With one-year external review of Nutrition North a no-show, Northern Affairs Minister Chartrand says she’ll move ahead with reforms

The government has not received an external report reviewing the Nutrition North program that was due March 31, nor has it heard from Aluki Kotierk, who was appointed to do this work, but Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand says she will move ahead with reforms regardless.

“Obviously, we want to give [Kotierk] a grace period to get that report in. But yes, there has been communication sent out. We haven't heard anything back to date,” said Chartrand (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, Man.) in a May 12 interview with The Hill Times. 

The third-party review was first announced on Feb. 25, 2025, by then-Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs minister Gary Anandasangaree (Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, Ont.), who appointed Kotierk to the temporary role of the “minister’s special representative” for the work. Kotierk is a former bureaucrat with the Nunavut government and the former president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. 

The review was ordered in response to ongoing criticism that the program isn't as effective as it should be at making food in northern and remote communities more affordable and accessible. An external review was also recommended in a House Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee report, which studied food security in northern and remote communities in 2020 and 2021.

Criticism of the program tends to centre on the retail subsidy provided to grocers and other organizations, and whether it's actually being used to reduce grocery store prices as per its goal.

Nunatsiaq News first reported Kotierk's missed deadline on April 1. The news outlet noted in a follow-up article on April 22 that it tried to get in touch with Kotierk, but has not received a response. The Hill Times was unable to locate contact information for Kotierk.  

Chartrand said her department will send one more letter to Kotierk, and that it plans to do assess the contract for the review. 

“These are public dollars, so we want to make sure that we're accountable to that,” Chartrand said. 

The minister’s office told The Hill Times that just under $15,000 was paid to Kotierk for travel expenses, but that no other expenses were either submitted or paid. 

Chartrand is a first-time MP who took over the file from Anandasangaree—who is now public safety minister—when she was appointed to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s (Nepean, Ont.) cabinet after last year's election.

While acknowledging the delayed report, Chartrand said "what's important to focus on" is the data her department already has to move forward with changes to improve Nutrition North.

The minister hosted four virtual meetings with 150 representatives from industry, academia, and communities eligible for Nutrition North this past February and March to discuss possible reforms. She and her team, with the help of Food Banks Canada, also planned a summit focused on food sovereignty held in Ottawa this past March. 

She said these meetings and other external work done to gather information "makes her very confident" they have the details they need to move forward with changes.

Retail subsidy receives the most criticism

The Nutrition North program includes different funding mechanisms. Among these is the retail subsidy provided to some grocery stores, food banks, and charities in the 124 remote and northern communities that can access the program. The grocers are required to use the federal dollars—which is applicable to a certain list of eligible foods and non-food items—to help with high logistical costs like transportation and storage. The savings to the grocers is supposed to be reflected in lower food costs for consumers. 

The program also includes the Harvester’s Support Grant—funding for traditional hunting, harvesting, and food-sharing activities in communities—and the Community Food Programs Fund, which is dedicated to community food-sharing initiatives such as meal programs for students and elders. 

Funding for the subsidy in 2025-26 is $163-million, while funding for the grants focused on local food access is $40.3-million, according to a Government of Canada backgrounder about the program.  

Chartrand described the Harvester's Support Program and the Community Food Program as successful.

"We've seen huge success with communities applying for funds for their own community cold-food storage hubs as well as food processing," she said.

Gwen Healey Akearok, Nunavut’s minister of family services and poverty reduction, called the Harvester's Support Grant "one of the strengths" of Nutrition North because of its focus on locally harvested foods.

But the problems surrounding the retail subsidy are well-known amongst those who participate or have studied it. 

During the House Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee's food security study in 2020 and 2021, witnesses said there is a lack of transparency in whether subsidy funding is actually applied to lower what consumers pay in stores, the feds' choosing of the eligible products has a “hint of neocolonialism,” and its application to grocery-store prices means that all consumers benefit as opposed to those who are most in need.  

Chartrand told The Hill Times that she's heard “loud and clear” that people are concerned with the retail subsidy. 

“There is a lack of visibility into the pricing structure. … But what we've also heard from the retailers is that the subsidy has not kept pace with inflation,” she said. 

Public grocery stores would reduce prices in North, says NDP MP Gazan

NDP MP Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, Man.), her party's northern affairs critic, said grocery chains that are receiving the subsidy are making huge profits while too many children—especially in Nunavut, which has the highest level of food insecurity in Canada—go hungry. 

She noted that the North West Company, which owns multiple grocery chains in Nunavut and is eligible for the retail subsidy, is being sued by three individuals in the territory who allege the company is not passing on the federal funding to consumers through lower prices. 

The lawsuit's status, according to an undated page on a website for the proposed class-action, is that the plaintiffs filed their statement of claim to start a court proceeding in Manitoba on Feb. 5, 2025.  

The Hill Times asked North West if it passes on the full value of the retail subsidy to consumers, and if so, how has it been able to prove that to federal officials. 

A May 14 statement from the company says it “fully applies” the subsidy to lower the retail selling price of eligible products. 

"Our participation in the program has been subject to regular independent compliance reviews and audits over many years, which have consistently confirmed compliance with all program requirements,” the statement reads. 

On the subject of the lawsuit, “the matter remains before the courts and North West denies the allegations.” 

Gazan said her party’s recent proposal of public ownership of grocery stores would improve the situation. 

“We know that, in Canada, there's big grocery chains that gouge at the checkout. One of the things the NDP is offering is a public option for food where even folks up North would pay 35- to 45-per-cent less for groceries,” Gazan said. 

The MP said she would also like to see the subsidy go to consumers, and not to the grocers. 

Nunavut wants bigger focus on community-based funding

Nunavut’s Healey Akearok said her government doesn’t have a position on whether the subsidy should go to residents. Her focus is on seeing enhanced community-based support, including funding for food infrastructure.  

As examples of the needs, she pointed to a food centre in her community that provides meals "no questions asked," but "they need a commercial, industrial kitchen. Community freezers are places for sharing and storing those country foods when they're harvested and then they get dispersed in the community."

At 58.9 per cent in 2023, Nunavut’s rate of severe food insecurity is the highest in the country, according to data from Statistics Canada. The Northwest Territories comes in second with 31.4 per cent. 

The 2025 Nunavut Food Price Survey, published by the Government of Nunavut, found fresh produce and staple items—such as oatmeal, canned food, and frozen vegetables— were often double the price than those same products in Ottawa. Some of the starkest examples are found in the price of produce. The average price of apples per kilogram in Nunavut is $9.72 as compared to $6.49 in Ottawa, while potatoes on average cost $10.34 per kilogram in the territory. Equivalent potatoes cost $4.98 in the national capital.

Healey Akearok attributes the persistence of high food insecurity to her territory’s remote location, related high transportation costs, and limited local food infrastructure. 

She said her constituents are looking at an approach where Nutrition North goes beyond a subsidy model “toward a bigger food sovereignty and infrastructure-based supports.”

This could include investments in community freezers or food processing plants for locally-harvested foods, like fish, to increase access to these foods, added Healey Akearok.

Federal help to increase these types of resources would also contribute to the Inuit food-sharing culture, where community members would gather food from the natural environment, and quickly send a message to others saying they have extra and to come on by for a meal, according to Healey Akearok.

She said her discussions with Chartrand give her the sense that the two ministers are “in complete alignment” on targeting support for community-based infrastructure. 

While Chartrand is looking at options to improve the subsidy—with her calling the possibility of making it a direct-to-consumer benefit a “potential solution”—the federal minister said, “We're focused on moving from a food subsidy to a food economy,” and concentraing on ensuring the solutions come from those in northern communities.  

That includes continuing to support ways for residents and entrepreneurs in each community to enhance local food production.  

“We put stock into supporting research where communities are growing their own food through community gardens, vertical gardening, hydroponic gardening. We're seeing huge success in that,” she said.

At the Food Sovereignty Summit this past March, Chartrand announced $2-million for nine Indigenous-led research projects to help make traditional and store-bought foods more affordable and accessible in northern communities.

“These projects span topics from gathering stories from elders, hunters and youth; intergenerational cooking classes; [and] evaluations of community-driven food solutions,” reads the March 27 press release. 

As for short-term accomplishments, Chartrand said her department is developing communications materials to increase the understanding in communities of how the subsidy is supposed to work. 

Medium-term goals include supporting research and other projects that will help regions with local food development, and ensuring data that can assist local decision-making is delivered to the communities, according to the minister. Long-term goals include support for food entrepreneurs who can deliver the right solutions for their communities. 

Gazan’s perspective is the federal Liberals continue to research ways to improve Nutrition North when the solutions are already known. 

“This Liberal government's been in [power] for 10 years. Why are they still looking into it when 42 per cent of children [in Nunavut] are living with food insecurity?” said Gazan, citing a statistic from Campaign 2000’s report on child poverty in Canada published last year. “[Children] don't have the privilege of the government to—year after year—keep looking into it while they're starving.”

tsanci@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Levels of moderate or severe food insecurity in Canada

The following Statistics Canada data outlines the percentage of the population that was moderately or severely food insecure in 2023. The agency states that data pertaining to Indigenous populations in some jurisdictions—Yukon, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador—should be "used with caution" likely due to low response rates. Data for the Indigenous population of Prince Edward Island is not available, as the agency said it was too unreliable for publishing.