Nunavut Food Price Rebellion: Where a box of macaroni costs $13.99

There are three sure things in Nunavut: death, taxes and extremely high food prices.

Even so, Leesee Papatsie, a mother of five living in Iqaluit, says enough is enough and has launched her own protest to bring attention to prices that would have people in southern Ontario marching in the streets.

“I have one simple message: prices are too high here in the north,” Papatsie told the Toronto Star Tuesday.

It’s easy to tell Papatsie, 44, has touched a nerve — the Facebook site she launched called “Feeding My Family ” has attracted a great deal of attention with people from the north outdoing themselves with example of sky high prices for everyday goods.

For example, a two-kilogram box of Catelli macaroni sells for $13.99 in northern stores, compared to $7.49 or less in Toronto. A five kilogram bag of all-purpose flour is $33.29 in Iqaluit and the same bag of flour in Toronto sells for as little as $3. Four litres of milk in Iqaluit cost $12.95 or three times what it costs in Ottawa.

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On the Facebook site, people are posting photos of all of kinds of grocery products they feel are too inflated, including a two-litre container of grape juice that sells for $22.49, compared to $6.95 in southern Ontario.

Papatsie said people in the north expect to pay more for their food because of the cost of shipping, but even so they think prices are “still way too high.”

New Democratic Party MP Jean Crowder. the opposition critic for aboriginal affairs in the House of Commons, is expected to visit Iqaluit this week to discuss food insecurity in the north.

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