Federal government picked Aluki Kotierk to lead external review of the food subsidy program more than a year ago
Aluki Kotierk, the former Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president, is seen speaking in January 2024. She was expected to submit her review of the Nutrition North subsidy program to the federal government Tuesday. But a spokesperson for Northern and Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand said Wednesday the report has not been received. (File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Jorge Antunes
A day after the deadline for a report on an external review of Nutrition North, the federal government says it has still not heard from its own special representative tasked with the job, says a spokesperson for Northern Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand.
The federal government named former Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Aluki Kotierk in February 2025 — more than a year ago — to lead an external review of the food subsidy program.
“We expected the report from the ministerial special representative on March 31, 2026,” Chartrand’s press secretary Erika Lashbrook Knutson said in an email Wednesday.
“However, the department has yet to receive the report from the Ministerial Special Representative. We have inquired as to when we can expect the report to be submitted.”
Former northern affairs minister Gary Anandasangaree announced Kotierk’s appointment to lead the review in February 2025.
The federal Liberal government announced the review in October 2024 in response to criticisms that the subsidies paid to retailers have not been leading to lower food prices at grocery stores.
The external review was intended to give northerners an opportunity to provide input on the program to enable long-term improvements.
Last week, at an unrelated press conference in Ottawa, Chartrand confirmed the March 31 deadline for Kotierk’s report.
In addition to the external review, Chartrand’s office has enacted its own internal review. It held several virtual regional sessions across communities served by the program and hosted the first-ever Food Sovereignty Summit in Ottawa last week.
Indigenous leaders and partners were invited to Ottawa for that summit to “help shape the path forward in a way that is grounded in Northern realities,” Lashbrook Knutson said.
The federal government created Nutrition North in 2011 to make nutritious food more affordable and accessible to 124 northern and remote communities, including all 25 Nunavut municipalities and Nunavik’s 14 northern villages.
Since Chartrand publicly stated the March 31 deadline, Nunatsiaq News has attempted to contact Kotierk several times including by phone, email and social media.
Kotierk could not be reached Wednesday for comment about the email from Chartrand’s office indicating the report had not been received.
Chartrand takes the Nutrition North subsidy program “very seriously,” Lashbrook Knutson said in an interview Wednesday.
