Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to the motion before the House of Commons. The motion talks to nutrition north Canada, a program that is in place to help provide nutritious food to northern communities across Canada, so many people who live in those northern regions can have a healthy diet, can have access to nutritious food in their communities and to ensure that those foods are affordable.

However, while nutrition north was supposed to make nutritional food more accessible and affordable to northerners in a very transparent way, four years after its launch, the Auditor General has slammed the program as an abject failure. People in many areas of the north, we know for sure in Rankin Inlet, are scrounging for food in waste sites, in dumps.

What has the program actually done for the amount of money that has been invested? This is where the key question begins. We know this program is currently seeing millions of dollars being invested into it. However, the question remains this. Why is this money not reaching the families who need it? Why is it not reaching northerners who need to have nutritional food that is affordable for them and their families? These are very good questions, and questions that became very evident in the Auditor General's report. However, there were other things as well.

The Auditor General has outlined, very clearly, that when we look across Canada's north, we will notice there are 50 isolated northern communities that are only accessibly by air and are not currently eligible for the full subsidy under this program. First, we know that is wrong. We know of situations where communities are completely adjacent to each other, only miles apart in some cases, yet one community is getting a subsidy that is nearly double what the other community is getting.

We need to look at the fairness in the program. Why is it not being applied fairly to communities that are of similar distance, that have similar needs, that have similar transportation mechanisms and that have the same challenges in accessing nutritional food?

The other thing we need to look at is why so many communities are being omitted from the program, communities that are completely isolated and communities that are only accessible by air. Why are those communities not being added to the list? This is not a new issue. It has been around for quite some time. The Auditor General has pointed that out on a number of occasions. However, there has been no action by the government to include those communities. Again, that is unfair.

We are not seeing fairness being practised in how the program is being delivered to northerners. What is even more concerning to me is we are not seeing where the subsidy is going.

I represent a very northern region in our country, in Labrador, that is actually a part of the nutrition north subsidy program. Before that, it was a part of the food by mail program. I have listened to government members being critical of the food by mail program, yet they are not prepared to address the flaws that are in the nutrition north program simply because it is a creation of their government. It is irrelevant who created the program. The relevance is in ensuring that it works and that it reaches the people who actually need it.

However, there are so many other communities in the north like the ones I represent. I have travelled through Nunavut, through the Northwest Territories, through Yukon, all areas which have many communities that depend upon nutrition north programs, and so many others across Canada. I know for a fact what the high prices of food are in many of those communities and I know for a fact that many people in those communities live below the poverty line. They are Canadians who often do not have employment opportunities available to them, at least on a year-round basis, because of climate and other factors that affect their regions. They live on marginal incomes if not very low incomes. Accessing food that, in some cases, is three times more expensive than most Canadians would pay is very unfair.

What the motion today is asking is that the isolated northern communities that have been omitted from this program be added and be eligible for the full subsidy. It also asks for a comprehensive review of the nutrition north program, and that northerners be full partners in that.

One of the things we have learned is that, while there is a review process with nutrition north, that review process does not allow all the communities that participate to actually give feedback. It is up to the board of nutrition north to decide which five communities it wants to go into and review, or which six communities, or whether it is only going to go into two communities.

First of all, we think there should be an ongoing review of the program, and at some point all communities should have an opportunity to have feedback into the program.

We really believe that, for this work, northerners do have to be full partners, but they also have to have the opportunity to give input and to provide solutions for the program on how it could work better, how monies could be better invested or better distributed, and how people could be more accountable to the program and to government for the investment. That definitely has to happen.

The motion talks about improved supports for traditional foods. Obviously I am a huge supporter of ensuring that we have traditional foods available in northern communities and aboriginal communities, in particular, where people are very dependent on traditional foods as part of their diet.

We also know that there are regions across the Arctic and across the north where a lot of traditional foods are not as readily available as they used to be. For example, in my area we have a ban on hunting cariboo right now. Cariboo was the main diet of people in that northern region. It was the main protein, next to seal meat, that these communities were consuming.

Now with a ban on cariboo, many people are left hungry, having to go to the local Northern Store to try to find foods to feed their family. They are not able to hunt from the land as they used to. Those kinds of restrictions are having a huge impact on the diet of northerners.

However, I have seen some good models that are being developed. Some of those models include community freezer programs, where people who are able to get some traditional foods by hunting from the land can make them available in the community through a community freezer program.

I would encourage the government, if it wants to look at ensuring traditional foods in those communities, to support those programs. Some of them do get some funding from government, but most of it is done through charitable donations and fundraising. It does work.

I have also seen programs called the community pantry, which is not always nutritional foods but staple foods like flour, milk, tea, and those kinds of staples that people need to be available in communities, mostly dry ingredients. There are no food banks in many of these communities. If people are hungry and they cannot afford to buy from the store because of the prices and they cannot access food any other way, community pantries allow them to have the very staples they need to be able to provide some food for their family.

I have seen those programs that are working fairly well. There are things out there that are being created by local northern people themselves in their own communities, which are a fit for them. I would like to see the government look at those things and see how they are working.

In fact, only a short time ago, I met with a group that is looking at food security across the north. I suggested a number of these measures to it in terms of what it could or should be doing, based on my experience and what I have seen that works. There are a lot of people out there who are keenly interested in ensuring that there is food security in the northern, Arctic, and aboriginal regions of this country, ensuring that food is affordable to people. Therefore, I think we have already established a lot of resources that we can draw upon to help us put together what would be seen as an ideal program to meet those needs across the north.

The motion is also asking that sufficient funding be made available to meet the needs of all of the northern communities. This is an issue that really bothered me when we were talking about funding the nutrition north program this year, and the fact that the program was not adequate, and there was a lot of media attention around what was happening in Rankin Inlet. The stores were sending expired food to the dump and local people were scavenging in the dump to get that food. That is a full indication that people are hungry. This is not about want; it is really about need.

When all of that happened, the response from the government was to announce that it would put another $11.3 million into the nutrition north program this year. That was met with great applause from all of us who work in the north. We know that revenue is needed. However, what the government failed to say was that in 2013-2014 the program had already spent nearly $64 million. Therefore, the $11 million that it was putting in only topped up the program to what it had actually spent. It is not new money. It is not to say that it would put another $11 million over and above to ensure that subsidies are administered more fairly to the communities that get them or that more communities would be added. That particular investment only really brought the program up to what was being spent. In fact, the addition of the $11 million really only brought the program to a total of $65 million in subsidies, while last year it had already spent $64 million, so it is an extra $1 million we will have this year. However, if the demand for food goes up in any of these communities, that $1 million will be used up.

The subsidy was needed anyway, just to cover off the everyday costs of the program. This subsidy is not enhancing the program in any way. It is not allowing the program to grow to add additional communities in any way. I think it is important to point that out.

I would also point out that $65 million in a subsidy program for nutrition north is a very fair subsidy amount if we know that it is reaching the people who need it. What has been most confusing about all of this is that, although this program has what I feel is a fair investment in funding going into it, unless there is accountability for how that money is spent and assurances that it reaches the people who need it, I have to ask if the money is getting the best use.

That was the point the Auditor General was really making when he talked about the accountability measures. He also talked about the fact that there was a lot of money going into subsidies that were in place in the program, but there was no way to monitor it to ensure that the subsidies were being passed on, and there was no requirement by retailers to ensure that there was accountability. This was one of the huge concerns pointed out in the Auditor General's report. That has to be looked at. I do not think we can ignore those points. They are very important points.

If we are going to make sure that we deal with food insecurity in northern regions of Canada and ensure there is affordable food in these communities, we also need to ensure those subsidies are going to be passed on. There has to be a new process of accountability put in place to ensure that the retailers that participate in the program are passing on the subsidy.

We also have to look at what the profit margins are. Sometimes, the subsidy is being passed on in its entirety, but what is the profit being earned in a lot of those regions in Canada? If we look at where the $64 million subsidy goes, we will notice that a large percentage of that subsidy goes to one store or provider across the northern region. It is important. If we are going to pay out more than half of this subsidy rate to one retail company servicing the north, the very least we should be doing is ensuring that there is a level of accountability being provided.

Before I conclude, I want to say that nutrition north is a very important program for northerners. It is very important for those of us who live in northern regions and represent northern regions, because we see the struggles day to day in many of these communities. Those struggles are not just around food. They are also around housing, having a good water supply, infrastructure, poverty, and all of those things. In order to deal with them, people need to have their basic needs met. One of those basic needs is ensuring that they have a good diet and nutritious food, so that they are able to function and address the other challenges and stresses they have in their life.

I would say this to the government opposite. Do not be pushed back by the fact that there are some serious issues around the program, but push forward to address them. Be on top of the game and provide the very best program that can be provided to northerners. Do not accept as good enough the fact that what we did four years ago might have been a little bit better than what was done four years before that, because it is not good enough. We are seeing that it is not good enough. Be motivated by what the Auditor General said, which is that the program is flawed, it needs to change, and we need to ensure that these subsidies are reaching the people who need them.

I would support members in the House who are prepared to do that, because that is what needs to happen. In doing so, we will be supporting many northern families across Canada.

Yvonne Jones

$632,997.00