Ingredients could be dropped from food mail subsidy

Is bannock – a staple for aboriginal peoples across Canada – about to become too expensive for many Inuit to prepare?

Delegates to Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada's annual general meeting in Iqaluit grappled with that question last week as they heard that Indian and Northern Affairs Canada may remove bannock ingredients from the list of staples that its food mail program subsidizes.

"We've been told the federal government is reviewing the program," consultant Wendy Cornet said during a workshop.

The costs of transporting food have grown, she told the delegates, so the government is looking at removing some of the food subsidies.

Among the items she has discovered may no longer be supported, Cornet listed flour, lard, shortening, yeast, sugar, salt, honey, coffee – and that other Inuit staple, tea.

She stressed that although these changes are under consideration, as far as she knows no decision has been made.

But that's part of the problem, she added, as it is difficult to get accurate information on the program.

Cornet said INAC seemed to be basing at least its beginning considerations about revising food mail on input from Health Canada – and there had been no consultation with Inuit women.

She found it strange, however, she said, that even while INAC is considering removing bannock ingredients from the program, the version of the Canada Food Guide that Health Canada has produced for first nations, Inuit and Métis mentions bannock no less than three times as an appropriate part of a healthy diet – when eaten in moderation.

"I don't think they want us to eat our bannock anymore," said Pauktuutit staffer Melanie Paniaq, who helped facilitate the workshop.

The INAC website says its food-mail program is intended to "provide nutritious perishable food and other essential items to isolated northern communities at reduced postal rates." 

Many Nunavut stores use food-mail shipping subsidies to access southern foods at lower cost for their customers. Not all stores in Nunavut use the food-mail program, depending largely on flight accessibility.

And even with food mail, northern consumers still pay much more than those in the south.

According to INAC surveys, a selection of food to feed a family of four for a week that could be purchased for $251 in Edmonton in September 2008, cost $457 in Gjoa Haven.

The same food basket cost $217 in Winnipeg in 2007, and $448 in Chesterfield Inlet. And a basket that cost $218 in Val-d'Or, Que., in 2008 was $439 in Hall Beach.

Individuals can also get food mail subsidies directly by ordering food themselves from stores in the South. You need a credit card to do it, though, something that many Inuit without steady jobs do not have.

Cornet noted that international statements on food say food security includes both the right to nutritious food, and the right to culturally appropriate food.

But Pauktuutit delegates said the program promoted a taste for and reliance on southern, processed foods, even though it is not part of traditional Inuit culture, has to be brought to the north in airplanes, burning vast amounts of fossil fuels, and is often "spoiled when it gets here."

Although country food is still part of the Inuit diet, reliance on it is decreasing because Inuit with steady jobs hunt less often because of time constraints. And hunters face increasing fuel and other costs.

The food mail program "subsidizes store-bought food," but doesn't subsidize the tools needed to harvest country food, Cornet pointed out.

"So there is not as much value placed on traditional food as on store-bought food. That affects men's traditional skills in harvesting food, and women's traditional skills in processing food."

The INAC website says more than 70,000 people in 80 communities across the North get food mail every week, and more than 18 million kilos of food are shipped annually under the program. The amount is increasing every year.

The issue was also pertinent to another Pauktuutit workshop, on the federal government's duty to consult and accommodate aboriginal people – including the Inuit – on decisions that will affect them.

In small-group discussions, the women noted that "decisions always seem to work from the top down rather than from the grass-roots level," and "decision makers often don't reach Inuit women at the community level."

Consultation, they said, should start with ordinary women, and only go to board members and other decision makers after that.