Don’t jump to hasty conclusions

It’s no surprise that a group of witnesses from Nunavik trooped down to Ottawa earlier this week to lob grenades at the federal government’s new Nutrition North Canada program.

Given the flagrant abuse of public money that characterized Nunavik’s use of the outgoing food mail program, it’s to be expected that many sincere but ill-informed people in Nunavik will now be exhibiting signs of acute separation anxiety.

Most readers will remember that this past May, after nearly four years of study and consultation, the federal government announced they will replace the troubled food mail program with a new plan called Nutrition North Canada.

Under it, retailers and individual consumers will get a direct air-freight subsidy they can use to buy eligible nutritious food items from pretty much any southern location, using the airline of their choice.

This means that under the new regime, airlines must compete with each other in a process that in theory ought to lead to lower transportation costs.

At the same time, the new plan will subsidize perishable nutritious food only, plus a few essential personal care items. Most non-perishable goods that ought to be transported on the sealift will not qualify for the new air-freight subsidy.

It’s that last measure that is the likely source of Nunavik’s consternation.

Under the food mail program, which expires at the end of next March, Nunavik retailers pay only $1 a kilo for air cargo shipments of perishable food and numerous non-food items, such as clothing.

In Nunavut, the food mail rate is $2.25 a kilo. No one has ever been able to explain the reason for this inequity, though political patronage is probably the best explanation.

The result is that Nunavik’s subsidized food mail rates have been so low, they’re even cheaper than the sealift, normally the cheapest form of transportation by a big margin. Consequently, retailers there have been using First Air and Air Inuit to fly in big quantities of non-food items for which they should have been using sealift — a waste of public funds that should never have been allowed in the first place.

So on Oct. 3, when, in a transitional measure aimed at preparing for the start of Nutrition North Canada, certain non-food and non-nutritious items were dropped from the subsidy, Nunavik was caught unawares.

For example, people there complained earlier this week about a sudden rise in the price of Pampers at a local retail store in Kuujjuaq.

But Nunavik residents had better do more research before they jump to hasty conclusions. A photo published in this week’s paper shows packs of Pampers listed at a price of $6.79 each. But in Iqaluit, similar products were retailing for $29.99 to $39.99 this week.

This raises questions about many other claims that Nunavik residents make about current food prices. For example, Elena Labranche, the deputy director of public health in the region, said the current cost of food there is “enormous.”

Maybe this is valid, if the comparison is with food prices in Ottawa or Montreal. But compared with Nunavut, Nunavik’s current food prices are likely reasonable. Given the historic level of over-subsidization in that region, they better be. If not, Nunavik residents should ask some hard questions about what their retailers and airlines have been doing with the money.

At the same time, Nunavik residents should ask why their retailers aren’t preparing for greater use of the sealift and making the required investments in warehouse space.

Finally, they should wait until Nutrition North Canada’s air cargo rates are actually announced before they jump to hasty conclusions about whether the program will work.

If the program is designed and administered well, healthy foods ought to cost less, while unhealthy foods ought to cost more. What’s not to like about that? JB