Aglukkaq, Patterson, Nutrition North official visit High Arctic

(Updated Feb. 22, 2:50 p.m.)

Stung by a recent controversy over grocery prices in Arctic Bay, John Duncan, the northern affairs minister, said last week that officials will visit select communities in Nunavut and other regions to better explain the Nutrition North Canada program.

“Arctic Bay would be a logical community for us to describe the program on a personal basis, one-on-one, answer people’s questions,” Duncan told reporters Feb. 18 in a telephone press briefing.

Soon after Duncan said that, Leona Aglukkaq, the health minister and Nunavut MP, along with Senator Dennis Patterson and Leo Doyle, the acting director of Nutrition North, flew off to Arctic Bay and Grise Fiord this past weekend.

In an interview Feb. 22, Aglukkaq said more than 100 people attended a community meeting in Arctic Bay, but only one person brought up the Nutrition North Program. Many more residents asked questions about a recent federal government decision to freeze the export of narwhal tusks from Canada.

“Narwhal was a larger subject by far,” Patterson said.

However, Patterson and Doyle met one-on-one with some residents to answer questions about Nutrition North.

Such sessons are likely in some other selected comunities. Federal officials are now working on a list of communities and a tour schedule.

“We as officials in the program haven’t been good at getting our message out there, so this is where these sessions are helpful,” he said.

Earlier this month, Arctic Bay residents, including Quttiktuq MLA Ron Elliot, ignited a furor when they circulated digital photos showing prices charged for airlifted items that, under a transitional move made Oct. 3, are no longer eligible for either food mail or the upcoming Nutrition North air transport subsidy.

These included a bag of flash-frozen processed chicken at $77.39, a glass jar of Cheez Whiz at $29.39 and a large container of Ocean Spray cranberry-flavoured drink at $38.99.

Duncan, and other INAC officials, said the Nutrition North Canada program, which starts up April 1, isn’t responsible for the price-tags on those items.

But it was an interim Nutrition North measure that led to the elimination of food mail freight subsidies for such items this past Oct. 3.

Duncan, however, said it’s a major goal of the program to steer consumers away from non-nutritious food by using price as a form of communication

“Those items were not subsidized under food mail…the effect of subsidizing nutritious food and not subsidizing non-nutritious will be hopefully to affect consumer choices,” Duncan said.

And he suggested that food retailers may be wise to keep such high-price, air-freighted items off their shelves for now.

“Those kinds of items probably won’t even be on the shelf. We’ve had discussions with the retail community since that story appeared and they concur with the thoughts that I have just expressed,” Duncan said.

Duncan admitted, though, that federal officials may have done less than they could have to communicate the program to northern residents.

He said when the federal government announced Nutrition North Canada, they focused on informing retailers and airlines, who needed the advance warning to prepare.

At the same time, he said the recent controversy over alleged price gouging and cost increases doesn’t bother him much.

“Some of the recent controversy has not been counter-productive. Actually I think it’s been healthy, because people are now engaged in debate and discussion and wrapping their heads around the fact that there will be a different set of choices in front of them that kick in when the program is launched in April,” he said.

But now he said it’s time to inform northern consumers, through a communications program that’s already started.

“This year we are launching into a communications exercise. Much of that will be on local media. There are local cable options, there are local radio options, there are posters available in the local stores. We will have mail outs,” Duncan said.

At the same time, Health Canada has received money to run nutrition education programs in northern communities that run in parallel with the Nutrition North subsidy system.

A spokesperson from the office of Leona Aglukkaq, the national health minister, said that to pay for this work, Health Canada received $1.53 million in 2010-11 and $2.9 million for 2011-12.

“During 2010-11, nutrition education funds have been supporting communities with planning and transition to the full implementation of Nutrition North Canada in April 2011.  Funds are flowing to territorial governments and Health Canada regions,” the source said in an email.

This money will pay for activities such as:

• workshops for community workers to introduce Nutrition North Canada;

• workshops to teach cooking skills to adults, teens, parents and children; and

• the creation of a “resource guide” to help community workers do things like hold in-store taste tests and cooking classes.

“This funding is aimed at increasing knowledge of healthy eating and developing skills for selecting and preparing healthy store-bought and traditional or country foods,” the source said.

Duncan also said Nutrition North contains built-in tools for making retailers accountable for passing the benefit of the air transport subsidy onto consumers after April 1.

They include:

• a requirement that retailers post the level of subsidy on their invoices;

• an audit requirement built into INAC’s contribution agreements with retailers;

• spot audits of retailers;

• a requirement that retailers sign an “attestation” saying their subsidy claims are valid and being passed on to the consumer.

Duncan said these checks and balances did not exist in the outgoing food mail program, under which INAC gave funds to Canada Post, who then contracted with airlines to deliver food and many non-food items by air to northern communities.

“You could ship tires under the food mail program. There was one registered shipper, and all he shipped was rubber tires,” Duncan said.

Some residents, however, aren’t convinced.

In a letter published in Nunatsiaq News last week, Arctic Bay resident Clare Kines called on Ottawa to scrap Nutrition North and return to food mail.

But Duncan, who said he heard numerous complaints about food mail as long as 15 years ago when he sat on the Commons standing committees as a regular member of Parliament, said that’s not likely to happen.

“The old food mail program going forward wasn’t sustainable going forward for Canada Post… their service is not optimized for food delivery,” Duncan said.

The federal government created Nutrition North after doing a review of food mail that began in 2006.

Under Nutrition North, retailers may ship perishable nutritious food from any point in southern Canada, and will not be required to use Val d’Or, Quebec as an entry point for the eastern Arctic.

At the same time, airlines must compete with each other to win air freight contracts from retailers.

The federal government has budgeted about $60 million a year to pay for the new scheme, adding $45 million to the $15 million that was set aside annually for food mail.