Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to everyone on the panel. Thank you again for extending an invitation to the North West Company to testify on this really important topic of food security in northern communities.
First, I will give you a quick overview of the North West Company. We operate 135 community stores across Canada and offer a broad range of products and services, depending on each community's needs. While our primary focus is on food, we also offer a broad selection of general merchandise, health services, optometry and pharmacy, as well as financial services. We are the largest employer of indigenous employees in the north. In addition, we operate an airline, North Star Air, that provides cargo service to 35 communities in Ontario, Manitoba and Nunavut.
I provide that overview because it gives you a sense of how deeply focused we are on the food value chain and supply chain across all of northern Canada, and it brings to light the fact that food security is something that we care deeply about as a long-standing community retailer.
The two previous speakers made a lot of points that I will make.
The first point that I really want to make is that food security, at its heart, is tied to the broader issue of income insecurity and the high cost of living and operating in the north, given the complex operating environment.
Here are a couple of facts to bring that home: Number one, the cost of energy is up to 10 times higher in Nunavut versus in the south. Making a repair to a building in the north can be 50% more expensive due to the cost of flying in supplies and skilled trades and the lack of infrastructure that previous speakers alluded to.
The cost impact of green policies can have outsized effects on the north due to the high-carbon footprint required to operate in northern Canada. As one example, the move to low-sulphur fuels for ships operating in the Arctic will increase sealift costs. It's the right thing to do, but it will have an outsized impact on food prices in Nunavut alone. Transport Canada estimated that this move to low-sulphur fuels could increase food prices by up to 2% and cost each Nunavut household between $500 and $700 a year. At the same time, no income support programs that many of the customers we serve depend on, whether it be child or old age benefits, are indexed to the higher cost of living, operating and working in the north.
Therefore, addressing food security will require a multi-pronged solution that's not just about food prices. As an example, nutrition north, which we will talk about, has done an excellent job of addressing the high freight cost of flying in product. Because of the subsidy for freight costs, a four-litre jug of milk in Shamattawa costs $5.79 today, which is comparable to the price in many southern hubs.
At the same time, though, it only addresses one cost input that affects the overall issue of income insecurity. Other additional measures will be required to tackle the underlying root causes of food insecurity, whether they be infrastructure, indexing benefits in the north or making deliberate infrastructure investments to help mitigate the higher costs of operating in the north and to help northern communities mitigate the costs of greenhouse gas and climate change adaptation.
Once again, I thank the panel for inviting me and Mr. Michael Beaulieu to testify on this topic today. I would be happy to explore the topic in the rest of today's panel during the Q and A, or after this panel in individual one-on-one conversations as the committee sees fit.
Thank you again for your invitation. We look forward to continuing this conversation.