Evidence of meeting #107 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cost.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, North West Company
That would also be in the same document, which I'd be happy to provide. It's a public document you can get online.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Could you please provide it to the committee?
What is the average salary of a cashier in Iqaluit?
Chief Executive Officer, North West Company
Again, I'd be able to get back to you with that information.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
The North West Company posted gross profits of over $205 million. On the nutrition north's website, they said that they've spent $145 million on nutrition north. I understand that the North West Company has received about $67 million from the nutrition north program.
How do you justify the profits that you received over the subsidies that you received as well?
Chief Executive Officer, North West Company
First of all, that is a net.... That's before taxes and interest, but nonetheless it is also through our entire company. That is the profit for the entire company. You mentioned that it's from the subsidies, and we'll address that in just a moment; however, I can tell you that, in addition to that, we've invested $125 million.
NDP
Chief Executive Officer, North West Company
They're not connected, though, respectfully. They're not connected at all, because the profits are before taxes and interest, and the profits also come from the entire global company. I guess I can answer the question by saying that the subsidies are actually 100% passed through to the customer, so there's no correlation between the two.
You asked how we justify the profit. The profit is one thing, but then we invest $125 million in the business, a lot of which goes into the infrastructure of northern Canada to make lives better within the communities we serve—
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
Reports are being shown that actually not 100% of the subsidy is going to the consumers from the North West Company; only 67¢ of the dollar is going to the consumers, which is completely unacceptable.
I have another question for you. I was in Kimmirut last March. In one day, I visited both the Kimmik Co-op and the Northern store. In the co-op, the price of a dozen eggs was $3.99—I think they're using the subsidy appropriately. On that same day, I went to the Northern store, and the price of eggs at that store was $6.49. How do you justify that you're using the subsidy properly when you can see a huge three-dollar difference in just the price of eggs?
Chief Executive Officer, North West Company
I would like to see that differential, because our prices are actually very strong, and we do look to lead prices locally.
I don't know about that particular instance, but I can tell you that it has no reflection on the fact that we absolutely pass on 100% of the subsidy, and we do pride ourselves on trying to continue to bring the costs of products down in stores every day. Everybody within our organization comes to work every day to bring down the costs in order to pass that value on to the consumers. That's our company's mission, and it's a passion that we work with every day.
I can't comment on that particular item, but I would be very interested to see that, because it's not typically the case.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
I saw it as a pattern. I've been to every one of the 25 communities that I represent, and whenever there was a co-op and a Northern store, there was always a price difference. It was always the co-op that made sure they were using the program appropriately to make sure those prices were going down. Always, every time, the Northern store prices were much higher.
I do have a question for Mr. Goulet. Thank you for appearing.
I do remember that, when I was in Kimmirut, I was shocked by the stories I heard about the co-op, which I felt very strongly about, because there were about 9,000 kilograms of products stuck in storage in Iqaluit. I wonder if you can explain the impact of what that means for the whole community of Kimmirut when there is fresh produce that is not able to land in their community.
General Manager, Kimik Co-operative Ltd.
Yes, if I recall, at the time of your visit, we had about 9,000 kilograms of food sitting at the end of the air carrier. This morning, we had about 3,500 kilograms. It's still constant. The slate is never clear.
The impact is putting direct pressure on the price. It comes to a point where the shelves are empty. Empty shelves mean no food. I remember one time when the whole town had no milk, when the whole town had no bread. It just puts the price higher and higher because we incur losses. Also, claiming, as we've been told, is nice, but it's not an option. It doesn't fix the issue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
That's the end of the six minutes.
We'll move now to our shorter round.
First up, we have Mr. Schmale, who will have five minutes.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
Mr. Bell, you talked earlier about the price that is added from the carbon tax on fuel on an average flight. About $2,000 is now paid for in carbon tax. One thing that I guess we didn't talk about earlier is the carbon tax applied to the farmers and to the truckers to get it to your planes. Also, we didn't even talk about the warehousing. There are consumers who have to pay carbon tax on their home heating, etc. This is a massive cost of living component that is just being overlooked, unfortunately, by this government, and people are suffering because of this. Their lives are getting more miserable because their disposable income is getting eaten up, day after day, because of the crippling taxes this government enjoys placing on top of them.
You also mentioned pilot hours. On one side, we have costs being jacked up by the government. On the other side, we're having pilot hours being restricted. Maybe you can tell us a bit about that, please.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Calm Air International LP
In December 2019, Transport Canada changed the flight duty fatigue regulations. This was largely to counter some of the major airlines that were not counting the time of deadheading pilots, which means the time they're on board as passengers going to their destinations to start their flying. I know that we, Canadian North and most of the other airlines in Canada, do count the duty day as soon as that pilot reports.
Unfortunately, the change in that policy has had a devastating effect on the amount of time we have to fly every day. It often means that you can't do a second flight; you won't have enough duty day time for it. Also, if there's a delay because of fog or weather in the morning, the pilots, because of that delay, often don't have a chance to do a trip to a lot of our high Arctic communities.
For us, that cost has been substantial. When we look through our network, it's in the neighbourhood of 15% on our flight operation costs already. Therefore, it's a substantial increase due to that policy change.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
The carbon tax is about 20% on the average flight, you said, from Winnipeg to Churchill.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Calm Air International LP
I think it's about 15% on the cost of fuel.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
That significant price is just built in, servicing government taxes and regulations.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Calm Air International LP
That's correct.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Based on the fact that we're now seeing carbon tax being charged to people trying to heat their homes.... Obviously, you don't know exactly everything, but I'm sure you have an idea of what's being moved in your flights. Are you seeing a reduction in the amount of fresh food being placed on your planes as people compensate, unfortunately, for the increased cost of living that is causing people to make choices, to look for higher-calorie items rather than the fresh items on the shelves, which are probably more expensive in some cases?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Calm Air International LP
I think that's a great question. Jean-Pierre mentioned earlier that a lot of the time people were ordering less of the produce, vegetables and that healthy food and were buying other products instead, such as rice, pasta and those kinds of items. We don't break our product down in terms of every single category like that, but we certainly have seen, overall, a shift away from some of the produce and the vegetables into other categories because they're too expensive.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
On the pilot situation, we obviously have a pilot shortage. I guess wages are increased as a result, because there are more positions than there are people to pay.
There are increases in airport fees. I think one of you said that in your comments earlier. That's another government-imposed fee.
Nav Canada fees went up as well. How much did they go up?