Nutrition North program failing to keep food costs low at the Old Crow Co-op

BY LAWRIE CRAWFORD LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER, YUKON NEWS

Like most store owners in small Yukon communities, the new operators in Old Crow, Yukon are trying to encourage people to shop local, and if that means rolling frozen turkeys down the aisles, they’re up for it.

So far everything is working. Matthew Walsh and his partner Steven Thomas have been rearranging the Co-op grocery store since they arrived in the small northern community last August. They’ve been adjusting store sections according to sales, bringing in new products and hosting fun events.

“As a result, our sales have skyrocketed. And our freight volumes for Canada Post have dropped. So, what that means, instead of ordering online, they’re ordering it here. And now they’re buying it off the shelf,” Walsh told the Yukon News on Jan. 11.

“It didn’t take long to learn everyone’s names,’” said Thomas working at the counter of the Old Crow Co-op.

That means more money into the pockets of Old Crow residents who hold co-op memberships.

Walsh explained that once a year, after the sales and cost of goods are finalized, “people are paid out on the basis of what they spend in the store.” So local sales benefit the people who live in Old Crow. The co-op also has a locally elected board of directors who provides guidance and advice.

According to Thomas, the store wasn’t in perfect shape when they arrived. Now, goods are clustered in good order and they are eyeing more opportunities to increase revenue. They rent out the two rooms on the second floor to shortterm visitors. Bookings have been steady.

They also want to get to know the community.

“Now, every time someone comes in, [we’re] like, ‘What’s new today?’ And we play music, which they love because, before, it was just walking into a quiet store.” Thomas adds the detail with his Newfoundland lilt, “I have my mom’s playlist with, like Bon Jovi, Def Leppard. People love them and all compliment the music.”

There have been events held at the store, buoyed by Walsh and Thomas’s enthusiasm. “Turkey bowling was the highlight. That’s when everybody had the most fun.” They used a store aisle and set up rolls of paper towels as the five pins.

“We wrapped the turkey in a garbage bag and taped it so the turkey was still salvageable. You stand up and you just kind of granny roll the turkey,” Walsh said, motioning a four-metre distance between start line and pins.

“Okay, because it’s a turkey and it’s not gonna roll far because it’s not round, it could go anywhere.”

It was a free event and people had a good laugh. Walsh said everybody won something and the top prize for knocking all the pins down was a $50 gift certificate. “I think we had 46 participants, and that was mostly community members and a few contractors.”

They also held two bingo nights, one for ladies and one for men. Again, participation was free and the grand prize was a 30-second shopping spree. Elders, if they won, got an extra minute for their spree down the aisles of the store.

Old Crow is a hotbed of building activity right now, with Ketza Construction and TSL Contractors partnering on two projects, and Wildstone crews working on another two.

“We’ve been selling so many woolly socks lately for the construction workers,” Walsh said.

But other than socks, and a bit of junk food, the construction companies aren’t purchasing food from the store. Walsh and Thomas would like to see this change, but guaranteed freight delivery to the community has been an ongoing issue. Over Christmas, the community did not receive parcels containing prescription medicines, or mail, or their copies of the Yukon News

Walsh and Thomas worked in several northern communities before coming to Old Crow, either on assignment, or for training or relief work. With the benefit of that kind of perspective, Walsh has seen how freight costs tie into the picture of high northern food costs, and the effectiveness of the federal Nutrition North program.

It puzzles him how the program doesn’t seem to work for Old Crow as well as it does in other communities.

For example, Walsh sees significantly higher costs for milk in Old Crow at $17.99 for a four-litre jug compared to a retail price in Deer Lake, Ontario of $6.59. Both communities get Nutrition North subsidies and have very thin margins on milk and bread. Prices are marked up only enough to cover their losses from perishable items.

Similarly, he says the cost of a five-pound bag of potatoes is $2.10, but with transportation it sells close to $14 in Old Crow. “Yes there’s a Nutrition North subsidy on it, but [the price is] still high,” Walsh said. The program doesn’t cover actual costs to the same extent as it does in other communities.

Walsh says the cost is all freight. They rely on three different carriers to get food to Old Crow, and they’ve experienced three transportation cost increases since they arrived in August.

Inflation is hitting hard. In addition to the 10 per cent increase in food costs, they have also had to bear the 30 per cent increase in fuel charges. Walsh guesstimates that “the Nutrition North program is about a year behind inflation.”

Nutrition North covers 122 isolated northern communities and is only adjusted annually.

The federal government recently said the next increase will happen on Feb. 1, but the increase amount hasn’t been released yet.

Labour, too, is an issue for the fellows at the store. With so much work available in town paying significantly more, it’s been hard to find the causal labour needed to spell off Walsh and Thomas. Thomas says Old Crow is not like other communities where he experienced people not wanting to work, here there are too many other jobs.

The couple has signed on with the Old Crow Co-op for two years. After that they will re-evaluate, but right now they are loving it. Both grew up in Newfound- land, knew each other in high school and then drifted apart. They reconnected when Walsh spotted Thomas on the Amazing Race, a televised reality show, and sent him a text. ”He messaged me something cute,” Thomas said, and the rest is history. Marriage plans are in the works, but the geographical distance between Old Crow and a Newfoundland wedding with friends and family have delayed plans a little.

Right now, the store is keeping them busy.

“Currently, I’m the banker, the postmaster and the cashier. I’m like, the Waldo — where am I today? I’m like a jack of all trades because it’s really hard to get staff here,” Thomas said. But there’s an upside.

“It works great because I know everyone’s names now. I know everyone’s coop numbers. I know everyone’s PO box numbers.”

A third person is on the way to help out. When that happens, Walsh and Thomas will have time to get more involved with the community. One of the things they are looking forward to is training with the fire department.

“It just seems like I’m in a small town back home. It almost seems like everyone’s equal,” Walsh said.

“And everyone just helps each other. And that’s what I like about it.”

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BY NATASHA BULOWSKI LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER, CANADA'S NATIONAL OBSERVER

As Canadians struggle to afford essential goods and services, the spoils of inflation are ending up largely in corporate profits, particularly in oil, gas and mining industries, a new analysis reveals.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives crunched the numbers to see how much more Canadians spent over the last two years due to inflation and pinpointed which industries benefited the most.

Between fall 2020 and fall 2022, 47 cents of every extra dollar spent on rent, food, transportation and more ended up as corporate profits in four industries, the report found.

For example, many consumers are justifiably angry that food prices are going up, and they blame the grocery stores because that's who’s selling them those goods, said David Macdonald, senior economist at the CCPA and author of the report “Where are your inflation dollars

going?”

“But that doesn't really tell us who's benefiting from those higher prices,” he said, noting grocery stores were rolled into a larger retail category, so this analysis can’t single out their profits.

Supply chains are long and it's not just the grocery stores themselves, it's food manufacturers, it’s farmers, Macdonald told Canada’s National Observer. It's also the oil and gas industry that provides the crude to make diesel and gasoline to run tractors and fuel the trucks transporting these goods back and forth across the country, he said.

“Without this industry analysis, you just kind of blame the last person in the supply chain as opposed to getting a more in-depth understanding of who is ending up with all this money at the end of the day,” he said. To answer that question, Macdonald created a new dataset to calculate how much of each inflation dollar ended up as profit, worker compensation or other costs (like depreciation and interest)

CREE NATION CHILD & FAMILY

Caring Agency

QUALITY ASSURANCE COORDINATOR – PERMANENT REGIONAL OFFICE

Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency is situated on Opaskwayak Cree Nation and is responsible for administering and providing for the delivery of Child and Family Services. Under a provincial mandate, the Agency services the Swampy Cree communities, as well as Flin Flon, Thompson, Swan River, Winnipeg and Lynn Lake/ Marcel Colomb First Nation.

Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency is dedicated to providing comprehensive CFS Services that are community-based and incorporate both protection and prevention service. Our agency strives to maintain family unity.

POSITION SUMMARY:

Under the supervision of the Service Manager, the Quality Assurance Coordinator is responsible for developing a framework that is based on the continual defining, measuring and improving of the quality of services. This framework focuses on services coordination, quality outcomes for children and families, effective and efficient systems and processes, relevant indicators and collaborative teamwork with First Nation Child and Family Services Agencies.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

§ Program design

§ Program implementation

§ Standards training

§ Monitoring

§ Compliance Reviews

QUALIFICATIONS:

§ Work experience in Child and Family Services with demonstrated knowledge of child development, family centered service, early intervention, family support and community based services.

§ Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) or related undergraduate degree in Human Services (preferred)

§ Ability to converse fluently in Cree (preferred)

§ Excellent assessment, intervention and writing skills

§ Knowledge of the CFS Act and provincial standards

§ Maintain strict confidentiality

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

§ Must pass a criminal records check, child abuse registry check and prior contact check.

§ Cannot be active on a protection case.

§ Must maintain absolute confidentiality in accordance with agency requirements.

§ May be assigned to provide coverage or support for other office locations from time to time and as required.

Deadline: February 8, 2023

SUBMIT COVER LETTER & RESUME ALONG WITH THREE (3)

REFERENCES MARKED “PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL” TO:

Human Resource Manager

Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency Box 10130, Opaskwayak, MB. R0B 2J0

Fax: 204-623-3847 Email: hr@creenation.ca across Canada’s 15 economic sectors.

We thank all who apply and advise that only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.

“Please visit our website at https://creenation.ca” Our office ensures that best practices in COVID-19 are observed. Under Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency’s COVID-19 vaccinations policy, all applicants are required to be fully vaccinated.

“Of every additional dollar that you're spending, on average, a quarter of it is just being declared as profits in oil and gas and mining,” said Macdonald.

“By far, the largest beneficiary of inflation has been the oil and gas extraction and mining industries, which, in an era of climate change, is probably not what we want,” Macdonald added.

Due to higher prices alone, $72 billion more was sent to the corporate sector in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the third quarter of 2020, the report found.

Of that, $18 billion ended up in mining and oil and gas extraction, and basically all of it was profit. Only $656 million went towards increased compensation for workers, the report found.

Macdonald’s methodology isolated inflation dollars, thereby removing the impact of higher levels of production that can also increase wages and profits. Because of the way industries are categorized, he couldn’t parse out exactly how much of the profit due to inflation can be attributed to oil and gas extraction versus mining.

The second-largest beneficiary was the manufacturing sector — which includes the refining of petroleum into diesel and gasoline — netting nine cents on every inflationary dollar. Real estate, rentals and leasing came in a close third with seven cents, and finance and insurers accounted for six cents of every inflationary dollar.

“This particular analysis really shows that these companies have been on the winning side of inflation despite the disruption it's caused everyone else,” Macdonald told Canada’s National Observer

One way to cycle these corporate profits back to Canadians is through a corporate surtax on all industries, much like the one in place for banks and life insurers’ groups. This one-time 15 per cent tax on income above $1 billion for

CREE NATION CHILD & FAMILY CARING AGENCY

Family Enhancement Worker –Permanent Position Thompson Sub Office Thompson & Lynn Lake, MB

Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency (CNCFCA) is responsible for administering and providing for the delivery of Child and Family Services. CNCFCA is dedicated to providing comprehensive CFS Services that are community-based and incorporate both protection and prevention services.

Our agency will strive to maintain family unity.

POSITION SUMMARY:

Under the supervision of the Unit Supervisor(s), the Family Enhancement Worker is responsible for providing and administering CFS Services in accordance with the Child & Family Services Act.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

§ Responsible for gathering information and assessing child and family functioning problems;

§ Responsible for the development of case plans for children and families within program guidelines and provide referrals, support, guidance and problem solving;

§ Responsible for all file documentation, referrals, ensuring services are applied;

§ Case Monitoring, Risk Assessment & Follow up;

§ Provides case management and support for children in care and families.

QUALIFICATIONS

§ Work experience in Child and Family Services with demonstrated knowledge of child development, family centered service, early intervention, family support and community-based services;

§ Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) or related undergraduate degree in Human Services (preferred);

§ Ability to converse fluently in Cree (preferred);

§ Excellent assessment, intervention and writing skills;

§ Knowledge of the Child and Family Services Act and provincial standards;

§ Ability to use a variety of computer applications including CFSIS and FACTS.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

§ Must pass a criminal records check, child abuse and prior check;

§ Cannot be active on a protection case;

§ Maintain absolute confidentiality;

§ Varied amounts of travel required;

§ Travel is required to work in Lynn Lake office one week per month;

§ Must have a valid Manitoba driver’s license;

§ Must be able to provide own vehicle for work;

§ Other duties related to the position may be assigned.

Deadline: February 8, 2023 @ 4:00 pm

Submit cover letter & resume along with three (3) references marked “personal & confidential” to:

Human Resource Manager

Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency Box 10130, Opaskwayak, MB. R0B 2J0 Fax: 204-623-3847 Email: hr@creenation.ca

We thank all who apply and advise that only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.

“Please visit our website at https://creenation.ca” Our office ensures that best practices in COVID-19 are observed. Under Cree Nation Child & Family Caring Agency’s COVID-19 vaccinations policy, all applicants are required to be fully vaccinated.

Qualifications:

The successful candidate must possess the following qualifications;

• Good written and verbal communication skills

• Physically fit to perform all duties

• Ability to multitask and problem solve

• Ability to operate equipment as required

• Computer literacy will be considered an asset

• Valid driver’s license the 2021 tax year for banks and insurers was introduced in Budget 2022. The report says companies profiting from in-

• Shiftwork

The successful candidates will join a dynamic team in providing support to the facility located in the beautiful Swan River Valley as it embarks on a new and exciting journey of producing siding for a growing market.