Petition calls on Amazon to reduce shipping costs to remote communities
People in Cambridge Bay pay as much as $30 to ship a $5 bottle of vitamins
The creator of a Change.org petition says northerners rely on Amazon for many necessities and the company should offer free shipping to remote locations. (Photo by Marques Thomas on Unsplash)
A Cambridge Bay resident is urging Amazon Canada to make the free shipping that’s included with Amazon Prime memberships available to people who live in remote communities.
Krista Matthews started a Change.org petition to that effect on April 26. As of Monday morning, it had 2,424 signatures.
She said many people in the North are dependent on Amazon Prime for necessities including food, clothing, vitamins and other items that are unavailable or unaffordable locally.
Amazon offers Prime memberships that include free shipping for eligible purchases.
“Food prices are astronomical here, clothes and basic necessities too,” said Matthews. “People are relying on Amazon for stuff and they can’t access it without it costing them an arm or a leg.”
She gave the example of a friend who tried to order a bottle of $10 lotion but discovered upon checkout that shipping would cost $60.
Nunatsiaq News looked up shipping prices to Cambridge Bay for a few basic items and found:
- A $5.59 bottle of vitamin D costs $36.09 with shipping and handling costs;
- A 900-gram box of baby formula with a base cost of $36.99 is $89.94 with shipping and handling;
- A five-box pack of Kraft Dinner with a base cost of $6.47 is $60.32 with shipping and handling.
When asked about the petition, Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll said all customers in Canada are eligible for Amazon Prime.
“Prime members in Canada get free delivery to nearly all addresses in Canada, except remote locations,” she said.
The Amazon website does not list specific communities it considers to be “remote.”
Instead, the website describes remote locations as those “far from shipping hubs, locations rarely served by shippers, and the Canada Post Air Stage Locations that receive mail via airlift at certain times of the year.”
In Nunavut, Iqaluit is eligible for free shipping but the other 24 communities are not.
For a time, Matthews said, people in the community were changing their postal codes on their orders to gain access to free shipping.
By subbing out a number on their postal code, Amazon’s shipping department would accept the package as heading to a location covered by its free shipping services. The package would still make it to the intended address, despite the change.
Matthews said the N.W.T. fires in the summer of 2023, which for a time diverted mail that was bound for the Kitikmeot region, brought the workaround to the attention of mail officials.
Canada Post issued a notice April 10 to residents in Cambridge Bay urging customers to use the correct postal code.
“We’ve been trying to improve our service so that we can provide a stable and reliable service to the people of Nunavut no matter where they live,” Jon Hamilton, a spokesperson for Canada Post, said in an interview.
“Good delivery begins and ends with a proper address, we need people to ensure they fill out the proper address when ordering anything or shipping through Canada Post.”
Canada Post declined further comment on the reason for the notice, when asked by Nunatsiaq News.
Matthews said once her petition reaches her goal of 2,500 signatures, she will contact Amazon and ask the company to change its shipping policy.
According to a post on the IPSA Facebook page, Canada Post has been mistakenly delivering other people’s mail in Iqaluit. Despite this issue, Canada Post has declined to provide a comment. It is worth noting that long before Iqaluit had a hub, residents were able to receive free shipping from Amazon. While Canada Post has changed the postal code for Iqaluit, they have not provided a pre-fixed postal code for other communities so they too can get free shipping… ???
This is a federal issue as Cda Post is a crown corp. Call MP Idlouts office and get her on it.
No, this is a business decision of a private company Amazon.
Canada Post is only involved because it appears to have been accidently mischarging Amazon or possibly accidently subsidizing the route.
It is not within Idlout’s wheelhouse. Whether a private company chooses to provide services or not is up it.
She can certainly try moral suasion, but that is about it unless she wants to propose legislation or something.
Iqaluit isn’t impacted, so she will not care in the least.
The mail service said items with incorrect addresses require additional processing, most often done by hand.
“When considerable numbers of parcels arrive with the incorrect address, working to determine where each one is supposed to go means more time trying to sort through the pile and less time serving customers,” Lisa Liu with Canada Post media relations said in an email.
It slows down the entire system for everyone, Liu said.Shipping charges through Canada Post are either paid by the user or by an online retailer that decides how much to pass on to customers.
So it’s not Canada Post that’s the problem. It is Amazon. Because customers have to change the postal code to get free shipping. CP’s only problem is that the electronic system doesn’t recognize the changed postal code so they have to literally go through every parcel and change it. That costs them more money.
The non-answers by Canada Post and Amazon amaze me. I suppose the luxury of saying nothing useful or even relevant is the luxury big institutions enjoy.
I suspect the issue mostly comes down to what Canada Post charges, though Amazon appears to taking that their own extreme.
Good luck with that. It’s funny that the people who took advantage of this loophole (ie. lied) are now so worried about food security and the prices in Nunavut. They couldn’t have cared less and kept the secret postal code quiet for as long as they could to ensure not too many people used it and it got discovered.
So predictable that Cambridge Bay would be where the petition is launched. At least it’s a distraction from the lack of jet service and paved runway. lol
It’s possible to focus on more than one issue at a given time.
Abhorrent take. One of the worst takes I’ve ever seen on Nunatsiaq.
People have been using this loophole to create more food security for their families, and you’re siding with the corrupt billionaires & incompetent federal crown corp. Have you no shame?
Oh how quickly those in King’s Landing forget about their own desperate times, telling those in the regions that what their NNA is for and accusing them of lying about their postal codes… From 2020:
“In October 2019, a glitch on Amazon’s systems briefly halted free shipping to Iqaluit, sending customers into a panic-buying frenzy, fearful they were about to lose the coveted service.
‘More and more items that had come with free shipping to Iqaluit in the past now come with the disclaimer “this item requires special handling and cannot be shipped to your selection location. There were several work arounds that seemed to work, such as using a physical address vs a post office box.’
‘It was probably the hottest topic in town when it did happen. With no formal information, rumours started to fly and there was a lot of fear in town,’ Sheppard recalled, adding that many people “breathed a sigh of relief” when the service returned a few days later.”
From 2017:
‘In 2015, Amazon re-evaluated its shipping to remote locations and dropped many Nunavut communities, but kept Iqaluit. Now, Iqalummiut live in perpetual fear that they will be next to get cut off by Amazon.
“We’d be limping,” said Rhoda Cunningham outside the post office in June.
“It would be very, very bad, I don’t want to say pandemonium, but maybe something akin to that,” said David Marineau-Plante, after picking up his mail.
Food insecurity in Nunavut ‘should be considered a national crisis,’ expert says
Many in town rely on the service for everything from deodorant to hardware supplies to non-perishable food.
Alookie Itorcheak said she’s been using Amazon for four years, to make being a mom more affordable.’
But now King’s Landing is endowed with their own hub, despite the fact that Amazon definitely loses money on that service.
My takeaway from this is that the prices that local stores are charging are not that unreasonable, given the transportation options. Granted they don’t ship by Canada Post and have negotiated reduced shipping rates. I bet there is a sense of satisfaction at the HQ of NWC/ACL in Winnipeg today.
Amazon isn’t a philanthropical organization they are a capitalist enterprise driven by profit margin and shareholder returns. Asking Amazon to address issues like food scarcity and food insecurity is nonsensical. If these folks have access to the credit cards necessary to order from Amazon then they are able to pay for NNC subsidized orders from southern retailers that cater to Northern Communities (e.g. Northern Shopper) like everyone else.
If Item X = $5.00 (with taxes) plus shipping = $100.00, who is getting the $95.00?
As we see, the shipping to communities is a huge mark up so does it go to Canada post, the airline, and/or Amazon?
“Shopper”, if you don’t already know the answer to your question then you either don’t live in the north or are completely clueless as to how air freight services work. The additional costs go to the airline as an air freight tariff, this is tariff is the same whether the unit is shipped through Canada Post or through a retailer. The difference being that for Iqaluit Amazon has chosen to pay the tariff themselves as a cost of service. If you buy through a southern retailer the tariff is most likely built into the final price you pay at checkout so you don’t actually see what it is while in the case of Canada post is added as a shipping charge.
No, the ridiculous shipping rate of $95.00 is set by the private seller. It is a common thing seen by private sellers on Amazon. The actual shipping cost may be a fraction of that and the remainder is profit towards the seller.
Completely incorrect
Who has been footing the bill these last few years when we’ve been fudging postal codes? Was canada post getting billed from the airlines or was it Amazon?
Canada Post’s refusal to comment doesn’t help but northerners shouldn’t have to use fake postal codes to get access to goods. I don’t think anyone is asking for absolutely free shipping to the Arctic, but the current rates being charged by Amazon are ridiculous. These purchases should be subsidized the same way groceries are subsidized.
Canada Post lost nearly $800M last year so it is understandable that they are looking for ways to try and balance their books, but they are also providing an important service. In comparison, America’s USPS lost USD $6.5B last year, so these services are expected to operate at a deficit.
The times are changing and more subsidies are needed for getting packages to the north. We shouldn’t have to use fake postal codes just to have access to reasonable rates.
Ok where is a link to the petition?
Amazon could setup a hub in, yes, Cambridge Bay to serve this region. The freight costs are insane.
Ya, like a petition getting a couple thousand signatures is gonna push Canada Post and amazon to pay for the shipping of millions of dollars of Amazon orders for free. Get real. Most Post office’s in Nunavut don’t even have space or workers for all the stuff people were buying,. Pelly Bay post office closed almost all the time cause no worker’s
Support your local co-op’s.
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It costs a lot of $$ to ship to the north and a lot to operate in the north. Surely you didn’t expect Amazon and Can Post to artificially subsidize you forever did you? They aren’t a charity and we’re bound to catch on that they were losing $$
There is no surprise that an end was put to this, that it lasted so long is surprising. Rather than being upset that it’s been taken away, the folks who used and abused the system should be happy that it lasted as long as it did. I’m sure most have a years supply of toilet paper and dog food tucked away in their pantries. Remember it is called northern living allowance on your pay stub (to offset the high prices), not isolation pay.
Northern Living Allowance what is that?
I suspect that if Amazon raised the Prime membership a reasonable rate for remote communities, they would get back all the sales they are going to lose now.
Free shipping to nunavut is not sustainable. Subsidizing essential items is sustainable, so if NNC could subsidize food items that would be a start. Ordering toys and junk food with free shipping is not sustainable. Canada post doesn’t have the staff or space anyways to process all these orders. Have you seen what canadian north charges for cargo? That is being billed to somebody somewhere, and I’m guessing they finally figured it out after all those years lol
Agreed. It was nice while it lasted, but at the end of the day, people used a loophole and are upset that they got caught.
Amazon is a horrible company and Jeff Bezos is a complete and total crook! I’d rather purchase anything anywhere else.
You do you, but the moral high ground can be an expensive place to stand. Too expensive for most people. And when it comes right down to it, whether you’re talking about Amazon, Walmart, loblaws, Northern or Costco, they all exist for the sole purpose of maximizing profit.
Say what you want but until recently people in the communities have benefited from Amazon way more than the Nutrition North farce. Those who are complaining about NN should only subsidise healthy food, people in the communities also deserve to have potato chips when they have movie night at home and not having to pay $10/bag.So yeah, Jeff Bezos is evil, but at the end of the day, kitchen pantry is full and folks didn’t have to sell their kidney to stock it up. That matters more. And those folks lying about the postal code, sounds like Canada Post is bearing the costs. The petition is pointless until Canada Post decides to alter their shipping charges.
Who lost on this postal code hack? Why is it free to Iqaluit Yellowknife and Whitehorse but not Dawson Inuvik and Rankin. Is it local shippers gouging that Canada Post won’t absorb? If so I’d like to know to call them out.
“hold my beer” – Northwest Company to Amazon
IMO, this is a job for your politicians. From what I read on the CBC, it was totally a Canada Post decision that’s brought about this problem. Basically, they claim that that they can’t deal with people using incorrect postal codes. Maybe they need to buy a new computer (they could get a good deal from Amazon 😉 ). Anyway, your representatives in Iqualuit should get on to Canada Post to reverse their decision and better serve the remote communities of the North.
PS: My specific interest in this is that I’m worried about what’s going to happen to the dolls that Amazon is supposed to be delivering to my 5 yr old granddaughter in Sanirajak.
Economies of scale, thats why. Only places in the north with true free amazon is Whitehorse Iqaluit and Yellowknife. Why? Becasue of ecnomies of scale
I mean, obviously, everyone and their dog already knows that though. I believe the initiative here is more to raise awareness and get in the public eye especially after the recent Nutritious North segment that was explaining only about 69% of the subsidy is passed along to the end consumer and the rest could not be accounted for / ACL and NWC adding it to their bottom line.
The point is to raise awareness I believe and ultimately have the gov’t determine if they want to subsidize shipping to remote locations via their Crown Corp Canada Post. People will say , well why should our tax dollars go to that, and that’s the argument, you have to look at all the publicly funded items via tax dollars and determine if this warrants those tax dollars. Clearly Nutritious North is not working successfully so perhaps a different avenue is worth looking at. Will people agree necessarily that subsidized shipping is worth tax dollars, perhaps not, but do people agree that some LGBTQ+ monument in Ottawa should be built for 13M just released today, definitely not but somewhere it was determined that warrants public tax dollars.
I am sure many people here can think of hundreds of tax dollar funds and money going to XYZ that are far less impactful than someone being able to better afford food in the most expensive and poorest places.
Everyone knows financially it makes no sense, there’s little to pointing that out. The argument is not about if it makes financial sense for Amazon, the argument is around should tax dollars subsidize goods to the price that vast majority of the rest of Canada including Nunavut capital have access to or should tax dollars be spent elsewhere and frankly given some of the tax sinks we have, there’s probably a valid argument there that this is more impactful than some of the recent budgetary spending and by all means it might not mean free shipping, bit could mean just a reduced because frankly many people would pay some shipping if it means they can still get access to goods that are just not available, which in these small communities, that’s a lot of goods you just cant purchase because they don’t exist there.
There’s a very valid and real discussion around tax dollar utilization, to bad its sort of lost I think in this article and CBC’s, really these articles unfortunately did little investigation work.
Furthermore to this, if you want to discuss economies of scale the entire existence of Nunavut comes into question. Our fuel and heating fuel is heavily subsidized because the price would be astronomical per litre. Our W&S is subsidized to nearly 1/20th of the actual cost which is due to the funding received by the hamlets from the GN which is all federal transfer payment money funded via tax dollars.
I could list more and more things in NU that is heavily subsidized because the entire territory does not make sense, hence why a NU resident costs significantly more tax dollars than a resident in most of the rest of the country.
I don’t really think economies of scale is ever a discussion point in NU. Its always going to be should the government’t subsidize it further like many other daily things, and that’s a totally valid conversation to have given the worlds move to e-commerce. What once was a line in the sand of where funding stops should and needs to be revisited time to time to determine if that line is still in the appropriate place.
What economies of scale matter? Who paid for the excess shipping all this time, without issue? Where in the supply chain does the cost vary between cities of similar geographic nature. The fact Iqaluit is free and other northern locations that are accessible by road are not should raise questions.
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Saying “because economies of scale” is not specific enough. Is there a population threshold where a light turns on that it is profitable? Does CP lose on Iqaluit as it is all air freight?
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My guess is that the cost to get things from YZF to Rankin Inlet is higher for some reason. What is the reason? I don’t know. Does Canadian North charge more for freight? Is it the size of the planes?
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When I price a parcel it is the same price to ship it South from across multiple northern remote cities. I can’t square any of these facts, which leads me to believe:.
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It is not “economies of scale” but politics and votes.
Amazon is committed to send shipments for free to all provincial and territorial capitals
It’s easy to say force Canadian North, Amazon, and Canada Post to deliver these parcels at the prime rate with a petition, however it’s important to consider the practical challenges of expanding Amazons model and/or hubs to more remote communities.
The partnership between Canadian North and Amazon in creating the Iqaluit hub shows what’s possible, but replicating this requires significant resources like adequate space and a reliable workforce. Given the existing difficulties in staffing local post offices, establishing and maintaining additional hubs presents real challenges. Plus, finding large enough buildings for operations is not always feasible.
Perhaps a more viable option might be for Amazon and Canada Post to collaborate specifically on shipping essential items like food and infant products that qualify for the Nutrition North subsidies, while excluding non-essential goods. If the Government of Canada allowed Canada Post to recover the subsidy on essential items, it could address the financial issue for Canada Post.
This would help reduce the volume of non-essential goods being ordered, which, let’s be honest, has been exacerbated by current loopholes. This adjustment could streamline deliveries and focus resources on truly essential items. This targeted approach could address some of the volume issues Canada post has, without the extensive infrastructure upgrades.
Oh and amazon doesn’t care about the sales they will lose to nunavut. Were just a grain of sand to them.
Just allow amazon for customers in the north to pay for shipping. There’s Temu and alibaba. Although I will not trust alibaba. Temu is actually good. Amazon will lose money and they’ve already lost millions and millions to temu and alibaba. I do not trust alibaba. But temu is actually way cheaper than amazon and does free shipping. Even though they are based in China. Where as amazon has locations all over north America. Temu.com.ca will give you a free item if you order multiple items. Not just once but multiple times.
Do you trust Alibaba?
Alibaba tells us to do source checking as not all ads are legit. But for those that are legit. They’ve got rides that are atleast two times cheaper than what dealerships have to offer. I’m talking EVs and gas engines. Some tools that we could use up north like augers, even boats. 6 by 6 UTVs. Again cheaper than most Canadian dealerships. The next time I want a new ride. I’m looking into alibaba. I need a new motor. Might go jet propulsion. No seaweeds here.
Truthfully amazon is still shipping parcels to these “addresses”, Canada Post is still accepting them, they are generally getting to the Northern shipping branch (I.e Canada post is still sending them from Edmonton/Mississauga/Toronto to Winnipeg before they are now getting diverted. So why are they still accepting them at the major centres but then returning them at other locations?
I bought crackers May 3 (after all this) and it went from Toronto to Winnipeg on May 5th without any problems so obviously Canada Post doesn’t really care about the incorrect shipping. This is just a whole lot of crap that has NOTHING to do with Amazon or Canada Post but about discrimination to the North…
Everyone should set aside $20 and order 3 cases on 12 pack Pepsi/pop to the “wrong postal code”. Your gonna get a refund no matter what (whether it is sent back, or lost) so doesn’t affect you at all. Every time you get refunded you order again If everyone keeps doing this someone somewhere will have to eventually deal with it and give the north an official response.
What motivates this ‘discrimination’ against the north’ you’re talking about?
The postal codes used by northern residents isn’t a hack or some secret to be kept under the rug. It was an effort by Canada post them selves to bring essential services to rural residents of Canada, with the contingency that we (northern residents) acknowledge that the 2-3 day shipping promises cant be upheld.
In the same vein, Amazon isn’t innocent either. Congomerate or mega corporation or not prime members who signed up for free 2-3 days shipping didn’t have any clause saying northern or rural addresses are exempt. They faced this similar issue when they switched Amazon prime video from ad free as the basic packaged to the basic packaged having ads, those who signed up for a year of the basic plan now had ads that wasn’t in the original agreement.
Whether or not you support structural violence, that is to keep essential services away from certain populations or not is up to you. Relocate all the towns to affordable locations sure. But the reason nunavuts split up into 25-6 towns wasn’t by the inuit it was by the federal government in the wake of the cold war and inuit still face innumerable injustice as a result of this, with their livelihoods from thousands of years wiped away in one generation and replaced with all the disgusting nasty attitudes on nunatsiaq news. Inuit are people and deserve access to basic essential goods.
You’ll have to back up your claims Canada Post did this to provide an essential service (and I do not believe Amazon is essential either), because I don’t believe a word of that.
Further, I was well aware that being a northern resident impacting my Prime membership….. this was no secret and was quite clear.
Inuit (really, Nunavut residents) deserve no more or no less access to any services or goods than what private companies privilege them with access to.
It is perfectly legit for a private company not to service certain regions or areas, at its sole discretion, with no explanation needed. If I company decides that it is not cost-effective or too much of hassle, even if they make a profit, then that region doesn’t get the service of that company. Amazon would be perfectly correct to say that the money spent providing service to remote regions of Nunavut would be more productively spent in Rosedale. We don’t have to like it, but it is really that simple.
Government services are clearly different.
The “local” Co-Ops are ripping people off and Arctic Co-Operatives Ltd is every bit as bad as the Northwest Company.
I understand people ordering essential items and gifts for the little ones which was awesome and much cheaper.
But what probably didn’t help was when people started ordering beds and clothes dryers and they kept saying they were being sent back…. well no sh%t Sherlock.
Order Summary
Items: $47.97
Shipping & Handling: $473.87
Total before tax: $521.84
Estimated GST/HST: $26.09
Estimated PST/RST/QST: $0.00
Total: $547.93
UnPrimed cost to ship a 20kg bag of dry dog food to Kugluktuk.
– It’d probably cost $100 for that bag of dog food in Kugluktuk – which is cheap by ANY metric. Go there to buy your food. Support local jobs. – Beyond the store’s cost of sales and shipping, most of every dollar you spend stays local AND you pay a fair price.
John, a quick scan of the Nutrition North website shows at least 5 southern retailers that service the Kitikmeot. I can guarantee that you will be able to order dog food from one of them for a fraction of the $500 per bag cost quoted by Amazon. At present you can get a bag dog food here in the South Baffin for about $130 through Northern Shopper, and yes that price includes the cost to ship it from Ottawa to the community. Y’all just have your noses out of joint because you lost your access to free shipping.
“A $5.59 bottle of vitamin D costs $36.09 with shipping and handling costs;
A 900-gram box of baby formula with a base cost of $36.99 is $89.94 with shipping and handling;
A five-box pack of Kraft Dinner with a base cost of $6.47 is $60.32 with shipping and handling.”
– Those are extremely fair prices for shipping. No sensible person would order a bottle of vitamins, a box of formula or a pack of Kraft Dinner and expect to pay less in shipping.
– If you want those items go to your local store and buy them at the going, fair price. That’s what stores are for. Geesh!
That isn’t the point, you’re missing the point completely. That’s an unreasonable price to the end consumer, especially given median wages in NU as of 2021 we’re $36,950 in 2021. Now that’s median which is a far better metric than average, given the average is typically propped up by southern expertise that won’t ever reside in NU long term and does not represent the long term nunavummiut resident.
Free shipping helped bridge that gap, one of the lowest median incomes in Canada in the most expensive place to live in Canada.
And using the word “fair” is absurd in NU. Is it “Fair” that your water bill full cost is $900 per month but after you look at water subsidy its $74 because tax payers subsidized 92% of it (based on Cam Bay Rates). Is it “fair” that NU often has lower fuel costs than southern Canada due to it being so subsidized off the back of Canadian tax payers because not a single person could afford to heat a home or run a vehicle otherwise.
Why is food so significantly different than water or heating fuel? Why is it “Fair” that something costs 10x the price of a southern counterpart when the other essential goods do not?
I don’t know the answer to those questions, the entire topic is up for debate, and that’s the real discussion to be had at a federal government level. Do they subsidize food further essentially and if they agree to how do they limit it to food and household good because quite obviously if you have resided in NU for any good period of time handing dollars right to for-profit companies to allocate (Nutritious North) does not work. So do they consider subsidy through their Crown Corp, Canada Post.
Also we could discuss “local” stores. I mean, anecdotally, have you ever been to the Northern in Cambridge Bay? 80% of its staff are fly in workers because they can’t find local people to even stock the shelves. They have to provide stock workers with housing, per-diems, etc because no one in town will do it, and the few local individuals that do work there are minimum wage cashier positions. If you think there’s more money staying in town vs cost savings people were getting from Amazon you are certainly not thinking it through very hard, the net savings dwarfs what a few cashiers are making and keeping in the community tenfold.
“Fair” is an interesting word to toss around in Nunavut.
Go see what Northern’s Alaskan counterpart (ACC) charges for the same goods as in NUnavut, but unsubsidized. In Barrow, a gallon of milk is US$20. A gallon of gas is US$12. THey get a lot of royalties from Oil and Gas but one day those reserves will run dry
Those are absolutely not fair prices for shipping. Look up how much it costs to send a 900 gram package to any Nunavut community through Canada Post or Canadian North. It will not be $53.
This will sound like a harsh thing to say but here goes. If you can’t get a job where you live that pays enough for your expenses then you should move—say to Alberta. Just make sure you get an education and marketable skills for a job that pays a living wage wherever you decide to live. You may not like Amazon but no one is entitled to charity from them or any other business.
It has ever been thus.
I think the form of charity you speak of would be at the government level subsidizing shipping on essential goods if it were to come to fruition, essentially a better form of Nutritious North which could be totally reasonable.
Do you extend your comment to other essential goods in Nunavut that are already subsidized by a significant multiplier? Would you tell everyone who lives here hey if you can’t afford the real cost of heating fuel or water before the massive subsidy you should not live here? If that’s the case perhaps we should just fold Nunavut and relocate everyone. The gov’t tried that once though and well I don’t think they can do it again….
I think it would be interesting if you applied that comment across all NU residents to see who could even come close to living here. I know I sure couldn’t if my monthly W&S bill was actual cost, or heating fuel was actual cost, or vehicle fuel was actual cost.
And Quebecois should leave Quebec because Quebec can’t afford to exist without equalization payments.
It’s a super charged sucking machine crushing local business and we ask for more?
It is a difficult proposition to advance a company that works to a global policy, to entertain a local need. Amazon’s business model is strictly to have as many people buy something from them as opposed to someone else. Once they have enough people do this, their competition gets smaller. Once their competition gets smaller, they take away their consumer power.
I think it will be hard to convince amazon to foot the bill on shipping for such a low amount of population. They are not injecting into the local economy either and do not invest in it, so they have no reason to protect it by lowering its shipment prices.
Yes, local business in Nunavut pay horrendous wages. Look on Facebook when they advertise. How can you live off just above minimum wage in Nunavut reasonably?
I’d love to say support local, but it makes no sense to support local. Local retailers simply do not add anything to the towns’ economy because they pay so little, offer no benefit packages, no pension options, nothing. They money saved via having something at a southern price for the entire town is vastly, vastly nets a better position than a few local minimum wage jobs and one or two people who own the business living in a big home.
If you want people to support local business, make it make sense to do so because right now it absolutely does not. You might say prices will have to go up if we pay our staff more. Well, I guess that only further adds to the point that local business just does not work well.
Life Lesson for spoiled Inuks: Businesses in the south don’t care about you, you are a mere 8000 people in a country of 40 million people in Canada. Just because you are treated like KINGS up here in the north, you think you are owed something. Amazon doesn’t care about a couple of thousand people in remote areas, get it through your heads, you mean nothing to a multi-billion dollar company like Amazon. Get over yourselves and get to work like the rest of us.
Is there not a fair discussion though of having Canada’s Crown Corp, Canada Post subsidize the cost though? If not, why not? We subsidize everything to a degree across Canada, if you look from a net cost per Canadian citizen the cost ranges depending on location across Canada. Should we relocate everyone the single most cheapest area per tax dollar area in Canada because it makes the most financial sense for tax payers. Rural Maratimers cost significantly more per citizen than those in metros? Should we say no more Maratimers, your total revenue to expenditure ratio is far too high, cough up the costs yourself?
Where do we draw that line? Do we say yay for some citizens and nay for others, do we take subsidization to a set line in the sand without consideration for location or do we take geographical considerations into account?
Its a pretty complex issue when you actually start digging into the distribution of federal revenues compared to the collection of federal revenues across each province and territory but that actually takes some delving into compared to making silly comments like “hur dur hur get to work!”
Vince, you may have made the single most uneducated comment on here. I don’t even truly know where to start.
1) 8,000? Where did you get this number, population of Iqaluit I am guessing , there’s a lot more to Nunavut than Iqaluit, the majority of the population in fact….
2) Iqaluit has an Amazon Hub and has free shipping, so yes, clearly I guess they do care enough to offer free shipping to 8,000 people.
3) Live like Kings? Nunavut has the worst malnutrition rates, worst education rates, worst employment rates, lowest life expectancy and the list goes on.
4) Please, please go back to school.
Canada Post is a crown corporation, but is not subsidized financially by the Canadian Government. It is fully self supported by its revenues and not tax dollars when it comes to it’s operation. According to Canada Post financial statements, they do not receive Federal Support in the form of money from taxpayers.
So you would have to approach the federal government on that front, but I guess the issue is, they are using the Nutrition North program for the food aspect(whether or not it works).
So Canada Post is likely not in a position to subsidized the rate unless the government was to give them money for it.
Amazon users aren’t the poor. They are Nunavut’s middle class with good paying jobs and credit cards. The poor get their welfare and go straight to the Northern regardless, as they can’t wait 2 weeks for Amazon and in most cases don’t have credit cards. All those that are complaining have jobs and receive sizeable Northern Allowances which are meant to offset the cost of living in the north, not cheat their way thru Amazon.
Thank you for pointing this out. We will see a lot of public servants in other communities looking to move to Iqaluit now just because of this.
While yes, many of the poorest do not have access to credit to make purchases, what you are suggesting simply is not true that its only the middle class and beyond that benefits from this.
Many families have at-least one breadwinner or individual that has a GN job that supports many generations of family, that individual needs to make their income and NLA stretch over many people. This is pretty commonplace in NU. Diapers, baby-wipes, dry food, etc. It gets picked up from Canada Post and dropped off to your family members that can’t afford food. At-least that’s how its done here in the West. Family supporting family and trying to make each dollar go as far as possible.
Middle Class Fancy only knows the dual-income, no kids, middle aged white couples in Iqaluit who order through Amazon.
YES! EXACTLY! The loudest complaints are coming from Provincial Govt Employees. School Teachers. Canada Post should send a bill to all these people who have been deliberately committing fraud for years.
Hey pussycat, get a life. Of all the deplorable and heinous crimes committed in the North, you’re going to ask that teachers who skirted the Amazon/Canada Post policy be charged with fraud. There is an unprecedented amount of adult to child physical and sexual abuse, elder abuse, domestic violence, violent accostings, people working for NU organizations and Hamlets that have pilfered hundreds of thousands and this list could go on for a bit yet… But, you want teachers charged for placing an incorrect digit in their postal code so that they can receive products in a remote part of the world all the while trading their mental and physical health.
The logistical fundamentals in Nunavut are daunting. For on demand shopping, air freighting purchases is the only option. Besides retailers spreading our astronomical freight costs among other southern customers (southern customers subsidizing northern ones). the only way to change this situation is to improve Nunavut logistics.
it is 2,000 km from Montreal to Iqaluit by air. It is 1,500 km from Winnipeg to Rankin by air. It is 870 km from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay by air. And, with carbon pricing, fuel hog aircraft are only going to be more expensive to run.
There is a very good reason that companies like Amazon can offer free shipping in southern Canada. That is because there is relatively easy and cheap ways to connect their goods with their customers; roads, railways, distribution centers, etc.
If Nunavut truly wants to make living here more affordable, it is crystal clear we need a land bridge(s) to southern Canada; a road or roads into Arctic Quebec, the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot.
These things would allow companies like Amazon to get their goods within a couple hundred Kms of Nunavut customers relatively cheaply. Only the “last mile” would be air, and from a fraction of the distance.
If any petition is needed here, it should be directed at the GN and Inuit Orgs to double down and get even more serious about designing, approving, funding and building roads to or near Nunavut.
Once a road is built you lose NN subsidies. The prices in places like inuvik and Tuk are much higher than most nunavut communities and they have road access. Lot of larger towns like Hay River have road access and yet still no free amazon too
Didn’t take long for Canadian North to capitalize on this news. They just sent an update around now. No longer will the top fares allow you 3 bags. If you want a third bag its $138 dollars AND now anything beyond a third bag must go cargo at absurd cargo rates.
its been a three bag allowance on super-flex forever… and suddenly we lose shipping of goods and Canadian North knows people will be using action packers again like the good old days and they jump on it.
Bleeding people dry, name of the game.