Hunger Gnaws in Nunavut

"There's always been incidents of starvation."
"Economically Inuit were now [with collapse of fox fur trade] in really serious trouble."
"Inuit were moved around [government Northern relocation]. The attitude was, 'Well, you know, what the hell? They can survive anyplace there's snow and caribou and foxes to be had."
"By the mid-1950s, the government sort of saw what they thought was the handwriting on the wall. That Inuit were going to have to be modernized instead of kept in their traditional lifestyle."
Frank Tester, Arctic historian, University of British Columbia

"Bringing something as private as poverty and the fact that you're hungry and you're food insecure, that's very different."
"I think people are saying, 'This is not a hidden problem. We can't pretend it doesn't exist anymore'."
"There is a disparity -- not only ethnically, but also the social classes."
former Iqaluit mayor Madeleine Redfern

"When farms do not make enough produce, farmers are given a lot of subsidies across Canada. But in Canada's Arctic, prices are rising in terms of bullets, ammunition and Ski-Doos, the equipment. So it's more costly to hunt."
Cathy Towtongie, president, Nunavut Tunngavik

• 

• The shelves at the Northern Store in Arctic Bay, Nunavut, in February 2011 show very high prices for things like processed cheese spread, infant formula and instant noodles. Nunavut MLA Ron Elliott, who represents Arctic Bay, says the prices of these items have risen in Nunavut's High Arctic communities since the federal government started changing its northern food subsidy program last year. (Submitted by Ron Elliott)

The Government of Canada initiated a $60-million food subsidy called Nutrition North to alleviate the burden of food cost for Northern residents of Canada. The high cost of shipping food to the North meant that prices for ordinary food fundamentals were sky-high, unaffordable but for the very necessities, and even those beyond the reach of many of Nunavut's residents. The Northern AirStage Program of the 1960s also known as FoodMail was initiated to try to amend the problem.

That program of subsidizing shipping costs changed in 2011 to Nutrition North, where food retailers were granted a subsidy based on the weight of eligible foods shipped to eligible communities. Canada's auditor general, after recent careful scrutiny, reached the conclusion that the Aboriginal Affairs Department erred in not selecting eligible communities based on need. That designation was instead granted communities based on year-round road access and whether they had made use of the old FoodMail program.

Leesee Papatsie, the organizer of the Feeding my Family protests, speaks to the crowd Saturday in Iqaluit. (Ronald Elliott)

Those communities that had seldom used the program are under the new one eligible only for a partial subsidy; those that hadn't used it at all, have no eligibility under the new program. "Consequently, community eligibility is based on past usage instead of current need", the audit found; a poor measure of need. Auditor General Michael Ferguson was informed by Aboriginal Affairs that to expand the full subsidy to some 50 fly-in northern communities would increase the cost by $7-million annually.

That niggling problem was solved somewhat with the federal government increasing its spending on the program by another $11.3-million over the following year. Under the current program, merchants are not required to report profit margins, a yardstick of measurement that would reveal whether the full subsidy is being passed on to the consumer. As of April 1, another change has been made where retailers will have to give that information on their current and long-term profit margins.


Organizer of the June 14 food protest, Leesee Papatsie, holds a sign at a protest held across the street from Northmart in Iqaluit. About a dozen people came out to raise awareness of overpriced and expired food in the North. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)

The emergence of a Facebook group calling itself "Feeding My Family" revealed to a wider audience the shocking price tags that people in Nunavut face when they trek into their local grocery store; the sheer unaffordability of eating decently. That revelation gave way to street protests. And it became clear that those going hungry are Inuit. Their record of unemployment is a hint of the problem they face. Nunavut's labour force represents 14,000 individuals, 9,500 of them Inuit.

A deeper look at the statistics indicate that 8,500 working-age Inuit are not included in the labour force, in comparison to 600 non-Inuit who are unemployed. During the last three months of 2014, the unemployment rate for Inuit in Nunavut stood at 17.9 percent. The territory's statistics bureau indicates that the number of people in Nunavut on social assistance during 2013 was 14,578. To place that in perspective, the total Nunavut population in 2011 was 31,906.

Inuit traditional foods called "country food" is represented by caribou, seal and whale meat. The Nunavut Food Security Coalition, comprised of representatives from the territorial government, Inuit organizations, industry and social groups, recommended that Inuit return to their tradition of hunting for their food. An enterprising former Edmontonian began a hunter's and trapper's market in Iqaluit, inviting hunters to sell their meat through his town market.

"The goal was really to change the conversation about how we deal with country food here in Iqaluit", said Will Hyndman who operates the market. But then, most of the hunters face another struggle; to be able to afford the price of ammunition and fuel, to be enabled to sell their the product of their hunting forays. In Iqalui,t people cope as well with the help of the soup kitchen operated by the city, or they turn to the food bank open two days a month.

The Niqinik Nuatsivik Food Bank, begun in 2001, served about 30 families at its outset. Currently, according to its chairman of the board, Stephen Wallick, 120 families benefit from food and supplies handed out every two weeks. The city's soup kitchen makes enough for 200 servings daily, sometimes finding it's not enough to serve everyone who needs the help.

There are suggestions that the federal government consider operating a program providing funding to hunters to enable them to buy equipment to hunt, fish and trap. Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.'s president feels the government should offer to offset the cost of hunting equipment in the North as a fair and just reflection of the way it aids in the subsidy of farmers in the rest of Canada.

How expensive are groceries in Nunavut? Shop for yourself by checking the items in the grocery cart to find out. 

CART

Celery (1kg)

Onions (1kg)

Canned tomatoes (796ml)

Baked beans (398ml)

White sugar (2kg)

Carrots (1kg)

Dried macaroni (500g)

French fries (1kg)

Bananas (1kg)

Mushrooms (1kg)

Canned soup (284ml)

Ketchup (1L)

Soda crackers (450g)

Oranges (1kg)

Potatoes (4.54kg)

Sliced bacon (500g)

Processed cheese (250g)

Apples (1kg)

Instant coffee (200g)

Bread (675g)

Hot dogs (450g)

Baby food (128ml)

Peanut butter (500g)

Butter (454g)

Canned salmon (213g)

Pork chops (1kg)

2% milk (1L)

Stewing beef (1kg)

Ground beef (1kg)

Eggs
(1 doz.)

Arctic Bay

$230.74

Arviat

$207.13

Baker Lake

$208.36

Gjoa Haven

$234.03

Igloolik

$214.63

Iqaluit

$203.19

Kugluktuk

$216.47

Pangnirtung

$242.20

Pond Inlet

$231.60

Rankin Inlet

$205.80

Canada

$113.99

Nunavut

$219.80

Interactive by Murat Yukselir/The Globe and Mail; Reporting by Josh Kerr for The Globe and Mail; Research by Josh Kerr for The Globe and Mail and Rick Cash/The Globe and Mail Sources: Food Price Survey Report August 2013/Nunavut Bureau of Statistics, Firstair.ca, Interviews with First Air and Arctic Co-op