Today’s picture of last nights meal has a real purpose. It shows the breaded (my doing) pork tenderloin chops from Northern, reasonable pricing and nice and tender along with what is available for a salad on a Tuesday in Nain. Note: my favorite salad is lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber.

Which leads me to today’s Blog topic:

 Kind of a disrupted day yesterday ending with reasonably good results, time will tell.

Started out I had an 11 O’clock meeting set up with three people from Nutrition North Canada.


No weather delays but airline fleet issues let to the NNC charter leaving Goose Bay later than intended.
So the NNC board of advisers and NNC staff did not arrive in Nain till about 12:45. Lunch dash strategy meeting followed by meetings with other folks had my meeting set back to 5:30, while the three people eat, but that’s OK, got to put some of my thoughts out.

NNC had a public meeting at 7 pm in the NG board room. I think most people were not expecting a great turn out, history tells us that, but lo n behold around 45 people plus the NNC people were in attendance, standing room only and chivalry is a thing of the past. Age justified my seat.

It was an eclectic mix of people, about 50 50 of local residents and a lot of women who I have no clue who they were. I suspect most worked in health field either for NG or Labrador Grenfell Health. There was defiantly more NG department people that others, but that is the way it should be. Well not less others but NG staff have been notoriously missing at many public meetings that are in their field of interest.

Each retail store had representatives present and the heads of NG and Community Governments were present, and rightly so.

What came out of all this? Time will tell as usual, but there was a good exchange of ideas and concerns and the NNC people had a chance to see first hand the good and the ugly of the stores we shop in daily.

Noticed were little or no labeling of many of the NNC subsidy items in one store in particular (BigLand). Dated items like bread (best before Nov 9, store not stated). They noticed the ridiculously small and unattractive space at the back of the store (BigLand) where fruits and vegetables are displayed.
Also noticed was lack of product and the state of product on display (Bigland). Mind you it was a week since the last shipment, but nothing was on sale to help move it off the shelf.

Also noticed were the discrepancies of prices between stores on many items covered under the NNC and provincial subsidies.
A lively discussion insured over this at the public meeting, not sure if the explanations were all that well received by the public. But NNC seemed to be listening.

Will update later.

Later:  Kind of a disrupted day yesterday ending with reasonably good results, time will tell.

Started out I had an 11 O’clock meeting set up with three people from Nutrition North Canada.


No weather delays but airline fleet issues let to the NNC charter leaving Goose Bay later than intended.
So the NNC board of advisors and NNC staff did not arrive in Nain till about 12:45. Lunch dash strategy meeting followed by meetings with other folks had my meeting set back to 5:30, while the three people eat, but that’s OK, got to put some of my thoughts out.

NNC had a public meeting at 7 pm in the NG board room. I think most people were not expecting a great turn out, history tells us that, but lo n behold around 45 people plus the NNC people were in attendance, standing room only and chivalry is a thing of the past. Age justified my seat.

It was an eclectic mix of people, about 50 50 of local residents and a lot of women who I have no clue who they were. I suspect most worked in health field either for NG or Labrador Grenfell Health. There was defiantly more NG department people that others, but that is the way it should be. Well not less others but NG staff have been notoriously missing at many public meetings that are in their field of interest.

Each retail store had representatives present and the heads of NG and Community Governments were present, and rightly so.

What came out of all this? Time will tell as usual, but there was a good exchange of ideas and concerns and the NNC people had a chance to see first hand the good and the ugly of the stores we shop in daily.

Noticed were little or no labelling of many of the NNC subsidy items in one store in particular (BigLand). Dated items like bread (best before Nov 9, store not stated). They noticed the ridiculously small and unattractive space at the back of the store (BigLand) where fruits and vegetables are displayed.
Also noticed was lack of product and the state of product on display (Bigland). Mind you it was a week since the last shipment, but nothing was on sale to help move it off the shelf.

Also noticed were the discrepancies of prices between stores on many items covered under the NNC and provincial subsidies.
A lively discussion insured over this at the public meeting, not sure if the explanations were all that well received by the public. But NNC seemed to be listening.


To encapsulate; NNC officials are not up to speed on the vagaries and differences of the workings of the NNC program in Labrador compared to elsewhere in the north.

THAT IS NOT SURPRISING WHEN YOU CONCIDER THAT IT COST nnc $1,000,000 TO SHIP 600,000 KG OF FREIGHT INTO LABRADOR AND  11,000,4000 KG OF FREIGHT WORTH $30,7000,000 WAS SHIPPED INTO NUNAVUT IN 2011-2012 YEAR.

I GET THE IMPRESSION THAT NNC OFFICIALS AND ADVISORY BOARD ARE LOOKING AND LISTENING.

THEY ARE TO MEET WITH PROVINCIAL, NG, RETAILERS AND WHOLESALERS IN GOOSE BAY. SO HOPEFULLY SOME ANSWERS WILL BE FOR COMING AS TO WHY THE TWO WHOLESALES HAVE A MONOPOLY ON NNC SHIPPING INTO THE COMMUNITY AND WHY THE RETAILERS ARE NOT INVOLVED IN THE PROGRAM.  IN OTHER AREAS OF THE NORTH PEOPLE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ORDER FROM SOUTHERN SUPPLIERS IF THE SO CHOOSE.

THE DIRECTOR GENIAL OF AANDC AND NNC SUGGESTED THAT THE COMMUNITIES IN NUNATSIAVUT START HAVING COMMUNITY DIALOGS ON MANY OF THE VAGARIES OF NNC, THE PROVINCIAL PROGRAM, ISSUES WITH PRICE VAGARIES AND THE LIKE. I COULD NOT AGREE WITH HIM MORE.

HE ALSO MENTIONED THE FEEDING MY FAMILY FACE BOOK SITE AND ITS SUCCESS IN GETTING THE NUNAVUT GOVERNMENT AND MANY OF THE RETAILERS  FURTHER NORTH IN STARTING TO REACT TO THE COST OF FOOD AND FOOD SECURITY IN A POSITIVE WAY.