Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. There are possibilities, as long as you stop seeing storage infrastructure as a business subsidy or as something other than a port, for example. What is the difference between building a port so that boats can unload their cargo securely, and building a warehouse nearby?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Actually, there are a few ways. First of all, we would have to factor in the high cost of food when paying local employees. That is part of the inequality that we see in every study that we do. Locally hired employees do not enjoy the same conditions or benefits than those who are brought in, who receive an allowance for food shipping, for example.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That would be a very useful avenue to explore. As to nutrition north Canada, this program was poorly received in all the regions where I worked. People saw it at a form of abandonment. The price of certain foods deemed healthy according to the program was indeed lowered. When the program was set up, local authorities in many places, and I witness this myself, said that the federal government wanted to change the Inuit into rabbits.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, that is what I'm saying. Obviously, this brings about many problems, because currently there are not enough people who can ensure food security in the territories allocated to indigenous peoples by the Canadian system. In order for that to happen, other regions would have to be involved.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. These hunts were been banned for a long time. However, the hunts have been taking place for a while in Alaska, perhaps 20 years or so. In Hudson Bay and in Ungava Bay in the north-east, beluga whale hunting is still commonly practised. Other species of whales are now being hunted with very few quotas.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are many ways it could be done. In the short to medium term, the solution would be to secure indigenous peoples' rights to hunting, fishing and other practices, including gathering. The way to go about it is to apply simple principles, such as the precautionary principle.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I talked about it briefly with my colleagues just a little while ago. I checked the official statistics and the measures used by research institutes and statistical agencies in the regions. When you use consumer prices that have been established by the department, and not those that we measured in our studies, the poverty rate average is 37.5% in the northern territories, as I stated earlier.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. My answer is a simple one. We have to give the communities the resources they need so that they can make their own decisions on resource allocation or hunting and fishing quotas, for example. This is done elsewhere. There are terrific examples of this in some areas of the country and abroad.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In Scandinavian countries and in Russia, there is hunting, a lot of fishing and also herding, including reindeer herding. The herding is based on traditional models. The people have the knowledge they need to manage hundreds and thousands of animals, and their economic model is perfectly sustainable.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am a professor of sociology at Laval University. I directed an ambitious multi-year research project on food security in the Arctic, the Canadian north, Alaska, Greenland, Scandinavian countries and the Russian Federation. We used the same definition for our study that your committees are using now for their work.