Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 4th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 36 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. We recognize that we meet on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is beginning its study of affordability challenges in northern Canada. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Members may be attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Our witnesses are on Zoom. Welcome.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking. At the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French. I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I would like to now welcome our witnesses.

We have MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent, represented by Daren Jones, warden of the MRC. We also have the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre, represented by Joseph Murdoch-Flowers, executive director.

You will each have five minutes. When you have about 30 seconds left, I'll let you know so you can finish up your thoughts.

Please begin, Mr. Jones.

[Daren Jones, Warden, MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent]

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs regarding affordability challenges in northern Canada.

My name is Daren Jones, warden of the MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent, representing communities of the lower north shore of Quebec, a remote and isolated coastal region where affordability is not simply about prices but about transportation, infrastructure, food security, employment stability and basic access to services. The realities our communities face are unique, structural and long-standing. The following points are respectfully submitted to help provide additional context and recommendations from the perspective of the lower north shore.

On the question of employment insurance and ending “the black hole”, the lower north shore economy is seasonal by nature. The fishery, construction, tourism and many public services operate on a compressed timeline due to our climate and geography. It's not a choice; it's the economic reality of our location, yet the employment insurance system continues to impose what workers here call “the black hole”: the gap between the end of EI benefits and the start of the next seasonal work period.

For months, families on the lower north shore have no income, no bridges and no alternatives. This is a structural failure that punishes workers for living where they live and working in the industries their communities depend on. We call for this committee to put in a permanent legislative fix to eliminate the EI black hole for seasonal industrial workers, with particular attention to remote and isolated communities where no alternative employment exists during the off-season gaps.

On the question of interprovincial ferries, the lower north shore is geographically contiguous with Labrador, and our communities have deep historical, economic and family ties across provincial boundaries, yet there are no reliable interprovincial services connecting our shore to Newfoundland and Labrador.

An interprovincial ferry is not a luxury; it's a logistical extension of the transportation network that already exists at the eastern end of our corridor. It will reduce freight costs, improve patient transportation options, support tourism and provide critical redundancies to the Bella Desgagnés when it's out of service. We ask the committee to recommend federal support for permanent, multi-season interprovincial ferry connections serving the lower north shore.

Regarding federal divestitures of our ports and airports, the federal government's ongoing divestiture of small ports and airports is creating quite an infrastructure crisis on the lower north shore. These assets are not surplus infrastructure in an urban context. They are essential lifelines. Out of the nine that appear on a recent list for Quebec, seven are on the lower north shore.

When Ottawa transfers ownership of the remote wharfs or airstrips to a municipality or community group, it transfers not just an asset but a full burden of capital maintenance, insurance liabilities and regulatory complications onto communities with extremely limited fiscal capacities. A village of 400 people cannot absorb the capital renewal costs of federal breakwaters. A remote airport that serves as the only year-round link to health care systems cannot be treated as a disposable asset.

We ask that the committee recommend a federal moratorium on divestitures of ports and airports in remote and isolated communities until the proper framework is in place. Either retain federal ownership or maintenance responsibilities, or provide permanent capital endowments, significant enough to sustain the infrastructure in perpetuity. Divestiture without endowment is abandonment.

Regarding food sovereignty and local supplies, our cost of living runs 15% to 20% higher than that of Sept-Îles. Every product on every shelf carries the freight premium of our isolation. Beyond subsidy mechanics, we address food sovereignty directly.

The lower north shore has historically sustained itself through local food systems, fisheries, hunting and harvesting, but the regulatory and economic environment increasingly undermines these systems rather than supports them. Federal investment in local food infrastructure, cold storage and processing capabilities, as well as support for local harvesters, will reduce freight dependency, improve nutrition outcomes and strengthen our economic resilience. Food sovereignty is an affordability strategy, and we ask the committee to treat it as one.

On the question of fisheries supporting coastal communities, fishing is not merely an economic activity on the lower north shore. It is a cultural and economic foundation of our communities, and it is under threat.

Ending the sentinel fishery monitoring program for cod was a direct blow to our region. The sentinel fishery was not only a scientific tool; it provided meaningful employment, real-time logistical and ecological data and a genuine stake in the resources of the fisheries that have lived alongside it for generations. Its elimination impacts both income and knowledge at exactly the moment when cod stock recovery is becoming a real possibility.

We ask the committee to recommend reinstating it or to create a functional equivalent successor program for the sentinel fishery for cod. We also ask for a broader federal commitment to support small-scale community-based fishery diversifications on the lower north shore, including aquaculture development tailored for our coastal conditions.

In summary, my recommendations are as follows.

On employment insurance, permanently eliminate the EI black hole for seasonal industry workers, with a priority application on remote and isolated communities where no alternative employment exists during the off-season.

On interprovincial ferries, provide federal support for a permanent multi-season interprovincial ferry linking the lower north shore to Newfoundland and Labrador.

On ports and airports, declare a moratorium on the federal divestiture of ports and airports in remote and isolated communities until a framework is in place that either retains maintenance responsibility or provides a permanent capital endowment.

On food sovereignty, invest in local food infrastructure, cold storage, processing capacity and harvesting support on the lower north shore, treating food sovereignty as a core affordability and resilience strategy.

On fisheries, reinstate the sentinel fishery monitoring program for cod or a functionally equivalent successor, and commit to supporting community-based fisheries diversification and aquaculture development on the lower north shore.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

Now we have Joseph.

You have five minutes.

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers, Executive Director, Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre]

Thank you very much.

I will speak in English and French.

The Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre is a food hub in Iqaluit. We are affiliated with a national food organization called Right to Food. Our centre serves the community with multiple holistic programs that provide food access, food skills and advocacy that respond to local needs.

I wish to speak to you today about three topics. The first is the community meal demand. The second is our research on the relationship between food insecurity and economic supports. The third is our vision for food sovereignty in Inuit Nunangat and Nunavut.

On community meal demand, we are most well known in our community for the community meal program. We cook and serve between 300 and 600 meals per day, five days a week. We have observed steady increases in the community meal demand that we are serving every day. We have seen our yearly meal count go from around 58,000 in 2022 to almost 91,000 meals last year. As of yesterday, we have served about 37,000 meals this year.

I'm very proud of the team at Qajuqturvik, who continue to meet the staggering demand for free, accessible, nutritious, quality food. We serve homemade meals in a comfortable setting where people joyfully eat and build community together. We believe that the increase in demand for meals speaks to the increasing economic challenges that people in our community face.

We have a research partnership with Dr. Sappho Gilbert, a researcher at Harvard University. She has studied the relationship between economic support measures, such as the Inuit child first initiative, and the demand for our daily meal program. We consider this demand a sign of food insecurity. In other words, if people are food insecure, they're more likely to participate in our daily meal program.

Our research shows that, when money is deposited in community members' bank accounts, food circulation soon follows in town. This provides temporary relief for our daily meal program, since the demand is then lower.

Our research with Dr. Gilbert supports the proposition that increasing people's incomes leads to decreasing food insecurity.

We offer a number of other food access programs, such as a produce box, a weekly country food offering to elders, an evening Inuit women's program and a range of special events, always involving food, joy and celebration because food is so good.

We believe that food sovereignty in Nunavut and Inuit Nunangat must go beyond emergency food access, if we want to support a truly northern food economy. In our view, this doesn't mean that greenhouses or freight containers should be turned into heated gardens.

That's why I'll now describe our vision for food sovereignty in Inuit Nunangat. It's a hunting‑based economy.

Hunters and fishers have knowledge, discipline and skills that should be valued in the same way that farming is valued. We want the federal government to invest in creating a paid Inuit hunters' network across Inuit Nunangat. Creating a sustainable hunters' network program would mean paying hunters, covering the costs of going out on the land, investing in the capital infrastructure needed to safely harvest animals using traditional methods, and funding programs that ensure that this knowledge is passed down from elders and experienced hunters to young Inuit.

It also means working with other levels of government to create a regulatory environment where country foods can legally be sold and purchased, and where costs are subsidized until a sustainable market can be created. That would be much more effective than subsidizing the costs of shipping food from down south that is unaffordable and culturally irrelevant to many Inuit.

Significantly investing in employment and training opportunities and in income supports, with additional top-ups for northerners, is also key. We cannot significantly reduce food insecurity if we don't address incomes. Increasing incomes has to be a key part of the new national food security strategy, particularly in Nunavut, where a third of the population lives in poverty.

I hope you will seriously consider this perspective and include these recommendations in budget 2026.

I thank you very much for the opportunity to share here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, Joseph.

We're going to our rounds of questions, and first off, we're going to the sponsor of this motion, Bob Zimmer.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you for coming, witnesses, on this affordability study.

Affordability is something you live with every day, and I appreciate the difficulty, even for you personally, of buying groceries in a place like Iqaluit and even further north. Look at a bag of groceries. It's already expensive in northern B.C., where I live. It's surprising how expensive it has become, but for you it's often probably double or triple that.

Affordability, simply put, is the financial ability of individuals or households to pay for essential goods and services such as housing, health care and food without experiencing financial hardship or compromising their ability to meet other basic needs.

Joseph, is food affordable in Nunavut?

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

No.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Well, there you go.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I have some other documents. The Prime Minister said last election, as quoted by Brian Lilley on September 16, 2025, “Canadians will hold us to account by their experience at the grocery store, when they are paying their electricity bill, when they or their children are looking for a place to live.” That is what Carney said, and it goes to exactly the definition of affordability.

By that measure, has the Prime Minister been successful thus far?

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

I'm not going to comment on this particular Prime Minister. This is a long-standing issue that has been going on over multiple governments, Conservative and Liberal.

What we have observed is increasing demand and increasing income inequality, and the way we observe that in particular at the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre is by the community meal numbers that we have seen increasing.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I want to thank you for the work you do. You provide meals for those in need of food in your own community, where it's not cheap to do that. I appreciate your time and effort and your volunteers. Before I forget to say it, I just want to say thank you for your efforts.

You talked about previous governments. Nutrition north was an effort by our previous government to combat high food prices. It started off with good intentions, and it's done some good work. It's lowered the prices of some necessities, like milk and bread, and other foods at the grocery store, but it hasn't been perfect, for sure, and there are still some out-of-control prices in the north.

I have a document here, “Evaluation of the Nutrition North Canada Horizontal Initiative”, from December 2025. It says, “For example, in 2022, in Nunavut, 76% of Inuit experienced food insecurity.” Are you seeing a disparity between Inuit who are from Nunavut and those who come in who work in Iqaluit? Are you seeing a disparity in that sort of affordability? Is it hitting Nunavummiut more than visitors to the community?

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

Food insecurity disproportionately affects Inuit in Nunavut. It's for this reason that we advocate.... Inuit are disproportionately facing food insecurity. The culturally relevant food for Inuit is country food. Inuit want to eat country food that is locally harvested, such as caribou, seal, muktuk, clams and berries from the land in the local food economy. That is where the major focus of support for food security and food sovereignty in Nunavut must be, rather than on continuing to subsidize a southern-based diet. That goes to the retailers rather than directly benefiting Inuit harvesters and fishers.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I appreciate what you said. You mentioned incomes earlier in your statement. I was up in the Baffinland iron mines earlier this spring when it was very cold but beautiful. We talked to many young workers there who are Nunavummiut. They said they really liked their jobs. That gave them not only the ability to earn incomes, but also the ability to go back home and eat a traditional diet. They could afford skidoos. They could afford side-by-sides. They also had the time to do it. They had two weeks on and two weeks off. They had a solid two weeks to get their harvest and provide for their families. They had houses they could afford.

To me, that was a good answer to the affordability challenge question. What is your answer to bringing incomes up and the economy up in Nunavut so that affordability becomes a lot easier of a question to answer?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You have 30 seconds, Joseph.

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

There needs to be a diversity of opportunities, including those that are culturally relevant. This is why we advocate for a salaried hunters' network. It costs a lot of money to go hunting and fishing. The equipment costs a lot. We don't want hunters to have to make a choice between having a job at Baffinland and having a job hunting and fishing.

Hunting and fishing have a value to the community that goes way beyond just the piece of meat we're providing to our community. It's about connection, culture, wellness, suicide prevention, health and environmental knowledge. It's about all of those things, so we advocate for increased incomes in that direction in wage economies, but also in the hunting economy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

Now we will go to the MP for Yukon, Brendan Hanley, for six minutes, please.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much.

I'll continue with questions for Joseph. I certainly appreciate both of you being here for this very important study. I thank my colleague Mr. Zimmer for advocating for this very important study.

Mr. Murdoch-Flowers, it sounds like you have a very holistic vision, and you immediately made that connection. The relationship between income, economic sovereignty and food insecurity is not a mystery to us. You're in Iqaluit. You've seen a high increase in demand. Iqaluit has grown substantially over the last many years.

Can you talk about the connection between the growth in what you've seen in terms of income changes and changes in poverty...but also the relationship in the Baffin area at least, if not the wider area in Iqaluit, as being a centre, a capital, and therefore a reflection of the situation around the communities as well?

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

I apologize, but I'm not quite sure I understand exactly the question being asked.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

It's about recognizing that Iqaluit in itself is, for instance, a nutrition north community, as are all the communities around the Baffin area.

Are you seeing movements of people to Iqaluit as a centre that might be related to need—housing needs and infrastructure needs—and poverty around the Baffin region, if not the wider region? Does that affect food demand in Iqaluit and demand on your centre?

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

First, I'll start from the position that Qajuqturvik's mandate really is local. It's Iqaluit-focused. That's what our mission is. It's what our mission statement focuses on: food security in Iqaluit, the capital.

Second, when we serve the cornerstone program, the community meal program, we do this in a way that is barrier-free. People come in, and we don't ask questions about who they are or where they are from. We don't have demographic information, so I can't speak empirically to that question. Anecdotally, yes, we hear about migration to the capital for various reasons, but I'm sorry; I can't definitively connect the increasing numbers at the food centre to that.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

That's fine.

Did you have an opportunity to participate in either the regional round tables that the Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs was hosting or the summit that was held here in Ottawa a few months ago? Certainly, your ideas are reflective of what we heard through those fora.

[Joseph Murdoch-Flowers]

I believe the summit was at the Chateau Laurier. No, Qajuqturvik chose not to participate in that summit; we declined the invitation.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I would just offer this reflection, then: Your ideas are very consistent with some of the feedback the minister has been receiving, so this is well-received constructive advice.

I'm going to pass my time over to Mr. Greaves to finish this round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

You have a minute and 15 seconds.