Inuit advocates say Canada’s new grocery rebate leaves Nunavut behind

Inuit hunger advocates say Canada’s new grocery rebate will barely touch the deepening food crisis in Nunavut, even as Prime Minister Mark Carney sells the policy as a key plank of his affordability agenda.

On 26 January, Carney announced the proposed Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit at an Ottawa supermarket. The plan would top up the existing Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit with a one‑off 50 per cent bonus this spring and then boost the ongoing quarterly payments by 25 per cent for five years, providing an extra $11.7 billion in support to about 12.6 million low‑ and middle‑income people.

Department of Finance modelling suggests that once the scheme is fully in place, a couple with two children on a $40,000 income would receive about $1,890 in total GST‑linked relief in 2026–27, and a single senior on $25,000 would receive roughly $950.

In Iqaluit, where almost all groceries arrive by air or sealift, lawyer and Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre board member Curtis Mesher argues that those figures simply do not match the cost of living. Qajuqturvik served more than 90,000 hot lunches last year in a city of about 8,000 people, and staff expect demand to keep rising.

Mesher points out that Nunavut households are often large, and even families on six‑figure incomes can face food insecurity once inflated housing, heating and transport costs are taken into account. He says a national rebate that ignores regional cost differences is “poking around the edges” of a system that leaves many Inuit without reliable access to healthy food.

Nunavut MP Lori Idlout contrasts the proposal with the now‑cancelled Hamlet Food Voucher Program, delivered under the Inuit Child First Initiative. That program provided $500 per child per month for food, plus $250 per month for children under four for nappies. A family of four with two older children could receive $12,000 a year – more than six times the new benefit for a similar household.

Idlout also notes that less than half of Nunavummiut who file tax returns qualify for the GST credit, leaving much of the territory outside the rebate’s reach. She is calling for measures shaped and led by Inuit (such as funding community hunters, freezers and processing facilities) rather than time‑limited tax tweaks designed in Ottawa.

The debate is playing out against a backdrop of what local experts describe as a “hunger emergency”, with Nunavut showing the highest household food‑insecurity rate in Canada; earlier federal surveys found more than half of households in the territory struggled to afford food.

Australian readers will recognise similar patterns. The latest National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey found 41 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households experienced food insecurity due to lack of money in the previous 12 months – far higher than the non‑Indigenous population.

Public‑health research in Australia stresses that drivers of food insecurity are structural (low incomes, poor housing, high prices and limited access to fresh food) rather than individual choice.