Dennis Bevington at the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

I want to go to the nutrition north program and deal with some of the issues surrounding it. You're of course aware that the cost of living in northern communities, according to Statistics Canada, has gone up and has doubled in comparison to the rest of Canada.

What we see here is that the dollars for the nutrition north program have remained the same and have actually declined from expenditures that have been made in previous years. You're not budgeting for any increase, even though the cost of living has gone up and the cost of transportation has gone up. Can you explain why there isn't any increase? The population numbers for the regions have probably gone up as well. You have no increase showing here.