Thank you.
I really appreciate the support of the committee on this, but the point I want to make is in response to the 25% increase in the program.
I wouldn't attribute the changes to the fact that the program is a great program or the subsidy is reaching people. If you live in the north you're going to understand that the diet of northerners is changing. Our access to country food is changing. We have regions across the north right now where we have bans on caribou altogether. It's a huge part of the diet of northerners that is lost. The food chain has changed for our people. It has changed immensely. If I were to look at where the 25% increase is coming from, it would be attributed to the fact that it's much harder for many regions to be able to access their traditional foods, so they're forced into the grocery store and more dependent upon grocery stores to be able to feed their families.
In the address I noticed that you're doing some public meetings and that officials from the department are meeting with the public in various regions around the country. I think that is necessary if you're going to repair the trust with those regions and repair the relationship that's there.
Northerners are very skeptical. They do not believe right now that the subsidy of this program is actually reaching them. They do not feel that they're getting affordable food. There is a reason for that. When you live in a community like they do in my riding and you walk into a grocery store and in order to buy a chicken, which is what you have to buy when you can't get deer meat, and you know that you have to spend $40 and $45 for that chicken, it is really hard for families to believe that this is subsidized. When you have to pay extremely high costs for all other foods that you're going to consume, it's really hard to believe. You have to be in their shoes.
What I would say to you is that there are 103 isolated communities under this program right now. In how many of those communities are your officials going to visit and sit down and talk to people? How often have you actually sat and listened to the families that are dependent upon this program?
As good as we all would like to say that this works and that the money is reaching people, it is not. I think everyone here wants the same thing, and that is to make this program work. What the Auditor General has done for us here—