Partisanship gets in the way of parliamentary committee getting meaty answers from heads of northern companies
Lightly grilled executives seasoned with political rhetoric was the menu served up by Nunavut MP Lori Idlout and other members of the House of Commons Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee Wednesday.
But the result wasn’t terribly satisfying.
The committee summoned the heads of Canadian North and Calm Air airlines, North West Co., and Kimik Co-operative to appear at the meeting. It’s studying how well Nutrition North, the federal program that subsidizes food prices northerners pay, works.
Idlout, the NDP’s member on the committee, turned up the heat on North West Co. president Dan McConnell, demanding to know his salary and the average salary of a cashier at the Iqaluit Northmart.
McConnell dodged the question, saying he didn’t have the answer at his fingertips but that it was included in a company circular published online. He agreed to provide it to the committee later.
By the time Idlout’s second round came about, she had the information, presumably after a quick-acting NDP staffer looked it up and texted it to her in time to drop the gotcha question.
According to the website, Idlout reported, McConnell’s salary is $3.9 million. The average annual salary of a cashier is $37,000 a year.
“Basically, your salary is 98 times what your employees get,” Idlout said triumphantly. She said she didn’t want McConnell to get away with only giving his salary to the committee in writing after the meeting.
MP John Aldag, the committee chairperson, gave McConnell a chance to respond to Idlout’s statement.
“That’s OK,” McConnell said quietly.
But that’s as hot as it got for the executives who had been summoned before the committee.
When the committee adopted Idlout’s motion to have the executives appear last month, it looked to be the kind of showdown that happened last year when a different parliamentary committee called on the executives of Canada’s biggest grocery store chains to explain what they’re doing to help customers in light of skyrocketing food prices.
But other than Idlout turning McConnell’s income into the nation’s business, the Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee’s questioning was mild with MPs using the executives’ appearances to score points for their own party instead of getting into the meat and potatoes of Nutrition North.
Conservative MP Bob Zimmer picked away at what effect the federal carbon tax had on transportation and food prices in the North, marching to the beat of his party’s leader Pierre Poilievre’s “axe the tax” mantra.
And Liberal MPs — who underlined that transportation in the territories is exempt from their government’s carbon tax — gently asked McConnell to explain how his company passes the Nutrition North subsidy through to its customers.
Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski asked him what prevents his company, which essentially has a monopoly in some northern communities, from charging whatever it wants and using the federal government’s Nutrition North funding to pad its profits.
McConnell hit Powlowski’s softball, saying, “We’ve always taken a balanced approach on passing through the cost to the consumers given the relationship we have with our customers.”
Nutrition North is an important federal program that affects the daily lives of northerners. It’s good that the Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee is looking into whether public money spent to subsidize grocery prices is being used effectively.
But if MPs would set aside their partisan agendas, it would help them get more steak and less sizzle from the rare opportunities they have to question the business leaders who are at the heart of the matter.
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