ITK wants Nutrition North scrapped, replaced

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami wants to work with the federal government to develop a “more effective” replacement for Nutrition North.

This is one of 30 ideas included in a 48-page strategy the organization released Tuesday that aims to address the region’s “socioeconomic inequities.”

“This strategy is a roadmap, but it is also an invitation – an invitation to invest in our vision and to co-create a future in which no Inuit are left behind,” ITK president Natan Obed said.

Inuit have lower life expectancy, employment rate and median individual income than other Canadians, and “a basket of groceries can cost two or three times more in Inuit Nunangat than in southern Canada,” the report said.

That leads to more than 70 per cent of Inuit over the age of 15 living in food-insecure households in Inuit Nunangat, compared to just under 18 per cent in the south, according to Statistics Canada.

One of the actions included in the strategy is to “engage the federal government in co-developing a more effective program to replace Nutrition North,” a federal program that subsidizes the high cost of healthy food and other essentials in 124 northern communities.

The federal government is working on reforms to Nutrition North after years of complaints about the program, but ITK wants it dismantled, saying the government should instead regulate food prices in the region.

Northern Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand, who attended the launch of ITK’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, said she looks forward to working with the organization.

“What we’ve heard across the board…is that communities need to be the architects of the ways in which food security is improved,” she wrote in a statement to Nunatsiaq News. “We are putting that feedback into practice.”

Tuesday’s strategy isn’t the first time ITK has called for the end of Nutrition North. In March, the organization released a framework that suggested how the program could be replaced. The report called the current program “fragmented, inflexible, and not fully aligned with Inuit priorities.”

“A direct price regulation model would be clearer, more enforceable, and better aligned with affordability outcomes,” the March report stated. It also said the federal government should subsidize transportation rather than retailers and support the creation of Inuit-owned co-operatives.

Other items included in Tuesday’s strategy include greater participation of Inuit in the wage economy through the establishment of Inuit Nunangat university, as well as advocacy for “culturally relevant” social programs.

ITK aims to review the strategy every five years to track its progress.