Kotierk calls for Nutrition North to subsidize ‘all items’
Government to consider recommendation along with other feedback from Indigenous partners and northerners, spokesperson says
An external review of the Nutrition North program led by former Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Aluki Kotierk calls for the federal government to subsidize “all items” instead of just nutritional food it has traditionally covered. It’s a recommendation the government is considering along with other feedback it has received as part of a review of the subsidy program. (File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Aluki Kotierk, the federal government’s handpicked adviser on reforming Nutrition North, says “all items” should be subsidized to put grocery prices in northern communities on par with the south.
This recommendation is one of more than a dozen conclusions included in her external review, which was published on the government’s website June 26.
“I am of the view that all items in Nutrition North Canada-eligible communities should be subsidized,” Kotierk wrote in her submission to the minister of Arctic and northern affairs.
Kotierk was appointed in February 2025 to do an external review of Nutrition North following allegations that northern retailers were not passing Nutrition North subsidies to consumers.
“We need to do our due diligence in making sure that every single penny of the retail subsidy is going to northerners,” then-northern affairs minister Dan Vandal told Nunatsiaq News in October 2024.
Kotierk’s submission acknowledges these allegations but suggests inflation might also be driving up costs. She instead focuses on problems she sees with the way the federal government handles Nutrition North subsidies.
“Why is a prepared salad bag not subsidized when all the components of the salad bag are subsidized,” she said in her submission.
“I have tried to think deeply and in different approaches to understand why pasta shaped in a certain way is subsidized when nutritionally equivalent pasta in a different shape is not subsidized? It makes no sense to me and I suspect that it would not make sense to a Canadian living in Vancouver or Regina or Halifax.”
The submission does not include an estimate of how much expanding subsidies would cost the program that spent $163 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year subsidizing nutritional food in 124 northern communities, including those in Nunavut and Nunavik.
Kotierk said she anticipates the government will raise this concern but she believes people who live in remote communities “should be able to expect a standard of living and accessibility that is on par with other Canadians.”
Nunatsiaq News asked Northern Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand’s office about the idea that the government should subsidize foods that are not considered nutritional — soda pop and potato chips, for example.
“The government is considering that recommendation alongside the full body of feedback received from Indigenous partners and northerners,” Chartrand’s press secretary Erika Lashbrook Knutson said in an email Monday.
Kotierk could not be reached for comment about her report for this story.
In other recommendations, Kotierk suggested parliamentarians should require an evaluation and monitoring of food insecurity at regular intervals — such as every three years.
Systemic issues require a systemic approach, said Georgina Loyd, assistant deputy minister of Northern Affairs for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada in an interview Friday.
“This [submission] is one piece of input as part of the reform,” Lloyd said, adding the government has also collected feedback on Nutrition North through an internal government evaluation, research grants and a food sovereignty summit in Ottawa in March.
The government’s next step is to review all that information to formulate a strategy for reforming Nutrition North, Lloyd said.
Part of Kotierk’s job was to consult with national and regional Indigenous organizations and relevant federal organizations. But her submission doesn’t mention whom Kotierk consulted.
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout wonders who she spoke to.
“Did she meet with companies? Did she meet with bureaucrats? I found that information lacking in the report,” Idlout said in an interview Friday.
“I think it would have been good to see if she met with others to help with her analysis.”
It just occurred to me, why wasn’t the Office of the Auditor General of Canada tasked with undertaking this review instead? It has the staff and the expertise in analyzing government programs and whether programs are succeeding in their mandate. It also has broad investigatory powers to allow it to delve deeply into where the money is going and how it’s being spent. Having that office do would have led to a way better product.
“Why is a prepared salad bag not subsidized when all the components of the salad bag are subsidized,” she said in her submission.
————–
This is just a distraction, nothing more.
There have been direct and critical accusations laid against Nutrition North for years with many in power alleging corruption. “We need to do our due diligence in making sure that every single penny of the retail subsidy is going to northerners,” then-northern affairs minister Dan Vandal told Nunatsiaq News in October 2024.
So, where are the answers? Where did the money go? Where is the actual report?
I certainly hope the suggestion of pumping more money into the program without a proper auditing of the money that has already gone isn’t the direction we are taking. All I see here is fluff.
She should of stayed quiet.
“Kotierk said she anticipates the government will raise this concern but she believes people who live in remote communities “should be able to expect a standard of living and accessibility that is on par with other Canadians.””
For other Canadians, those who live in remote communities have worse access to medical services, pay more for food and have fewer options when it comes to most things when compared to those living in large metropolitan areas.
We need to compare apples from a town of 1000 with no road access to apples from another town of 1000 with similar transportation infrastructure challenges. Then, I think we might already find ourselves on pretty equal, maybe even better, footing to other Canadians.
Also, in this scenario where all food items are subsidized, is more money thrown in to cover those items, or is money being pulled from healthy foods? The current system, though it sometimes seems silly when items are cherry picked, is an attempt to incentivise healthy choices. I see only good in that.
I may be cherry picking too, but I don’t think a 10 year old should be drinking subsidized redbull and skittles lunches.
Jesus wept. Tell me there’s more to a report it took more than a year to complete than this. It doesn’t matter that it was donated by the writer. What matters is in the time this wasted a more substantive and maybe – just maybe – applicable report could have been completed.
let’s just make blanket statements as recommendations. Why should we subsidize pop and chips? If the stores want to make their profit on these items they should.
You don’t need more reports you have to look at the the structure where NWC and ACL Act as the wholesalers and drive up the price at the wholesale level before the stores even see the produce
ya, this is seriously ridiculous. she didnt do a thing. thats obvious. how shameful of her to have even put this out there.
Publicly disclosed report:
https://www.nutritionnorthcanada.gc.ca/eng/1781709808624/1781709823117
Good Lord! Being an “Inuit Leader” has become such an A-Game grift.