Mr. Wayne Walsh at the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee

On February 27th, 2020. See this statement in context.

February 27th, 2020 / 12:10 p.m.

Director General, Northern Strategic Policy Branch, Northern Affairs, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs

Wayne Walsh

The old food mail program was a transportation subsidy. When we changed the program to nutrition north, we made it a retail subsidy. One rationale for that was to allow the retailers the greatest flexibility to negotiate their own transportation costs. That's how the program was designed.

Certainly, whether it's The North West Company or Arctic Co-operatives, they have all the flexibility to then negotiate their supply chain system, whether it's airlines or whatever, and the sealifts. We have partnered up with the retailers in that regard.

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