Hon. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul’s, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this weekend Nunavummiut took to the streets to protest the high cost of food in the Minister of Health’s riding.
The minister’s Nutrition North has utterly and predictably failed to lower food prices for northerners.
Will the minister finally admit that food insecurity is a crisis, accept that Nutrition North is not doing the job, start doing hers, and implement concrete solutions so that northerners can feed their families?
Mr. Greg Rickford (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, in consultation with northerners, retailers and suppliers, we have created an advisory board made up of northerners to take stakeholders’ concerns and provide recommendations to the government as the nutrition north program continues to develop. Our government has entered into formal agreements with food retailers to ensure accountability and that the subsidies are being passed on to consumers. That means at the point of purchase in those communities.
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