$200 turkey sparks debate on Arctic food prices
Last Updated: Friday, October 9, 2009 | 6:27 PM CT
CBC News
Related
Internal Links
This photograph, taken Monday, shows a $200.07 price tag on an 11-kilogram frozen turkey at the Northern Store in Arctic Bay, Nunavut. (Submitted photo)A picture of a $200 Thanksgiving turkey in a High Arctic community has people talking about the high cost of living in Canada's far North.
The photograph, which has been circulating by email since Monday, shows a frozen Grade 'A' turkey with a price tag of $200.07 at the Northern Store in Arctic Bay, a remote community on the northern coast of Baffin Island.
The picture had Quttiktuq MLA Ron Elliott, the Nunavut government's elected representative for the High Arctic, worried about the cost of food and other essentials in his region.
"It would be nice to have people all across Canada sort of realize that even within our own country, the ability to … put food on the table for your family is almost becoming impossible," Elliott told CBC News on Friday.
"The high cost of living in the communities, it makes you really think, you know, how within our own country can we allow this to continue to happen?"
Store trims turkey price
After the photograph started making the rounds online, the Arctic Bay Northern Store reduced the price of the turkeys to about $90 each.
The store's manager said the $200 price tag was a labelling error.
Nunavut Transportation Minister Peter Taptuna recently visited Arctic Bay to discuss the high costs of travel and shipping to the High Arctic region.
Elliott said High Arctic residents generally feel they are not seeing the impact of the federal government's food mail program, which subsidizes the cost of shipping healthy perishable grocieries by air to remote northern communities that are not accessible year-round by road, rail or marine service.
Federal officials are currently reviewing the food mail program, which cost the government $50 million to operate last year.
Share Tools
Latest North News Headlines
- Baffinland submits environmental impact statement
- Baffinland Iron Mines has submitted its final environmental impact statement for a proposed mine on northern Baffin Island. more »
- Charges laid in $150K fraud of Vancouver Firefighters Band
- The former treasurer of the Vancouver Firefighters Band, Jason Davidson, has been charged with stealing over $150,000 from the band's account. Davidson currently works as a deputy fire chief in Yellowknife. more »
- Yukon won’t ban mining in Peel watershed
- The Yukon Government says it won't ban mining or any other resources development in the Peel watershed. more »
- 2 NDP MPs back final Commons vote to kill gun registry
- Two NDP MPs broke party ranks to vote with the government in the final House of Commons vote on scrapping the long-gun registry. more »
Top News Headlines
- Tories move to curb 'bogus' refugees
- The Conservative government is poised to change the refugee system yet again in an attempt to deter what it considers "bogus" claimants, CBC News has learned. more »
- Children of immigrants challenged at school, home
- By 2016, foreign-born youth and Canadian-born youth from immigrant families will make up a quarter of the country's population, according to predictions by the Canadian Council on Social Development. As their numbers grow, more attention is being paid to their successes and failures. more »
- 2 NDP MPs back final Commons vote to kill gun registry
- Two NDP MPs broke party ranks to vote with the government in the final House of Commons vote on scrapping the long-gun registry. more »
- B.C. house party trial hears from tearful teens
- Two teenagers cried as they testified at the trial of a B.C. woman who was charged after a teen died while her son was hosting a party at her house in 2008. more »
- Yellowknife airport worker struck by propeller
- 10 days to fix helicopter-downed power line
- Helicopter strikes power line near Yellowknife
- Iqaluit RCMP officers to stay longer
- Iqaluit man arrested for sex offences against children
- Yukon Gwitchin chief resigns
- 2 NDP MPs back final Commons vote to kill gun registry
- First nine Yukon Quest mushers in Whitehorse
- Agnico-Eagle to issue update on finances

