Northern New Democrat MPs want AG to look at Nutrition North

Two New Democratic Party MPs are asking why Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq has not called on the Auditor General of Canada to do an audit of the Nutrition North Canada program.

“Unlike the old food mail program which subsidized the cost of shipping food north, Nutrition North subsidizes the cost of selling food to northerners, resulting in record profits for some northern grocery stores,” Dennis Bevington, the MP for Western Arctic, said in a news release.

He and Romeo Saganash, the MP for Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou, were to have raised questions about the issue June 13 in the House of Commons.

Those questions follow votes held in the legislative assemblies of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon asking for such an audit.

This past May 17, Nunavut MLAs voted unanimously to ask Michael Ferguson, the auditor general, to do a performance audit on Nutrition North.

“The Conservatives should listen to these northern leaders and call on the Auditor General to investigate this program. Northerners cannot afford to continue to pay the price for the Conservatives poor policy choices,” Saganash said in the news release.