocery stores here. It's like picking freshly from a tree compared to the stuff we're getting in the communities. Being in a nation like this, I think there ought to be some balance between wherever you are in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I agree wholeheartedly. My point was on the non-perishable products. I think we're all agreed that we want to get the perishable stuff, the fresh, high-quality stuff, by way of air, no doubt.

We have time for one more question, and we're going to go to Monsieur Lemay. I have Ms. Smith for a short question as well.

Monsieur Lemay, and then Ms. Smith.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I don't have an actual question. I listened to all of you. My colleague, Yvon, is very concerned about this situation because he is the MP for Abitibi—James Bay—Nunavik—Eeyou. I am the MP for Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I am very surprised. This is the third meeting on this issue, and it doesn't look like the program was properly thought out before it was sprung on you.

I am glad my colleague asked that we study this matter. I don't want to take up too much time, as I know that we have another short in-camera meeting scheduled, but I would like you to send us questions. We will probably ask department officials to appear again before the committee. I am still stunned. I thought that the program had been better developed and that proper consultations had been held.

I understand, and it has been confirmed, that you can consult the website, but it is very difficult to get Internet access in many parts of northern Quebec and Canada. I would like you to send us any questions you may have. The only promise we can make is that we will monitor the program very closely because $75 million have been poured into it. We want the consumers to benefit from this investment.

I won't take up any more time, but I think it is important that you share your comments with us. You may be sure that we will take them into consideration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Did anybody want to respond briefly?

[Peter Fogarty]

The current problem is that we are told to consult the website, which doesn't actually provide answers to any of the questions I asked you earlier. In the document I'll send you, I listed seven questions for which no answers have been provided. As a retailer, I must personally negotiate future transportation costs. Despite the financial support provided to various communities, transportation costs will make access to food impossible, in my opinion. This is a very important issue. We are told—the lady is unfortunately gone—to go to the website. We have sufficient Internet savvy to know how to consult a website, but the website we are being referred to doesn't currently answer any of our questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'm sure those questions are very relevant for your organizations. Our mandate as a committee would likely not be to respond in that respect, but certainly that is a good question for the department. I'm sure they would welcome your questions and do their best to answer those questions for you.

Our study as a committee is to look at the program and the intended changes and report to the House of Commons on what we see and what we've heard from witnesses. So we're not in as good a position to be able to respond to those specific questions.

I have Ms. Smith for a short question, and then we'll wrap it up.

Go ahead, Ms. Smith.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for allowing me some time to ask a question.

I'm not normally on this committee. I'm a guest, but I'm very interested in this topic.

In my health committee we have done some study on the nutrition challenges that the north faces. Members of my committee actually did visit Nunavut, and we understood a lot of things that were happening.

It is my understanding that INAC is going to release information to answer some of your questions on December 1 of this year. The information will be placed on the website; I know that you utilize the website very much, and of course it's easy to do. That might answer some of the questions that we have today in short order, so I would invite everyone to get on that website.

I was somewhat baffled by a comment made a little earlier. I know there are many different sizes of communities up there. They are not huge, but there is a difference between really small and really large communities, and I believe there was a statement made by Ms. Novalinga about small communities not having the $2 million to build a warehouse to house all these things. Nutrition in the north is all about the big cost of the good foods that need to be available to the people of the north. The cost is very high, and the foods also sometimes can't get there in a timely manner.

This business of trying to address nutrition needs of northern Canada is of paramount importance. Storage would be one variable that needs to be looked at. When you made the comment that a warehouse might cost $2 million, I wondered if any analysis had been done to establish the actual cost to build those warehouses.

I think that would be a very important question to answer. Would someone like to comment on that?

[Peter Fogarty]

Building a warehouse in the province of Quebec or in Ottawa is too expensive. If transportation costs are taken into consideration, imagine how much it would cost to build a warehouse in Nunavut. In Quebec, building a storage facility already costs millions of dollars. We are talking about $1 million or $2 million, but that is no longer enough to build a warehouse. A store like mine costs $10 million to build. Of course, a store contains certain equipment, but $4 million or $5 million are needed just for the infrastructure of a 35,000-square-foot grocery store, which isn't even that big if we also want to store products for a year. One million or $2 million does not get us very far.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I understand that, but my question was whether there has ever been a cost analysis of where these warehouses would be and how much they would cost. In small communities or big communities, should this be something that is done quite quickly to see what the actual costs would be?

Am I running out of time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You're okay.