A/HRC/22/50/Add.1 households, approximately one in five households was food insecure, including 8.4 per cent severely food insecure.54 These rates are three times higher than among non-aboriginal households, where 7.7 per cent were food insecure, including 2.5 per cent with severe food insecurity.55 In March 2011, one in ten of the 851,014 who relied on food banks across Canada self-identified as an aboriginal person.56 A. Nutrition North Canada 56. Families in remote and isolated indigenous communities frequently lack access to affordable nutritious foods, particularly perishables such as fruits, vegetables and meats, due to limited food selections, high food prices and poor quality of fresh produce. Expensive transport costs and difficult logistics (e.g. airfreight charges, and uncertainty of travel on winter roads, where they exist, or air travel subject to weather conditions), high poverty rates and a continuing decline in the use of traditional foods result in few healthy food choices. 57. Recognizing the importance of access to nutritious food in isolated communities in the North, the Government launched the Food Mail Program in the 1960s, providing federal subsidies to Canada Post for its direct costs of supplying food and other necessities through the mail service to Northern communities without year-round surface transportation. Concerns regarding the escalating costs of the Food Mail Program, as well as the programme’s lack of transparency and the absence of any incentive for efficiency and innovation along the supply chain in the North, led to a series of reviews that resulted in its replacement with a programme called Nutrition North Canada in April 2011. 58. The objective of Nutrition North Canada is to improve access to perishable healthy foods in isolated Northern communities, which the Special Rapporteur welcomes. Yet, based on his observation of and information received about the programme, the Special Rapporteur also has concerns about its design and implementation. The Special Rapporteur visited God’s River, Manto Sipi Cree and Wasagamack First Nations in Manitoba. He had the opportunity to visit a Northern Store (operated by the North West Company) to see first-hand the Nutrition North Canada programme in action. 59. Nutrition North Canada provides subsidies to retailers operating in NNC-eligible communities and to food suppliers operating in southern Canada. The subsidies are intended to be passed on to consumers through lower retail prices for eligible items. However, in the absence of adequate monitoring by those it is intended to benefit, it is unclear whether the programme is achieving its desired outcome.57 The Government of Nunavut is currently taking measures to address this deficiency by designing a monitoring programme that should be operational in 2013, and involving Nunavummiut. The Special Rapporteur welcomes this development, as he considers the current arrangements inadequate. Nutrition North Canada currently publishes the subsidy per kilogram for each eligible community, but it does not require retailers to inform Aboriginal Affairs and 54 55 56 57 70, No. 5 (2011), pp. 488-497; G.M. Egeland, IPY Inuit Health Survey speaks to need to address inadequate housing, food insecurity and nutrition transition. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, vol. 70, No. 5 (2011), pp. 444-446. Health Canada, “Household Food Insecurity in Canada in 2007-2008: Key Statistics and Graphics”, http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/surveill/nutrition/commun/insecurit/key-stats-cles-2007-2008eng.php#fn-np8. Ibid. Food Banks Canada, “Hungercount 2011,” p. 7, www.foodbankscanada.ca/hungercount. See for example, Legislators across Canada’s North work together on the Nutrition North Canada Program, news release, 20 February 2012. 17