All sizzle no steak as MPs grill execs over Nutrition North

Partisanship gets in the way of parliamentary committee getting meaty answers from heads of northern companies

Dan McConnell, president and CEO of the North West Co., speaks before the House of Commons Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee on Wednesday. Nunavut MP Lori Idlout told the committee McConnell is paid $3.9 million a year compared to an average of $37,000 a year for a cashier at the Northmart in Iqaluit. (Photo courtesy of ParlVu)

By Corey Larocque

Lightly grilled executives seasoned with political rhetoric was the menu served up by Nunavut MP Lori Idlout and other members of the House of Commons Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee Wednesday.

But the result wasn’t terribly satisfying.

The committee summoned the heads of Canadian North and Calm Air airlines, North West Co., and Kimik Co-operative to appear at the meeting. It’s studying how well Nutrition North, the federal program that subsidizes food prices northerners pay, works.

Idlout, the NDP’s member on the committee, turned up the heat on North West Co. president Dan McConnell, demanding to know his salary and the average salary of a cashier at the Iqaluit Northmart.

McConnell dodged the question, saying he didn’t have the answer at his fingertips but that it was included in a company circular published online. He agreed to provide it to the committee later.

By the time Idlout’s second round came about, she had the information, presumably after a quick-acting NDP staffer looked it up and texted it to her in time to drop the gotcha question.

According to the website, Idlout reported, McConnell’s salary is $3.9 million. The average annual salary of a cashier is $37,000 a year.

“Basically, your salary is 98 times what your employees get,” Idlout said triumphantly. She said she didn’t want McConnell to get away with only giving his salary to the committee in writing after the meeting.

MP John Aldag, the committee chairperson, gave McConnell a chance to respond to Idlout’s statement.

“That’s OK,” McConnell said quietly.

But that’s as hot as it got for the executives who had been summoned before the committee.

When the committee adopted Idlout’s motion to have the executives appear last month, it looked to be the kind of showdown that happened last year when a different parliamentary committee called on the executives of Canada’s biggest grocery store chains to explain what they’re doing to help customers in light of skyrocketing food prices.

But other than Idlout turning McConnell’s income into the nation’s business, the Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee’s questioning was mild with MPs using the executives’ appearances to score points for their own party instead of getting into the meat and potatoes of Nutrition North.

Conservative MP Bob Zimmer picked away at what effect the federal carbon tax had on transportation and food prices in the North, marching to the beat of his party’s leader Pierre Poilievre’s “axe the tax” mantra.

And Liberal MPs — who underlined that transportation in the territories is exempt from their government’s carbon tax — gently asked McConnell to explain how his company passes the Nutrition North subsidy through to its customers.

Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski asked him what prevents his company, which essentially has a monopoly in some northern communities, from charging whatever it wants and using the federal government’s Nutrition North funding to pad its profits.

McConnell hit Powlowski’s softball, saying, “We’ve always taken a balanced approach on passing through the cost to the consumers given the relationship we have with our customers.”

Nutrition North is an important federal program that affects the daily lives of northerners. It’s good that the Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee is looking into whether public money spent to subsidize grocery prices is being used effectively.

But if MPs would set aside their partisan agendas, it would help them get more steak and less sizzle from the rare opportunities they have to question the business leaders who are at the heart of the matter.

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(23) Comments:

  1. Posted by Mit on

    “Basically, your salary is 98 times what your employees get,”

    I’ll bet he worked more than 98 times harder to get where he is vs that northern store cashier. Rewarding hard work. It’s called free marker capitalism, look it up sweetie

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    • Posted by Dave on

      There’s a lot of truth to this comment.

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    • Posted by Jamesie on

      Mit. No executive works even a little bit harder than any frontline staff. Their rewards are unjust. And THAT’S capitalism.

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      • Posted by Dave on

        I bet there there were a lot of applicants for a multi million dollar salary. How do you think he got the job in the first place? Lottery? Arm wrestling contest?

        Very few people have the dedication or work ethic to reach this level. That’s just real life.

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        • Posted by Ned Flanders on

          Maybe he has relatives in the selection committee like a lot of employees in “none of it”,(regardless of a lack of basic education).
          Or maybe…(Gasp😱) he worked his way there.

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      • Posted by boris pasternak on

        Hey Jamisie, without CEOs like him, NWC would be gone like K-Mart did years ago, his job is thinking a year ahead for the sake of NWC, survival. His target is bottom line l of the NWC….that feeds most Inuit in Nunavut. Think.

  2. Posted by Ian on

    Attention keyboard warriors,and Trolls, corporate greed all over Canada, grocery prices are high all over Canada, right now there is a movement to boycott loblaws, and people have choices in southern Canada to shop, we have Northern and coop, Winnipeg based grocery chains, their prices are similar , yes costs in the north are higher, but so are their profits, and remember all these northern company’s are Bonus motivated,Nutrition North costs are buried in paperwork, they know how to do it. Creative accounting,calmair and Canadian North are no different, these company’s make 95 percent of their revenue from gov handouts to them, and if they had to operate in a competitive market these company’s would not be in business. Northerners are held hostage to all of this, and northern coop airlines know this,

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    • Posted by Mit on

      If the profit margins were really that good in the north loblaws and sobeys would come up and compete. No?

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      • Posted by Ian on

        Mitten your right I bet you don’t work for loblaws, maybe NWC or Coop or airline, trolls unite, support corporate greed, and pay more

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      • Posted by monty sling on

        It would take years to get too the north for other grocery chains, transportation and customer is very well established, it’s a good marriage. I.E NWC could not compete in southerner market except for few no frill stores in Winnipeg. Canada is zoned and do not invade zones, established long ago. Like it or not this will not changed and our good MP for Nunavut was a corporate laughing stock, too bad but good effort. Truthfully, even Parliamentary efforts will not rock the boat. Not for many years to come, if not, a century. Money talks, and it’s in control….

  3. Posted by Rather be a philanthropist than a philanderer on

    With the NDP, it’s all theatrics and little substance, while they prop up the worst government in my lifetime, all to get their pensions. The Northwest company is free to pay their people what they want, just like consumers are free to shop where they want.

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    • Posted by Nelson Muntz on

      Maybe there’s an election coming up and she wants to look like she’s doing something tangible.

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    • Posted by Eskimos Fan on

      Amen to that.
      Besides… ain’t none of our/her business the salary of any one.
      Cashiers I’ve met in southern Canada are usually working to help pay for their university or college education.
      And any funding they receive has to be paid back.

    • Posted by Tom Shelby on

      But that’s the problem, we aren’t free to shop where we want, there are only a couple of places to shop, its not like the south where you can pick and choose from the 10 grocery stores and watch for sales and pick up cheaper items at each store. They are the monopoly.

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  4. Posted by It’s simple on

    Te CEO could do the clerk’s job and possibly did. Can the clerk do the CEO job, possibly some day. Will they then be happy with a clerk’s salary. No doubt they would want upward of 3 million.

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  5. Posted by Think About It on

    Ms. Idlout has the typical political response to bad policy…..look over there it is their fault, big bad corporations, they are the problem. Now I do not like Northmart’s prices on some things but her calling out the CEO is so off base. Mr. McConnell’s total compensation is about half of other CEOs of corporations that size. And comparing someone who has a post graduate degree and decades of experience to that of a group of part time employees without a GED is like comparing apples and oranges. Northmart needs those people to work the cash (actually they need more) and they work really hard but they are not on the same level as any CEO, but if you want to compare a NM cashier – part time after school/weekends you say averages 37K salary to the CEO at 843K salary; 22.5 times that of the part time worker, even less if you break it down to per hour salaries. That is called return on investment for school/late nights extra. There is nothing stopping those frontline workers from becoming the next NM CEO.
    Now Ms. Idlout next rant should be about why the leader of the NDP has a 10K watch on his wrist, and the people working in the offices or campaigning have a Timex.

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  6. Posted by Andrew on

    TABOO. Individual gain is a foreign concept for Inuit. Having adjusted to our harsh environment for thousands of years with little resources community approach to sharing is something engrained in us. That’s why a lot of entrepreneurs get hate from people who don’t understand this concept.

    As for the nutrition north program, it needs a true and honest overhaul. Each region uses a mathematical formula to come up with these numbers on how to adjust the subsidy. We need the universities to use these numbers and plug-in. What the groceries have provided to see if the results are successful. It’s the smart people who provide the data to the politicians and the politicians make the decision with all the information at hand. We vote the politicians we believe will make the best decision for our communities, but often they have their own agendas. We also have a low voter turnout, so ignorance and or misunderstanding of the voting concepts might be an issue.

    It’s only the real jerks want to be seen who become the politicians making the decisions for us. Some of us are too busy trying to survive to even look up at who is running.

    Hey smart Inuit, please do the math for us, criticize the “cost of living” formulas in your regions. Share your findings, see if your elected members are doing their jobs.

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  7. Posted by Truestory on

    Whatever happened to the Facebook site “Feed my Family”? Did it make any difference? Same thing gonna happen. Nuthin’!!!

  8. Posted by Arcticrick on

    Idlout is an embarrassment to NU.

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  9. Posted by Sam on

    Simple, corporate executives are paid to take this treatment, goes with the job, and they are paid well.now bring Bell Canada next .

  10. Posted by Forever Amazed on

    So what if the ceo makes what he makes. I suspect he has earned it otherwise the shareholders would turf him.

  11. Posted by Northerner on

    Our MP should focus on this coming summer. Last summer, a fire started out on the land. About 70 kilometers north of baker lake. The fire started when lightning storms hit baker lake. Luckily heavy rain shut the fire out. Smoke could be seen reaching the clouds from atleast 10 kilometers away. Are canadas new recruitment of wildfire fighters included in nunavut? Or will there be a small number of wildfire fighters deployed to nunavut to fight if our land is hit with wild fire? Is there even a role where “the land guardians” can even step in to provide help if a fire ever starts up north?

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    • Posted by Mit on

      The land guardians probably throw their cigarettes on the land they are said to be protecting. Cigarette + dry nuna = 🔥

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