NDP to release plan to rebuild Nutrition North
AANDC Minister grilled for hours during committee meeting
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Monday, May 18, 2015
OTTAWA
Nutrition North came under fire in the House of Commons last Wednesday during a Committee of the Whole meeting for not providing food subsidies to some isolated Northern communities.
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt, right, pictured with Education, Culture and Employment Minister Jackson Lafferty, appeared at the legislative building in Yellowknife to announce infrastructure and job funding in August. Valcourt took heat in Parliament last week over his department's controversial Nutrition North program. - NNSL file photo |
Dennis Bevington, MP for the Northwest Territories, questioned Bernard Valcourt, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (AANDC) about how the department initially determined community eligibility and when it would be completing annual eligibility reviews - which haven't been done since the program was initiated four years ago.
During Wednesday's committee meeting, Valcourt said the first phase of that review would be done in the final half of 2015.
"We have already indicated that we are examining the criteria for admissibility under the program in order to reflect the needs issue," he said, referring to a recommendation from the Auditor General for Nutrition North to determine eligibility based on need.
Bevington said Friday that he wants to see the program's eligibility issues fixed.
"I'm not in a position to change the program but I am in a position to demand that certain communities get their fair share," Bevington told News/North May 15.
"In Lutsel K'e, the total money put into food subsidy in 2013-14 was $2,900. How is that fair? People there are extremely hard done by, and even if it was just that one community, I would want it fixed."
Lutsel K'e is one of five isolated communities Bevington has identified in the Northwest Territories and part of 50 across Northern Canada that are not currently eligible for the food subsidy. Other communities in the territory include Gameti, Nahanni Butte, Wekweeti and Fort Providence.
AANDC has said that between April 2011 and March 2014, the cost of the Revised Northern Food Basket - which determines nutritional food cost trends for families of four - has dropped an average of 7.2 per cent, or $137 per month.
But Nutrition North came under major fire in late 2014 after reports of people in Rankin Inlet scavenging for food in the dump and in January 2015 Bevington condemned the program as a "failure."
In early April 2015, the NDP announced it had a proposal to "fix" the program - details of which Bevington said will be presented at a news conference this week.
"We're going to present all the information on all the communities that aren't being subsidized properly," Bevington said.
"We're going to start explaining what we'd like to see immediately with the program and what it's going to cost to bring everybody up on a level playing field."
