Debates of June 4th, 2015

Opposition Motion—Nutrition North Canada

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I thank that member for his speech. I just want to clarify some things for the record, however. The New Democrats stated on April 2, 2015, that they would like to see 55 communities made fully eligible for the nutrition north program. A month later, May 26, they said 46 communities should be added. Today, they say 50 communities are being added. It seems like the New Democrats do not even have an idea which communities should be added, or how many or what the criteria are.

That particular member of course has voted against investments in his own riding that would have brought down the cost of food. He voted against the Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk Highway twice. He voted against an $11-million increase to the nutrition north program to deliver more subsidy to northerners. Specifically, the member mentioned that this was for remote fly-in communities and that was what we should be concentrating on. In his speech, he said it is actually just a long drive even if they do have year-round access.

However, I want to ask about the member's riding. Nahanni Butte is a community he says should be added. It has year-round access by road, by ferry and by winter road. I am asking this. Why should that community of Nahanni Butte be added in his riding when it has year-round access already?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, in the case of Nahanni Butte, the member is a bit wrong on that. I would invite him to come up to my riding and I will show him the condition of the winter road that services Nahanni Butte. However, I am glad he has taken a look at that. The people in Nahanni Butte suffer incredibly high food costs. That is one of the points I made in my speech. Sometimes, the criteria being used are not a fact.

What we said was that there were about 50 communities. That is what the Auditor General reported in his study. We identified 46 communities very clearly. There is a list of them here and I would be pleased to provide it to members so that they can look at it. This was research done by my office in an effort to understand better what communities should be provided with access. If there are others, I would encourage members to come forward with the communities in their ridings that should be in this program. I should be hearing from some Conservative members who also have these kinds of communities in their ridings and say that their community needs to be subsidized as well.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his work on this and for the motion today. It is shocking, actually, to hear the parliamentary secretary deny and quibble about the fact that this is about a program that has failed to address the issue of hungry children or mothers not eating because they are sacrificing for their families.

It is predictable in that during the 2011 election when, at the debate in Iqaluit with the member for Nunavut, she was told this was not going to work the way it was. She was told the list was ridiculous. She was told this was a disaster waiting to happen. Now the UN rapporteur has told us that and so has the Auditor General. I thank the member for this.

I would like the member to expand a bit more on the accountability provisions that he sees and how they actually measure food security in order to ensure this program is working, but also on the importance of hunters to have access to snow machines and ammunition so hunters can feed their families in a traditional way.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. Members will come to order. It is the member's time here. I am happy to stand here all day until the House quiets down. We cannot hear all hon. members, and the member for St. Paul's is putting a question for the member for Northwest Territories. He has to have an opportunity to hear that question.

The hon. member for Northwest Territories.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that we could have a relatively civilized debate about this today. We are talking about real people here, who sometimes go hungry, whose kids go to school hungry, who suffer from malnutrition. The rate of dental problems in Nunavut is extremely high because they do not have proper nutrition. These are all things that are real problems for Canadians. I really do not appreciate that we get off track on this today. I really hope that everybody pulls it back together and understands that we are talking about real people.

There needs to be accountability for what we do. Everyone should understand a system has to be fair to everyone. We cannot put in tax laws that exclude people. Why should we put in systems for a food subsidy that excludes people? Those things do not match up. They do not match up to the Canadian model, so let us get with it.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his work on this because it has such a huge impact in our regions in the north in Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory, Treaty No. 9 and Treaty No. 5, where there are instances of mothers standing outside grocery stores trying to hawk possessions to feed their children. That is in existence in Canada where it is easier to feed children on Coke and chips, because it is cheaper than giving them milk.

I would like to ask the member about the northwestern Treaty No. 9 and Treaty No. 5 area, Mishkeegogamang, Webequie in the area under the Minister of Natural Resources right now in Kenora. The housing and food crisis there has brought in international relief agencies. Feed the Children from Oklahoma had to send in 100,000 pounds of food into that region because the government has failed to look after the most basic needs of its citizens under its watch.

Why does my hon. colleague think it is okay for the government to believe that it can be so arbitrary on who gets to be fed and who does not have access to proper food?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, every community should have access. The fact that these communities in northern Ontario are not getting access to this program is terrible when we think that in northern Ontario right now at the Victor Mine they are pulling out diamonds. The resources are being taken away. The communities are in terrible shape. The thought that we would somehow hold back on providing a subsidy for food to communities that have so many other problems as well is ludicrous. We need to understand that the system has to be fair and has to support everyone.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify that the member has said 50 communities in his motion, but he has just said clearly every community should receive the nutrition north subsidy. He said it would cost $7.5 million, those were his numbers, to add 50 communities. How much would it cost to add every community, which is what he has just proposed?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, we identified that there were 46 communities that we could come up with. This is a difficult process. There are many small communities throughout northern Canada. It is not an easy task to determine which ones are on a road and off.

Our research showed there were at least 46 communities. The cost of $7.5 million is based on taking the average subsidy in that particular region that is applied to the other communities that have the full subsidy and saying, if we gave the communities that do not have the subsidy the same as their neighbours are getting, then it would work out to about $7.5 million a year. That is the math that we used. I am ready to talk about any math. I am ready to talk about any community. I do not want to restrict the list, but this is what we work with.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, I am especially pleased to speak to this motion and to update the House on one of the many ways our government is standing up for those living in our northern territories.

This government has been working for northerners like no other government before it. We have devolved the authority over lands and resources in the Northwest Territories out of Ottawa and back to the territorial government where it belongs. Late last year, we announced that we are working on doing the same in Nunavut as well. We pursued the most ambitious regulatory improvement agenda in Canadian history. We know that this will encourage investment in our natural resource industry and drive economic development across the north.

This Monday, legislation came into force creating Polar Knowledge Canada, a brand new, cutting-edge polar science program. This initiative will protect our Arctic sovereignty and ensure that Canada remains a world leader in polar research for years to come.

Put simply, under this government, Canada's north remains and will remain strong, proud, and free.

Continued support for the nutrition north program is just another way that we are helping our northern territories live up to their promise and their potential. Through nutrition north, we are successfully addressing not only the cost of food but the difficulty northerners may face in finding fresh, nutritious food at any price. As we all know, the north is a long way from many sources of perishable foods. Many communities are isolated. Distance and limited transportation options add to the cost. Moreover, often during the time it takes to deliver the food, perishable foods do perish. These are not new problems and ours is not the first government to develop measures aimed at helping northerners lower the cost of nutritious food, although it is undeniably the most successful.

Where results, accountability, and efficiency are concerned, nutrition north Canada represents a substantial and meaningful improvement over its predecessor, the food mail program, which operated in one form or another since the 1960s. The food mail program operated on a fairly simple premise. It provided a subsidy to Canada Post to offset the costs of transporting food to northern communities.

However, the food mail program had a number of weaknesses. First of all, the program was designed to ship mail, not food. There was no real incentive to deliver more nutritious foods to the north. Funding went to less nutritious items and non-food items. There was little accountability for the disposition of program funds. There were no requirements for retailers or transporters to provide their sales information to the department. There was no monitoring in place to ensure that the subsidy was actually being passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices. Adding to its weaknesses and perhaps most concerning of all, there was no governance structure to enable the people in the communities served by the program to provide any meaningful input on its operation or management.

In order to address these and other shortcomings of the food mail program, in April of 2011 our government launched the program that we are discussing today. Since that initial launch, based on input from sources as varied as the Auditor General of Canada to northerners themselves, we have continued to refine the program to maximize the benefits to northerners.

The aim of nutrition north Canada is straightforward: to work with stores across the north and food suppliers in southern Canada to ensure that northerners have better access to perishable, nutritious food at prices that are lower than would otherwise be the case.

Unlike its predecessor, nutrition north Canada follows a market-driven model. This provides an efficient, cost-effective and transparent means of helping northerners access perishable nutritious food. Rather than subsidizing transportation costs, the program provides funding directly to retailers, wholesalers, and distributors. If they meet the program's requirements, they proceed to enter into agreements with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.

In addition to its emphasis on perishable nutritious foods and again unlike its predecessor, the current program also offers a subsidy for country food produced in government-regulated northern commercial food processing plants. This subsidy can be applied when northern retailers source country food from these processors for sale in local stores. In this way, the program is helping to make more country foods available.

Country foods—Arctic char, caribou, muskox, and others—are a vital food source, and the Government of Canada is committed to helping these foods remain a key part of northerners' diets. In addition, as I am certain hon. members are aware, these foods generally contain less fat and sugar than many store-bought foods. They contribute important nutrients for good health. Indeed, a diet including country foods has been associated with lower levels of heart disease and diabetes.

Is the program working? Is nutrition north providing the kinds of benefits to northerners it was designed to provide? Are food prices lower? Is there improved access to perishable, more nutritious foods?

The answer in every case is unequivocally yes.

Between March 2011 and March 2014, the cost of the revised northern food basket for a family of four in communities eligible for a full subsidy under the program fell by an average of 7.2%. For that average family of four, that is a savings or more than $30 a week, nearly $140 a month, or $1,600 a year. This is $1,600 a year that our government is saving northern Canadians. Of course, this comes in addition to the thousands more that northerners will save thanks to our government's suite of family tax cuts and benefits.

On the basis of these numbers alone, I would say there is ample evidence that the program is making a real difference for northerners, and it has been making a difference from the beginning.

In November 2011, just seven months after the program was launched, Michael McMullen, the executive vice-president of the North West Company, said:

Local shoppers are starting to see major price decreases on key, nutritious food items. As an example, in Hall Beach four-litre milk has dropped in price by over six dollars, from $11.49 to $5.09. Compared to low-nutrition beverages like soft drinks, milk is now 80% cheaper on a same portion basis.

Mr. McMullen is not the only one to say that food prices in the north have fallen thanks to nutrition north. In fact, earlier this week the member for Churchill, the NDP's aboriginal affairs critic, said that there is no question that it does reduce the price by a couple dollars, and that for healthy foods that can make somewhat of a difference.

I would say to the member and to the House that a price reduction of a couple of dollars on a couple of nutritious food items , over a couple of shopping trips does not make “somewhat” of a difference; it makes a real difference, a significant difference.

Let me offer a few more examples.

In Rankin Inlet in March 2011, before nutrition north Canada, a dozen eggs cost $4.39. As of last November, a dozen eggs cost $2.59, which is 40% lower. Two litres of 2% milk cost $7.29 in March 2011. Last fall, that was down to $4.45, which is also 40% lower. A loaf of bread in Rankin Inlet is now going for about $2.50, which is $1.70 less than the $4.19 it cost before this program

In Tuktoyaktuk last November, a three-pound bag of apples went for $9.29, which is $2.40 less than what it would have cost before nutrition north Canada was launched.

The program is having a positive impact on more than prices. The average annual weight of eligible items shipped to northern remote communities increased by approximately 25% over the first three years of the program

Based on the most recent analysis done in March of last year, 95% of the nutrition north Canada subsidy is going toward lower prices for key, specific product categories: fruits and vegetables, meat and alternatives, milk, and perishable dairy and grain products. That increase in shipments of perishables is a direct result of the market-based model our government put in place for this program

Under the old food mail program, food was delivered to retailers by Canada Post, period. The Canada Post system is designed for delivering mail, not food. If a letter or a parcel arrives a few days later than expected, it is not usually a big deal. However, if a shipment of bananas or lettuce or bread arrives a few days late, it is compost.

With nutrition north Canada, retailers and food suppliers have options when it comes to transportation. They do not have to purchase their products at specific access points designated by Canada Post. They can shop around for the best prices on product and for the best prices on transportation.

In fact, nutrition north Canada allows them to use the most effective and cost-efficient supply chain arrangements and routes to reduce the price of food and provide the best quality. As a result, more perishable nutritious foods are getting to northern communities and more northerners are taking advantage of new accessibility.

A few months ago Derek Reimer, the director of administration at the North West Company, said that sales of fresh produce, meat, and other nutritious foods in its stores have increased by nearly 25% since nutrition north Canada was launched. I am sure all members will be pleased to hear this sort of story, and I can assure them that this government is taking action to see that number go even higher.

Under nutrition north Canada, we have allocated $2.9 million to Health Canada to support culturally appropriate nutrition education initiatives in first nation and Inuit communities. These activities focus on areas such as developing knowledge and skills for selecting and preparing healthy store-bought and traditional country foods. These initiatives act as a complement to the program's retail subsidy by encouraging healthy eating patterns among people in isolated northern communities.

It is clear that nutrition north Canada is achieving its objectives, and we will continue to make it better. Our government has implemented a number of recent improvements to the program. Last fall, we increased the nutrition north Canada annual budget to more than $65 million, an increase of $11.3 million in one year, and we have added a 5% annual escalator to the budget. This means that number will increase by 5% every year from now on to ensure stable, predictable funding long into the future.

It is important to note that these funds are being used responsibly. We are achieving results for northerners and results for all Canadians.

In 2014 the Auditor General reported on nutrition north Canada. I would like to quote some of the findings presented in that report:

Throughout the audit fieldwork, the audit team observed examples of how controls are properly designed and are being applied effectively by NNC. ...

Eligibility assessment criteria and a consistent approach was used to assess recipient eligibility; feedback from users and stakeholders is used as input in making program decisions; and, the program is transparent in reporting performance measurement data and reports measurable results on eligible food item prices and items shipped.

I do not believe these statements describe a program that is in need of a major overhaul. That is not to say we do not believe the program can be even better. The Auditor General did identify areas where improvements could be made.

We recognize the need to continually improve the program in order to ensure that northerners have access to nutritious perishable foods. That is why our government accepted all of the recommendations of the Auditor General, including the need to review the community eligibility criteria for the program. As a result, we are collecting information on isolated northern communities that are not currently eligible to receive subsidies under the program.

The department is currently conducting a detailed review of all northern communities across this country, and this will inform the government's next steps. This is one of the many commitments outlined in our action plan in response to the Auditor General's report. Our goal is to keep improving the program for northerners and to respond to what may be a community's evolving need for a food subsidy.

Also as recommended by the Auditor General—indeed, even before the recommendation was made—the department reviewed and updated the program's performance measurement strategy.

Perhaps the most important investigations of the success of nutrition north Canada are the ones we conduct with the people who are involved personally: the retailers who are providing the service and the northerners who want their families to enjoy a diet of fresh, nutritious foods at a fair price.

The Nutrition North Canada Advisory Board provides advice to the minister on the management, direction, and activities of the program. As the Auditor General has noted, the advisory board is composed of external members who collectively represent a wide range of perspectives and interests of northern residents and communities. They are volunteers. Their loyalty is to northerners, not the minister. The board holds public meetings in communities across the north on a regular basis to gather input and suggestions directly from consumers.

The emphasis that we place on the feedback from the advisory board reflects our understanding that food security in the north is a complex issue and that we must work together with suppliers, retailers and especially northerners themselves if we are to address it successfully. That is what we are doing and the results being achieved by nutrition north Canada make it clear that our approach is working. Prices are down and access to fresh, nutritious foods is up. Just like the rest of our northern strategy, nutrition north Canada is working.

I encourage all members of the House to stand behind the government, support the work that we are doing to strengthen Canada's north, and reject this motion.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the speech of the parliamentary secretary had so many inaccuracies that I cannot start to describe them.

I want to go after dollars. He said that the government added $11 million this year to the program, to bring it up to $65 million. In 2010-11, under Public Accounts, $59 million were spent on food mail. In 2013-14, $63,879,237 were spent on the nutrition north program. Now the parliamentary secretary is telling us that the government has added $11 million to the program and it is up to $65 million. How does he make those figures work? It is absurd. The program needs proper funding. The government knows that most of the $11 million was part of the previous year's funding.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was in Iqaluit to make the announcement of an additional $11 million and the 5% funding escalator. I know the member has been here for a while, but the supplementary estimates include those amounts. When we brought in that additional funding to bring the nutrition north Canada funding up to $65 million, the member and the NDP voted against it.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member opposite as he read from his speech. When he started to say what the prices were in Rankin Inlet, it was tempting me to go and shop there. If eggs are a little over $2 a dozen in Rankin, I would be absolutely shocked. I live in a riding that receives a subsidy on many items and I have never, ever seen prices that low.

I would like to ask the member why the Department of Aboriginal Affairs is currently paying an Ottawa-based consulting firm to work in Ottawa to develop more made-in-Ottawa solutions to revamp the nutrition north program. We know that will not work for northern families. Why are people not going into northern communities, consulting with the users of this program who need the subsidy on food, and developing a plan in conjunction with them? Maybe then we would see some results. Since nutrition north came into effect, in the last four years northerners have seen nothing, only critical analysis of the program and how the subsidy is being used.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what our program does. There is the nutrition north advisory council, which is made up of northerners, in the north. I have met with them. They are passionate individuals from the north, who care about the north, and want this program to be made even better. The member might be talking about designing a program, but the community consultations are taking place in the north, being led by northerners, and are going to result in a better program for northerners.

Again, I want to talk about the Liberal record on this. The food mail program was a subsidy for pop, chips, snowmobile parts, tires, things that are not nutritious foods, which is where we place the priority: perishable foods, nutritious foods, that otherwise would not be available in the north. Nutrition north Canada is a vast improvement on the food mail program that the Liberal Party left in place for so long. This program is designed by northerners, will be improved by northerners, and we are happy to support it.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not hide the fact that I was extremely disappointed by the government member's remarks.

He referred to the Auditor General's report on the nutrition north program, but he said exactly the opposite of what is written in the report. The Auditor General saw some things that are unacceptable. For instance, he stated in his report that the lower prices that were supposedly observed were false.

He also said he was shocked to note that food retailers are not required to disclose their profit margins, under the pretext that that would go against commercial confidentiality. It would appear that commercial confidentiality is more important to the department than delivering food.

If the program is working so well, if the member truly believes that the Auditor General and all the stakeholders agree with him, can he explain to us why people are being forced to go to the dump to scavenge for food?

Can he explain to us why severe food insecurity, which means that people are in danger, affects 33% of people in Canada's far north?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I made clear in my speech, we welcomed the report of the Auditor General and accepted all of his recommendations. One of those recommendations that the member talked about was already well under way before the Auditor General's report, and that was to increase transparency for retailers to have them publish on the nutrition north website the level of subsidy they were receiving and showing that they were passing that subsidy on to the consumer.

That recommendation was made by the Auditor General. The department has accepted it. The department moved on it as of April 1. That information is public. Retailers have to show they are passing that subsidy along to the consumer.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, before I put a question to the parliamentary secretary, I want to say this about the motion. I appreciate some of the details, or at least the spirit of what the motion intends to address. I believe the member was at the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs when we were working on this. The motion itself sends a clear signal that the nutrition north program is certainly better than anything we saw before. I can attest to that as someone who has spent more than eight years of his life actually living and working in isolated and remote first nations communities; not big cities in the far north, but isolated communities.

Although they fall short in a couple of key areas, the member is making best efforts to understand some of the fixes that are out there for consideration. In particular, transparency, food security and actually reducing the cost at the point of purchase in the communities are key facets that the motion's, perhaps, quick fix might not ultimately address for a broader and more admirable goal of reducing food costs and increasing food security for all northern communities, as they could become defined.

That pathway to address what I think the member is saying in spirit, begs the question of the parliamentary secretary around the Auditor General's report. We have accepted those recommendations.

Could the member describe, in the context of responding to the auditors general and perhaps considering other policy options for consideration in that process, what would ultimately reduce the cost of food and increase food security for all northern communities?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our hard-working Minister of Natural Resources and member of Parliament from the great Kenora riding for all his work on this file and on aboriginal files in general. He has an incredible understanding, having worked and lived in those communities himself.

The fact that we today see the opposition wanting to add 50 communities, whether it has assessed that eligibility at all is up for debate, to the program shows that it is working. The New Democrats have certainly criticized it widely, but they think more communities should be added to the program, which in my view shows they do support what the program does.

The Auditor General was very clear that there needed to be a new way of assessing communities. We have accepted that recommendation. Communities that believe they should be added to the subsidy list have the opportunity to contact nutrition north Canada directly to make that case. As well, the government is conducting a review of all northern communities to ensure that all of those that deserve to be part of the program, or that can be part of it, will be added.

The work is well under way. We accept the Auditor General's report and we are committed to improving food security and nutritious foods for northern Canadians.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to the motion before the House of Commons. The motion talks to nutrition north Canada, a program that is in place to help provide nutritious food to northern communities across Canada, so many people who live in those northern regions can have a healthy diet, can have access to nutritious food in their communities and to ensure that those foods are affordable.

However, while nutrition north was supposed to make nutritional food more accessible and affordable to northerners in a very transparent way, four years after its launch, the Auditor General has slammed the program as an abject failure. People in many areas of the north, we know for sure in Rankin Inlet, are scrounging for food in waste sites, in dumps.

What has the program actually done for the amount of money that has been invested? This is where the key question begins. We know this program is currently seeing millions of dollars being invested into it. However, the question remains this. Why is this money not reaching the families who need it? Why is it not reaching northerners who need to have nutritional food that is affordable for them and their families? These are very good questions, and questions that became very evident in the Auditor General's report. However, there were other things as well.

The Auditor General has outlined, very clearly, that when we look across Canada's north, we will notice there are 50 isolated northern communities that are only accessibly by air and are not currently eligible for the full subsidy under this program. First, we know that is wrong. We know of situations where communities are completely adjacent to each other, only miles apart in some cases, yet one community is getting a subsidy that is nearly double what the other community is getting.

We need to look at the fairness in the program. Why is it not being applied fairly to communities that are of similar distance, that have similar needs, that have similar transportation mechanisms and that have the same challenges in accessing nutritional food?

The other thing we need to look at is why so many communities are being omitted from the program, communities that are completely isolated and communities that are only accessible by air. Why are those communities not being added to the list? This is not a new issue. It has been around for quite some time. The Auditor General has pointed that out on a number of occasions. However, there has been no action by the government to include those communities. Again, that is unfair.

We are not seeing fairness being practised in how the program is being delivered to northerners. What is even more concerning to me is we are not seeing where the subsidy is going.

I represent a very northern region in our country, in Labrador, that is actually a part of the nutrition north subsidy program. Before that, it was a part of the food by mail program. I have listened to government members being critical of the food by mail program, yet they are not prepared to address the flaws that are in the nutrition north program simply because it is a creation of their government. It is irrelevant who created the program. The relevance is in ensuring that it works and that it reaches the people who actually need it.

However, there are so many other communities in the north like the ones I represent. I have travelled through Nunavut, through the Northwest Territories, through Yukon, all areas which have many communities that depend upon nutrition north programs, and so many others across Canada. I know for a fact what the high prices of food are in many of those communities and I know for a fact that many people in those communities live below the poverty line. They are Canadians who often do not have employment opportunities available to them, at least on a year-round basis, because of climate and other factors that affect their regions. They live on marginal incomes if not very low incomes. Accessing food that, in some cases, is three times more expensive than most Canadians would pay is very unfair.

What the motion today is asking is that the isolated northern communities that have been omitted from this program be added and be eligible for the full subsidy. It also asks for a comprehensive review of the nutrition north program, and that northerners be full partners in that.

One of the things we have learned is that, while there is a review process with nutrition north, that review process does not allow all the communities that participate to actually give feedback. It is up to the board of nutrition north to decide which five communities it wants to go into and review, or which six communities, or whether it is only going to go into two communities.

First of all, we think there should be an ongoing review of the program, and at some point all communities should have an opportunity to have feedback into the program.

We really believe that, for this work, northerners do have to be full partners, but they also have to have the opportunity to give input and to provide solutions for the program on how it could work better, how monies could be better invested or better distributed, and how people could be more accountable to the program and to government for the investment. That definitely has to happen.

The motion talks about improved supports for traditional foods. Obviously I am a huge supporter of ensuring that we have traditional foods available in northern communities and aboriginal communities, in particular, where people are very dependent on traditional foods as part of their diet.

We also know that there are regions across the Arctic and across the north where a lot of traditional foods are not as readily available as they used to be. For example, in my area we have a ban on hunting cariboo right now. Cariboo was the main diet of people in that northern region. It was the main protein, next to seal meat, that these communities were consuming.

Now with a ban on cariboo, many people are left hungry, having to go to the local Northern Store to try to find foods to feed their family. They are not able to hunt from the land as they used to. Those kinds of restrictions are having a huge impact on the diet of northerners.

However, I have seen some good models that are being developed. Some of those models include community freezer programs, where people who are able to get some traditional foods by hunting from the land can make them available in the community through a community freezer program.

I would encourage the government, if it wants to look at ensuring traditional foods in those communities, to support those programs. Some of them do get some funding from government, but most of it is done through charitable donations and fundraising. It does work.

I have also seen programs called the community pantry, which is not always nutritional foods but staple foods like flour, milk, tea, and those kinds of staples that people need to be available in communities, mostly dry ingredients. There are no food banks in many of these communities. If people are hungry and they cannot afford to buy from the store because of the prices and they cannot access food any other way, community pantries allow them to have the very staples they need to be able to provide some food for their family.

I have seen those programs that are working fairly well. There are things out there that are being created by local northern people themselves in their own communities, which are a fit for them. I would like to see the government look at those things and see how they are working.

In fact, only a short time ago, I met with a group that is looking at food security across the north. I suggested a number of these measures to it in terms of what it could or should be doing, based on my experience and what I have seen that works. There are a lot of people out there who are keenly interested in ensuring that there is food security in the northern, Arctic, and aboriginal regions of this country, ensuring that food is affordable to people. Therefore, I think we have already established a lot of resources that we can draw upon to help us put together what would be seen as an ideal program to meet those needs across the north.

The motion is also asking that sufficient funding be made available to meet the needs of all of the northern communities. This is an issue that really bothered me when we were talking about funding the nutrition north program this year, and the fact that the program was not adequate, and there was a lot of media attention around what was happening in Rankin Inlet. The stores were sending expired food to the dump and local people were scavenging in the dump to get that food. That is a full indication that people are hungry. This is not about want; it is really about need.

When all of that happened, the response from the government was to announce that it would put another $11.3 million into the nutrition north program this year. That was met with great applause from all of us who work in the north. We know that revenue is needed. However, what the government failed to say was that in 2013-2014 the program had already spent nearly $64 million. Therefore, the $11 million that it was putting in only topped up the program to what it had actually spent. It is not new money. It is not to say that it would put another $11 million over and above to ensure that subsidies are administered more fairly to the communities that get them or that more communities would be added. That particular investment only really brought the program up to what was being spent. In fact, the addition of the $11 million really only brought the program to a total of $65 million in subsidies, while last year it had already spent $64 million, so it is an extra $1 million we will have this year. However, if the demand for food goes up in any of these communities, that $1 million will be used up.

The subsidy was needed anyway, just to cover off the everyday costs of the program. This subsidy is not enhancing the program in any way. It is not allowing the program to grow to add additional communities in any way. I think it is important to point that out.

I would also point out that $65 million in a subsidy program for nutrition north is a very fair subsidy amount if we know that it is reaching the people who need it. What has been most confusing about all of this is that, although this program has what I feel is a fair investment in funding going into it, unless there is accountability for how that money is spent and assurances that it reaches the people who need it, I have to ask if the money is getting the best use.

That was the point the Auditor General was really making when he talked about the accountability measures. He also talked about the fact that there was a lot of money going into subsidies that were in place in the program, but there was no way to monitor it to ensure that the subsidies were being passed on, and there was no requirement by retailers to ensure that there was accountability. This was one of the huge concerns pointed out in the Auditor General's report. That has to be looked at. I do not think we can ignore those points. They are very important points.

If we are going to make sure that we deal with food insecurity in northern regions of Canada and ensure there is affordable food in these communities, we also need to ensure those subsidies are going to be passed on. There has to be a new process of accountability put in place to ensure that the retailers that participate in the program are passing on the subsidy.

We also have to look at what the profit margins are. Sometimes, the subsidy is being passed on in its entirety, but what is the profit being earned in a lot of those regions in Canada? If we look at where the $64 million subsidy goes, we will notice that a large percentage of that subsidy goes to one store or provider across the northern region. It is important. If we are going to pay out more than half of this subsidy rate to one retail company servicing the north, the very least we should be doing is ensuring that there is a level of accountability being provided.

Before I conclude, I want to say that nutrition north is a very important program for northerners. It is very important for those of us who live in northern regions and represent northern regions, because we see the struggles day to day in many of these communities. Those struggles are not just around food. They are also around housing, having a good water supply, infrastructure, poverty, and all of those things. In order to deal with them, people need to have their basic needs met. One of those basic needs is ensuring that they have a good diet and nutritious food, so that they are able to function and address the other challenges and stresses they have in their life.

I would say this to the government opposite. Do not be pushed back by the fact that there are some serious issues around the program, but push forward to address them. Be on top of the game and provide the very best program that can be provided to northerners. Do not accept as good enough the fact that what we did four years ago might have been a little bit better than what was done four years before that, because it is not good enough. We are seeing that it is not good enough. Be motivated by what the Auditor General said, which is that the program is flawed, it needs to change, and we need to ensure that these subsidies are reaching the people who need them.

I would support members in the House who are prepared to do that, because that is what needs to happen. In doing so, we will be supporting many northern families across Canada.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleague for her long and substantive speech. It was very informative and interesting to someone like me who lives in urban Quebec and does not hear about this situation every day. I also want to commend my colleague from the Northwest Territories for moving this motion this week, as we talk about reconciliation with the first nations. I think the motion is quite timely.

Throughout Quebec and near where I live, the price of food varies a bit, but not so much that the price is out of reach for some people, if we compare the price of food in Chibougamau and the price in my riding, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, for example. That said, when we look at the price of fresh produce up north, we wonder how people can find the means to feed a family with those prices, when their social assistance cheque is $371 a month.

I have two questions for my colleague. How does she react when she sees—as I was told the other day—international humanitarian aid organizations working in Canada? To me as a Canadian, it is truly shameful. I would also like to know whether some of the municipalities that these organizations are working in are among the municipalities that my colleague's bill seeks to include.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, yes, most of the communities I speak of are included under the program currently. However, in terms of how the subsidy works and the fairness of the program, that needs to be evaluated. There are some communities that are not included that still could be included. That is not just in the Labrador region I represent. My riding borders the Quebec north shore, and there are communities in that area that have the same issues and problems. I communicate with them on a regular basis as well because our ridings are adjacent. I know that there is a huge area in the Quebec-Labrador region of northern Canada that is impacted.

However, there are lots of other regions as well. I talked about income levels. It is unfortunate that we do not have the long-form census any more, but if we did, we would see that a lot of people in those regions live below the poverty line. The amount of money they have to spend to provide for the necessities of life is far less than what other people have.

Earlier my colleague talked about eggs in Rankin Inlet costing $2.35 or $2.65 a dozen. Nain, which is in my riding and is not nearly as far north as Rankin Inlet, receives about the same amount in subsidies. Actually Rankin Inlet receives more. In Nain, those eggs are over $5 a dozen. I just had someone call and check. Milk is $6.50 for a carton of milk. It is not $3, as it is in Rankin Inlet.

The other thing we need to look at is that water by the case, depending on whether it is 12 or 24 bottles, comes out at anywhere from $20 to $40. In many northern communities there are boil orders right now, and people need to buy water.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's speech and I appreciate having worked with her on a number of files, as she is the northern affairs critic for the Liberal Party. I think she agrees in large part with what I said earlier, which is that the program, while it may need some tweaking, is not something we should throw out. The Auditor General has said that there need to be improvements. We have accepted all of the Auditor General's recommendations.

The member recommended that northerners design the program and provide feedback. Of course, we have the mechanism for that with the nutrition north advisory council, which is made up of northerners, meets with northerners, and addresses the concerns of northerners.

I have a concern about a previous intervention by the aboriginal affairs critic of the Liberal Party, the member for St. Paul's, when she harkened back to the days of the food mail program and it being in some way superior. She said that the nutrition north Canada program no longer subsides snowmobile parts or tires. Would she not agree with me that the purpose of nutrition north, and what we should really be focusing on, is getting perishable food to the north and allowing snowmobile parts and tires and other non-perishable items to be shipped by cheaper methods that take a lot longer? Maybe the member could clarify what the Liberal position is on that.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's question is very reasonable. Again, nutrition north speaks to nutrition. I think we all agree with that. Talking about snowmobile parts and using them as items that should not be subsidized really shows the lack of knowledge of the north and the culture of northerners and people who live in the Arctic region.

For example, I grew up in isolated communities that were fly-in, fly-out. I can tell members that snowmobile parts were essential. They were essential for every single family that was fortunate enough to actually own a snow machine, because that snow machine was what got wood to heat the house in climates that went below 50°. It was that snow machine that got traditional food from the land to feed the family. In many cases, if they did not have that, many families would go without. The cost of getting those parts into those communities was very expensive, and they are still expensive today. While that would not be directly related to nutritious food, it is an essential item for many northern communities.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her position on this, and I want to remind members that the motion says very clearly that part b is to determine ways of directly providing the subsidy to northern residents. That is actually what the motion says today. We agree that we need to have some temporary measures to fix this existing program, but we need to move on to other ways that can make a bigger difference.

The parliamentary secretary talked in his speech about some of the food costs. We did an analysis comparing communities that get a partial subsidy, like Lutselk'e, which gets 5¢ a kilogram and where milk is $16.99 for four litres, with others, like Kujawiak, Quebec, which gets a full subsidy and where the cost is $7.99. We could look at other things, like potatoes. In Lutselk'e, a 10-pound bag is $13.99. We took that directly from the store last week. In Kujawiak, it is $5.23. There is a reduction for communities involved in the program. If they are not involved in the program, they are paying extraordinary costs.

Part of our motion is to try to get these communities into the program. These communities are not just from the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut. They are from all over northern Canada. Does the hon. member not agree that this program has to cover every single community out there that is isolated or remote and has high food costs?