Iqaluit scenery
Food security advocate Kathy Okpik led 30 residents of Iqaluit in a loud protest against high grocery prices in front of Northmart on Saturday, October 25.
Speaking into a megaphone and introduced by its siren wail, Okpik called on the federal government to accelerate its ongoing examination into food subsidies in the territory.
The federal government announced an external review of a portion of its Nutrition North subsidy programme in October 2024. That review is being led by former Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Aluki Kotierk. Nutrition North was launched in 2011 as a way to make nutritious food more affordable in the North.
“We really need to know about the Nutrition North study that’s happening,” she said. “The subsidy needs to go directly to the people and not to big corporations where they control the prices.”
Others in the crowd denounced what they called price gouging in the wake of initiatives aimed at reducing costs for Inuit households, such as the federal government’s Inuit Child First Initiative.
Its universal food voucher programme used to give Inuit families 1 USD a month for every child they had under the age of 18, but was scrapped in favour of a plan that gives out vouchers based on individual families’ applications.
The Inuit Child First Initiative, which expired at the end of March, got a temporary extension of its funding earlier this year, but its long-term future has been uncertain since the end of the federal government’s previous fiscal year.
“We need to look at our consumer affairs division in our government of Nunavut,” said Okpik, a former Government of Nunavut deputy minister. She pointed to the many households reaching out for donations of food and leftovers in social media.
“They have nowhere else to turn to but social media,” she said. If Iqaluit households are struggling, people in remote communities are having an even harder time, she added.
Dozens of drivers gave a toot of their horns as they passed the spectacle along Queen Elizabeth Way.
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. President Jeremy Tunraluk, who recently returned from the organisation’s annual general meeting in Rankin Inlet on Thursday where the issue of food security was discussed, called on Inuit to take the lead away from the federal government.
“We, as Inuit leaders, need to take charge,” he said, speaking into a megaphone. “Take the lead to make sure that we’re not only voicing our concerns, but making sure that we’re actually delivering programs for food security.”
Becca Gesch, carrying a handmade sign reading “food security is a human right,” called on the federal government to “decolonise food security”.
“We need to make sure that Indigenous are fed and have access to food and healthcare and affordable everything,” Gesch said.
Nunatsiaq News reached out to Northmart communications director by email, but did not receive a response Saturday afternoon.
Comments:
Posted by What are Liberals doing? on Oct 25, 2025
“Where is all the money going that Northwestern company receives to keep prices down? Every year food gets higher and higher? What is the government doing? Where are the audits? Where is the transparency? I’m sick of living pay check to pay check shopping at the only store in town, cargo is so expensive now CONartistNorth, we used to buy food from YK, I skip meals now so my wife and kids can eat, I eat their leftovers after supper, then go sit in the washroom and cry for a minute then man up. So sick of this, what have I done to deserve this, I pay taxes like everyone else!!”
Source: Nunatsiaq