No way of knowing if retailers are passing on the subsidy, report says

Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Published Tuesday, November 25, 2014

OTTAWA
The office of the auditor general has concluded in a report released today that Aboriginal and Northern Development Canada (ANDCC) has not met either of the Nutrition North program goals of making nutritious and perishable food more accessible and affordable in Nunavut and the rest of the North.

The report's conclusion comes days after AANDC boasted of the program's success as it dumped another $11.3 million into the deeply flawed $60 million-per-year effort.

The program replaced the Food Mail subsidy in 2011.

The report, tabled in the House of Commons in Ottawa this morning, concludes that AANDC "has not managed the program to meet its objective of making healthy foods more accessible to residents of isolated Northern communities as it has not identified eligible communities on the basis of need."

It also says AANDC has not "managed the program to meet its objective of making healthy foods more affordable as it has not defined affordability nor has it verified that Northern retailers are passing on the full subsidy to consumers."

The report states that AANDC "did not require information on profit margins, either in its contribution agreements with retailers or through its compliance reviews of retailers, which is necessary to verify that the subsidy is fully passed on to consumers."

The report concludes that AANDC "has not captured the information needed to manage the program or measure its success."