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Price check
Nunavut residents and politicians weigh in on Nutrition NorthEmily Ridlington Northern News Services Published Friday, March 4, 2011
With the upcoming implementation of the Nutrition North Canada program looming, an Iqaluit man is asking shoppers across the territory to check out the prices at the register of their grocery store before April 1 when the new program kicks in.
Tony Rose launched a website called The Nutrition North Review Project on March 1. He is asking Nunavummiut to collect the prices of a select list of grocery store items so he can post them and let people see how their grocery store slips stack up. "I put together a site that doesn't feature any kind of spin and it is just meant to be a sounding board and a place for people to learn what it costs to live in Nunavut now and what it will cost in Nunavut under Nutrition North," he said. Forty-eight hours after the site went live, he already had more than 1,000 hits. Last May, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada announced it was replacing the Food Mail program with Nutrition North Canada. The program is designed to direct freight subsidies to retailers instead of Canada Post, and savings are supposed to be passed on to the consumer. Items on Rose's grocery list are all eligible items under Food Mail and Nutrition North. This includes things like a dozen eggs, two litres of two per cent milk, tomatoes, apples and ground beef. As price lists have or are coming in from Cambridge Bay, Pangnirtung, Arctic Bay, Resolute, Repulse Bay, Sanikiluaq and Rankin Inlet, Rose said he will put the information up on the website. He said his plan is to get do a second round of price checks in April once the changes of the program have been implemented. Deborah Thomas of Sanikiluaq said she thinks the concept is a great idea. A resident of the community for the last seven years, she sent a letter to Hudson Bay MLA Allan Rumbolt about her concerns about the change in programs. "I think now people are going to pay more at the local stores, there's going to be less variety," she said, adding "I think that the people who have special dietary needs or cultural needs are going to go without or find somebody who will ship through the mail from the south." In Sanikiluaq, Thomas can either shop at the Mitiq Co-op or at the Northern store. She said she and her husband have enjoyed the benefits of Food Mail and have been able to order items that aren't available in stores, such as items with low cholesterol, omega-3 foods, pro-biotic foods and a wider variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. "We shouldn't have to settle for the lowest-grade, most generic ingredients when there are options that have been satisfying the North for many years," Thomas said, referring to the current Food Mail program. While she acknowledges stores try their best to bring in what they can and said she doesn't blame them, most times fruits and veggies aren't available or are in poor condition. She said this forces people to buy canned items, which won't be covered under the Nutrition North subsidy. Another comment often heard when discussing Food Mail is that people without credit cards could not make orders. Thomas said she is ordering food for five or six families on her account, families who cannot order for themselves because they don't have credit cards. "Rather than wipe out an entire program that was serving a lot of people, why not find a way to make it inclusive to everyone, opening up the payment parameters so that everybody can benefit." The territory's politicians have entered into the discussion, as many of the members' statements at the beginning of this sitting at the legislative assembly have focused on the pending changes to the program. "Some of us have been taught this old saying which is a western society statement: 'If it isn't broken, don't fix it.' That is how I perceive this program, which the federal government administered," said Tagak Curley, minister of Health and Social Services and responsible for homelessness and MLA for Rankin Inlet North on Feb. 25. Curley did acknowledge a positive side of the new program, which is that country food will be subsidized. "My identity is based on my diet, not my appearance, not my language, my diet. That dictates whether this guy is an Inuk or not," Curley said. Earlier on in the week on Feb. 22 Premier Eva Aariak told members the government would be setting up a committee which she said would support Nunavummiut and monitor the effects of the new program being rolled out. Sitting on this committee will be Paula McRae, Letia Obed and Mark Sheridan from the Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, territorial public health nutritionist Jennifer Wakegijiq and B.J. Barnes from the Department of Health and Social Services. Members in the assembly passed a motion to invite witnesses from the North West Company, Arctic Co-operatives Limited, other retailers, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and members of the Nutrition North Canada Advisory Board to appear before the committee of the whole in the spring session to respond to questions. As for Rose's intentions for the site, he said he does not want it to be a place to draw conclusions or to advocate for one program or another. "I think this kind of initiative is best done independently and it really takes a grassroots organization to make something like this happen," Rose said. Grocery shoppers and government officials alike will have to wait and see what changes the new program will bring. Rose himself draws this conclusion: "We don't know what is going to happen and what's that going to mean for the end consumer."
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