Go ahead, make my day.

Well now I know how Harry felt when the bad guys did not conform to his requests.

There are three more articles from the north regarding the report on the food mail subsidy program Mr. Dargo did for the INAC minister. One is from CBC and two from Nunatsiaq News[NN] plus this great editorial.
I particularly like the NN pieces, they do good reporting there, always well researched and usually do not pull any punches. I guess the weekly publication allows them more time compared to the daily deadlines of CBC.

Many of the criticisms and suggestions on improving the program I and a few others have been advocating for years. I am particularly pleased with the reports apparent scathing attach on INAC and Canada Post, make my day indeed.

This one critique resonates particularly with me and others here in Labrador.


"Canada Post likely uses the food mail program to cross-subsidize the cost of delivering regular mail;"


That sort of fly’s in the face of those parochial Canada Post spokespeople who keep claiming that we are heavily subsidized with our regular packages and mail. More like we are subsidizing the south is our claim.

Some of the recommendations in the report are good ones, but I am still wary of handing it over to the retailers without the stated checks, balances, open, transparent, accountable regimes in place.

Here in Labrador some spoilt items can be claimed by the retailer, not sure who the claim is put too, maybe the wholesaler.

It has long been thought that some retailers were bringing in non perishables by plane when they could have been shipped by boat in the summer, this report confirms our suspicions. There may have been other factors other than increasing ones bottom line, but the consumer has not seen any documentation to allay our suspicions.

The country food suggestion is a good one, not sure if it is needed here in Labrador, but worth a look at. What is really needed here are country food outlets, or a system like they have in Nunavik where the elderly and low income people can access healthy wild foods cheaply.

Labrador is a small fish in the big pool of federal funding, but any changes that deal with any real and perceived rip offs is a positive.

We also have the provincial subsidy program for Northern Labrador towns. This allows retailers to claim directly to the government for a rebate on part of the freight costs. To my knowledge the retailers piggy back on the Federal program. Some of us have asked the province to do an audit to prove that the savings have been passed on. There was resistance, then some positive rumblings that something would be done, then nothing.
Maybe this latest federal report will get the ball rolling again on that.

Lets hope the report does not get shelved, and lets hope some heads role baby, make my day.