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Her new paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal calls for an urgent inquiry “to determine the extent to which similar initiatives adapted to the needs and realities of northern populations could affect food insecurity.”

The measure of food security is measured in surveys by Statistics Canada, and indicates at least one affirmative answer to a series of questions about, for example, going a full day without eating, worrying about running out of food, or compromising on food quality or safety.

Food insecurity is a big problem, and it’s not going away with that initiative

The damning research comes as the future of the Nutrition North Canada program looks increasingly uncertain, beset with criticism about financial transparency and fears that the subsidies are not entirely passed on to consumers. Even when they are, the resulting prices can still be impossibly expensive, with a pound of ground beef regularly selling for $20 and 2 kg of white flour nearing $14.

The annual rates of food insecurity were as low as 33 per cent before the program launched. That is easily the highest in the country, but the numbers were on a slight downward trend.

After the NNC program came into force, however, that number went up, and kept increasing, such that by the time the NNC had been fully implemented in 2014, rates of food insecurity were at nearly 50 per cent of households, where they remain today.

Not only had the downward trend been reversed, but it became a major spike. The rate of food insecurity “after implementation was 43 per cent higher than the rate expected if the trend before the launch had continued,” reads the paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.