The long-awaited external review of the $144-million Nutrition North program, authored by former Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Aluki Kotierk, was published on June 26 and it recommends a guaranteed livable income. Kotierk was first appointed to conduct an external review in February 2025, and her report was expected on March 31 of this year. “In order to address food security in a long-lasting manner that would be transformative for Northern communities, I would strongly recommend that Canada support legislation that establishes a guaranteed livable income,” Kotierk wrote in her report. Sometimes referred to as a universal basic income, a guaranteed livable income consists of base payments every person receives from the government, whether or not they work. Kotierk contends that Nutrition North alone will not solve food insecurity, and that poverty itself is the root cause of widespread hunger in Nunavut. Fifty-six per cent of Nunavut households suffered from food insecurity last year, Statistics Canada data analyzed by the University of Toronto shows. That’s by far the worst in the country, with 67.6 per cent of Nunavummiut children suffering from food insecurity. “It is encouraging that Bill S-206 ‘An act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income’ is being considered,” Kotierk said. The bill suggests providing every Canadian over the age of 17 a livable income and is currently being studied by a Senate committee, before facing a vote and potentially making its way to the House of Commons for further debate and votes. Kotierk raised issues with the Nutrition North program itself. “I have been concerned with information shared with me where private businesses are discouraged by Nutrition North Canada Program administrators to distribute food hampers or big food items within communities because it takes away from the profit margins of retailers,” Kotierk said. Handing out free food is good for nutrition but can create food waste for grocery stores, according to Duane Wilson, vice-president of stakeholder relations at Arctic Co-operatives Limited. “I don’t want to for a second say that it isn’t a good thing, but there are some unintended negative consequences from things like that, from a spoilage perspective,” Wilson said. If a community typically consumes 20 cases of bananas in a week, and an organization hands out 20 cases of bananas, then no one in town will buy bananas that week, Wilson explained. That means the bananas in the grocery store, which were subsidized through tax dollars, will then get thrown out, he explained. Free food distributors could alert grocers ahead of time, which may alleviate the food waste issue, Wilson advised. Recommended reforms Kotierk made several recommendations to reform Nutrition North. “I am of the view that all items in Nutrition North Canada-eligible communities should be subsidized,” Kotierk said. That would mean every grocery item would warrant subsidies, not just cuts to prices for staple items, like the current program doles out. Cutting prices for all grocery items could come with trade-offs if the program’s budget doesn’t increase, Wilson explained. “You’re going to have prices on some items go up and some prices on some items go down,” he said. Increasing the Nutrition North budget to equally subsidize all grocery products at the current level would “come at a tremendous cost to the program” Wilson said. One area of reform Kotierk suggested that Wilson supports is how food items get designated for their Nutrition North subsidy. Currently, each grocer needs to go through a product’s list of ingredients, file it for a Nutrition North subsidy and undergo a government audit later. Kotierk said Nutrition North should simply use grocery products’ bar codes to determine if a product qualifies for the subsidy. “I think that would be tremendous,” Wilson said, adding that dessert items and foods with breaded coatings can have different eligibility. Another recommendation that Kotierk made was for the federal government to negotiate transportation costs with airlines and sealift operators to even out the delivery costs to each community. “This would be more equitable for smaller retailers who do not have the same buying power,” she said. That’s the same strategy the federal government used in its Food Mail program that was transformed into Nutrition North 15 years ago. Wilson said managing transportation costs means the federal government pays rising prices on transportation fuel. “Part of the reason why they transitioned from Food Mail to Nutrition North Canada is those costs were escalating rapidly, and they wanted to try to operate within a within a fixed budget,” Wilson recalled. Nutrition North is not tied to inflation, and subsidies from the program have not kept up with the rising price of food globally. Upgrading airport runways by using paved airstrips instead of gravel would help land bigger planes in smaller communities and reduce transportation costs, Kotierk further suggested. The same recommendation was previously made by Mike Beaulieu, vice-president of Canadian store operations for The North West Company. Wilson said all runways in Nunavut communities should be upgraded to allow for ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop planes, which are standard for flights from Iqaluit to southern airports. Currently, those planes have their cargo unloaded onto smaller planes for smaller Nunavut communities, driving up food prices. Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand will now review the report’s findings as part of transitioning Nutrition North toward shared decision-making and accountability with Indigenous partners. The North West Company did not respond to a request for comment on Kotierk’s report. Kotierk was president of NTI from 2016 to 2024, but NTI failed to respond to a request for comment on her report prior to press deadline. Currently, Kotierk is the chair of the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Nutrition North is responsible for reducing food prices in 124 isolated communities across Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec (Nunavik), and Labrador (Nunatsiavut).
External review of Nutrition North calls for universal basic income
