Taloyoak research project to study access to food
Project receives $250,000 from Nutrition North grant
A research project that will study food insecurity in Taloyoak has received $250,000 from a Nutrition North grant, Northern Affairs Minister Daniel Vandal announced Monday. (File photo)
A research project looking at food security in Taloyoak has received $250,000 from Nutrition North.
The project will be undertaken by the governing council of the University of Toronto in collaboration with the hamlet of Taloyoak and Whati, N.W.T.
It will use interviews with residents plus “concept mapping,” or graphic diagrams, “to reveal the core ideas through which Inuit living in Taloyoak experience food sufficiency, security, and affordability,” said Kyle Allen, a spokesperson for Northern Affairs Minister Daniel Vandal, in an email to Nunatsiaq News.
It will also review the delivery of the Nutrition North Canada retail subsidy and Harvesters Support Grant.
The goal is to identify “conceptual gaps and disjunctures” that may be affecting Taloyoak residents’ access to sufficient food supplies, Allen said.
It’s one of five projects throughout the North that will receive a total of $1.5 million through Nutrition North Canada’s new Food Security Research Grant, Vandal announced Monday.
These projects are the first to receive funding under the grant since its official launch in August 2022.
“The projects will examine food access inequality, how the [Nutrition North Canada] retail subsidy is benefitting and reaching people in eligible communities, and help address data gaps on the cost of living,” Vandal said in a news release.
$250K to do a study that we already know there is food insecurity across the North? Waste of money! And how is it going to help doing a research? Recommendations? Recommendations that will not even be acted on. NU and NWT have the highest cost for everything! $1.5 million to do a study, ridicilous!! A tub of yogurt $22.79 (price tag says pre-subsidy $32.05) in Nunavut and the same size same brand of yogurt in the south $3.99. do we really need more research on food insecurity, when WE already know this is a big problem? When Inuit and First Nations people started getting assistance from Inuit Children’s First Initiative and Jordan’s Principle, both Northern Stores and Coops increased their prices on everything! Crazy! We are just making the shareholders of the Northern Stores richer and richer. And it’s ridicilous that some communities have absolutely no choice when their community has only one store. No competition so they can jack up their prices all they want. Junk food is more afforadable then healthy food. And the healthy food is suppose to be subsidize? Seriously! We dont need research grants we need assistance to be able to buy healthy food. Put this $1.5 million to subsidize better so that we can buy more healthy food.
Hard to believe you don’t see value in “concept mapping… to reveal the core ideas through which Inuit living in Taloyoak experience food sufficiency, security, and affordability.” Or the importance of identifying “conceptual gaps and disjunctures”.
Absolutely stunning! Are you not bedazzled by this?
The point of deliberately vague, obscurantist language like this, in my opinion, is to hide the nebulous, uncertain, and arguably frivolous nature (I almost used the word ‘goals’) of the study.
On the one hand this is a way to scare off criticism by the uninitiated (that is, the uneducated and those not familiar with a particular jargon) by creating a mystical veneer of profundity and seriousness.
It is indeed frustrating to see exercises like this repeated without any translation to ‘real world’ outcomes equal to the value of the investment. While that might be tricky to determine in some ways, we should ask if that 250K would be more effectively use to buy groceries for the residents of the community. Not a long term solution, sure, but more useful than an exercise in pushing the boundaries of language in the service of fake ‘street cred’ for a few researchers.
Is the irony here unintentional or, you’re serious?
Taloyoak has a population of under 950 (and this is split between a community in the NTW as well) Dividing $250k by 950 is $256 per person to buy groceries once.
I like you, you’re good at math. Let’s try another question.
Would you rather everyone in the community received a $250 food voucher, or $250,000 goes to a research group led by the University of Toronto “to reveal the core ideas through which Inuit living in Taloyoak experience food sufficiency, security, and affordability.”
Sure, neither is going to solve the crisis, but let’s say one of the two will have a more positive impact on the people of Taloyoak than the other. Which one is that?
Depends on how much they can get for the vouchers on Facebook, really. I am still seeing fuel vouchers for sale from the last time those were handed out. 😉 I’ll go with the research.
Fair enough, I’m curious what benefits to the community you see coming from this study?
Aqpik, You may want to note that the “shareholders of the Co-op are its local members.
Secondly, what is your source for all your information so that we can review it ourselves?
There are and have been a lot of factors that have caused the increase in the cost of goods and services to the North. Look no further than the main cause of the increase in inflation, that in our Liberal/NDP coalition’s budget. Another deficit even though they PROMISED a balanced budget just six months ago.
What has our most often absentee MP done as well as her two previous MPs? Nothing for Nunavut.
Taloyoak is a non-decentralized community with almost zero local economic development. To top it off, the Federal government is actively encouraging local people to make the entire area a form of Park. Unemployment is very high, and employment is very low. There are no future prospects for the hundreds of young people and their growing families in this community.
Taloyoak has the highest rate of poverty in Nunavut. People that are socially dependent -given the current scope of government handouts- have a very hard time affording food, or anything else for that matter. The only people in Nunavut that can afford decent meals have a good paying job.
There are two solutions. More social dependency – increase Nutrition North spending dramatically. Or, have development that provides for jobs that pay wages that can be used to buy food.
Given that Taloyoak has been duped by the Federal government and other groups to collectively turn their backs on development, this research study hardly seems necessary; fast forward to giving Taloyoak more public charity already from elsewhere in Canada where people are still willing to accept the conditions necessary for individual self sufficiency.
People can then continue to live in Taloyoak on or barely above the poverty line until they get sick and tired of the abject hopelessness and lack of opportunity and leave.
Only then they can move to a greener pasture where food costs less and there are things that their adopted communities are willing to see happen that allows a person to pay for their own food.
Taloyoak then shrinks to unviable level, only people there will be tourists enjoying the “pristine” wilderness, and the self serving and now well heeled HTO Board. Problem solved. Research study closed.
Nunavut territory is the most expensive territory in the whole wide world of economics and nwt is possibly next if not for 3rd world countries somewhere else a regular sized turkey can cost over 100 bucks any given day ….and a can of pop ? Cheapest commodity in North America can fetch as much as 6 dollars a can …..go figure .
Nunavut also has the highest average income in Canada – $83,000.00 per year. This is almost double the province last on the list – New Brunswick. Employers understand that significantly higher wages are necessary up here to attract and retain workers and our labor market reflects this.
It is not necessarily the price of food in Nunavut that is the problem. Food price is only one part of the equation.
The average working person in Nunavut has almost twice as much income to spend on food compared to the average working person in New Brunswick. Given our food prices are around double of down south, that makes food price not as critical an issue for those that are employed, as say, housing cost.
The problem is more to do with getting more Nunavummuit employed with the many high paying jobs available such that we can afford what will always be a high cost of food given our remoteness.
It is only when you assume that people will never, ever achieve upward mobility in Nunavut that the focus turns to the actual price of food.
Agree #1 another study costing much,when for so many years all you heard was housing and food insecurity by the wannabe politicians at voting time.
Study this, study that, but actual action? Nope.
As from Taloyoak, Nunavut I myself work fulltime and can’t afford to feed my family of 7 The cost is so high sometimes I wounder what my family will eat. The Northern and Co-op get funding from the Government of Canada for food prices and yet the price just go high sky. And on top of food price we still have to pay for our rent. What we need is a whatch dog for Northern and Co-op to make sure that they are not misusing the funding that they get from the Government.
I live in Taloyoak and the food cost is very high at both store I have a full time job I can’t afford to get enough food for my family of 7 the food cost is too high. Both stores get funding from the Government of Canada to keep the cost of food lower still very high sometime I think of what I’ll feed my family The research should look into getting a watch dog to make sure that both stores are’t misusing the funding they get.
Maybe next they can spend a million dollars to prove that water is wet.