Public Accounts Committee on March 23rd, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Ask a question, please.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

If you've taken items out that have a very high cost of freighting, like Pampers, do you not see that this ends up with those people having less in their pockets to buy the other items?

[Colleen Swords]

I should correct myself. It's weight, not volume. The issue is that if there are alternative ways to transport things that are not perishable—i.e., by rail, by car, by truck, sealift, or whatever—then there are ways in which you can reduce costs overall by stocking up and thinking ahead. It doesn't necessarily mean that things will cost more.

The things that cost the most are the perishable nutritious foods like milk and eggs, which you can't stock up on using other transportation methods.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. The time has expired.

We go back now to Mr. Albas. You have the floor again, sir.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Again, I appreciate the insight from our witnesses today.

Auditor General, you mentioned earlier to my colleague Mr. Aspin that we should not mistake the shipped amount versus the purchased amount of goods. Can you just revisit that? I just want to get a better understanding of your thinking.

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, when you're talking about what's shipped, you're talking about what is brought in by the retailers. At the end of the day, to make sure that people in these isolated northern communities are getting more access to the food, what matters is what's purchased. Of course, you would hope that there's a very close relationship between what's shipped in and what's purchased by the consumer, but again, I think it's important to make sure that's happening.

You see that, for example, in the department's performance measurement strategy, when they recognize that things like spoilage rates are important things to monitor. During the period of this audit, that wasn't being closely monitored either, so there are other components between shipped and purchased.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I'm very glad you raised the spoilage issue because that is a very practical concern. Overall, when you have shipments of perishable nutritious food, obviously it doesn't matter what kind of subsidy you offer to the retailers. If they don't sell it, if it's not a product that community wants or the consumers who shop there want, they're going to be unprofitable. While spoilage seems to me to be a legitimate concern—and it should be properly tracked because we are talking about perishable foods—I would also point out that ultimately there's a market base here. The foods that are being made available by the retailer.... I think there's no other way to measure that.

Moving on, I'd like to go to some of Mr. Bevington's comments again, Mr. Chair, because I want to get a better understanding of this.

When I budget for a kitchen reno, I put a number on how much I'm going to spend. Often you don't know some of the other costs. Obviously, my kitchen is very limited; my wife tells me that all the time. But government programs.... Sometimes you have unanticipated things, such as what retailers bring in because of what consumers want. As Ms. Swords said earlier, sometimes some communities have different tastes than others.

Is it possible to budget, let's say, $60 million and then have that exceeded? That's, I think, the rationale for the increase Parliamentary Secretary Strahl announced last November. Is that the case?

[Colleen Swords]

I think that would be a correct explanation.

We were operating on trends. We could see that the trend was around $60 million a year, going up slightly as the program became more and more popular.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I look at the escalator. Let's say we start with a base of $65 million. If you add 5%, you're at $68 million. The next year you add 5% and you're at $71 million. Add another year and you're at $75 million. Add another year and you're at $79 million. Add another year and five years into it, you're at almost $83 million. I think the 5% escalator is a serious amount of support to be budgeted.

Again, going back to his earlier points, when we talk about transferring the food mail program to the current nutrition north, we had ineligible items like snowmobile parts being utilized. Those obviously weigh more and I'm sure they're quite a size. When we suddenly switch to a new model where we're only talking about perishable nutritious foods, I would think that's probably why there was the initial dip. But we have seen a 25% increase in shipments. That's obviously showing that people are accessing the program more and more often, or else those retailers probably wouldn't be in business. Is that a fair assessment?

[Colleen Swords]

That does seem to be what the data is showing. The prices are such that people are buying more.

Recently a study on retail foods in the north was put up on the website. Anecdotally they're indicating that people are finding that the perishable food tends to be in better condition than it was in the past under the old program. Retailers seem to have a better incentive to provide better quality food.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Be really quick, if you can.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I will.

You've raised the transparency of the program, consultations. It's important for the public. Some of the action plan initiatives are going to be on your website. Can you give us a quick rundown? That seems to be very important to the department. Any government program, Mr. Chair, has to have the support of the majority of the citizens for it to be supported year after year, at least in theory.

Can you talk about some of the things you're doing for that, whether it be public consultation or making sure there's more information on the website so the average Canadian, whether a northerner or not, can know that this program exists and that it's working to improve?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Reply very briefly, please.

[Colleen Swords]

Yes, there's a lot on the website. I encourage you to look at it. It's pretty fulsome.

We are discussing with the nutrition advisory committee. They're anxious to make sure people in the store can see something about the cost and whether the subsidy has been passed on. We're looking at whether there are more ways to improve the information that's available right in the store.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. That's the time.

Madam Jones.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Could I make a point?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

You're looking for the floor, but the issue I'm going to deal with is exactly that. Hang on one moment, if you will, because I think I know where you're going.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Okay.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

That concludes our regular rotation. It's five o'clock. We have at least one member who has another question, but I'm in your hands always as to what the will of the committee is vis-à-vis continuing or not.

Would you like to make a suggestion, Ms. Jones?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I just wanted to make a point. I have many questions, but in fairness, there is one point that I wanted to make. If I could have the indulgence of the committee just for one second, I think it's important that it be on the record.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay, I can do that. I suspect then I'm going to get a hand from the other party.

The issue is in front of us now as to whether or not we're going to continue. There's at least one more question, and again it's the committee's decision

Mr. Bevington, your thoughts....

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

I'd move that we continue with another round of questions including all parties.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Are you suggesting one more question for each caucus, another five minutes for each caucus?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Yes.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay.

You are moving that and you're subbed in, correct?