Feeding the north

Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc is promising changes to the federal government's northern food security subsidy program in the coming weeks, acknowledging that Nutrition North has "lost its way."

Nutrition North, launched in 2011, provides subsidies on shipping to retailers on a list of products the government deems to be nutritious or essential.

But exorbitant prices are still a part of life in Canada's North, and it's common there to see a $13 watermelon or a $26 jug of orange juice in grocery stores.

Earlier this year, all five of Canada's major Inuit organizations pulled out of the federal government's Indigenous working group on food security, saying the government was not listening to them in its review of the Nutrition North program.

"I certainly share the frustration. I have a sense that the program, to be blunt, has sort of lost its way," LeBlanc said.

"It was designed some years ago and hasn't sort of been renewed or hasn't been made more relevant for many of these communities and that's what I'm hoping to be announcing the coming weeks."

LeBlanc said some changes could be made in the coming weeks, followed by a financing announcement.

"I'm frustrated that it's taken me this long," he said.

Updating and expanding the Nutrition North program was a Liberal election promise in 2015. LeBlanc took over the Intergovernmental Affairs, Northern Affairs and Internal Trade portfolio — including Nutrition North —  in July's cabinet shuffle.

The New Brunswick MP said he doesn't want the program's terms to be written by "bureaucrats in Ottawa or in Gatineau."