Health committee  I was wondering if I could answer very briefly the question Mr. Fletcher raised.

Health committee  I think this committee would be very interested in what the government is doing under the international polar year program. It is sponsoring a number of very important studies, including a number of studies in the Arctic on Inuit health. I'll give you an example of one in particular.

Health committee  I'd be happy to. Thank you very much. First of all, if I could be permitted, I'd just like to mention a number of things that happened preceding the review that set a bit of the context in terms of where we're moving with this program. As you've heard, pilots have been launched in three communities that have a basket of priority perishable foods, like milk and vegetables, subsidized at a higher rate, meaning that the per kilogram costs of shipping those foods north are 30¢ now as opposed to 80¢ before.

Health committee  Thank you very much for the questions. I'll start off on your first question, which is what's happening with the rising costs of the program. Essentially there are two major drivers of the costs of the food mail program, and one is demand for the food, which is a good thing. The more the demand goes up for healthy food means people in the north are actually consuming it, and this is essentially a healthy diet, so that's very positive.

Health committee  I can start. Fred is certainly the expert on food mail. I've been asked by the department to lead a fundamental review of the program. Actually, my appointment on this was coincidental with the government's response and the tabling of your report. The terms of reference for that review are broad, and we want to be looking at more than the food mail program, as you suggest, since there are a number of determinants to whether people can actually afford the food and to whether they're actually making choices to eat the food, regardless of the price and affordability.

Health committee  I'll defer to my colleague, but in general I would say that probably on average it's about twice the rate throughout the north, and that is with the food mail program that already significantly reduces the cost from what it would otherwise be. I would caveat that by saving that the prices throughout the north differ, depending often on the distance from southern centres, but for a variety of other reasons as well, so there's not an average kind of difference.