Rankin Inlet senior administrative officer Darren Flynn is quick to brush away any complaints being posted on social media concerning the distribution of food vouchers connected to the Jordan's Principle initiative, people receiving more than they're supposed to, or any retailer being purposefully ignored.
Flynn said, first of all, the screening process the hamlet has in place is pretty good.
He said there were some people who misunderstood what they could get, but the vast majority of people who applied for the program were eligible for it.
“There's always people making complaints that they can't buy paper towels or they can't buy toilet paper and whatnot, but it's a food nutrition program,” said Flynn.
“This is not Jordan's Principle that people have seen elsewhere, where you can buy furniture on it, you can get travel support and things of that nature. This is simply a food program.
“This was never meant to replace what people were spending. This was meant to supplement it so that they could have good, nutritious foods for their family.”
Flynn said the hamlet expanded the program's basic criteria to expand the categories.
He said the intent was to make things as clear as possible as to what could be purchased.
“So, where it said cleaning supplies, specifically on ours, it said you can't buy cleaning wipes and things like that because there's always somebody wanting to have something else included.
“We broke it out with more defined products, so people could understand what they could buy and what they couldn't. Everybody's interpretation of cleaning supplies is somewhat objective.”
Flynn said it was never a conscious decision to exclude any store from the list of those eligible.
He said there was nobody excluded from the process, but the hamlet did put the big box stores on the list — the stores that would be able to handle the volume (Northern Store, Kissarvik Co-op, Eskimo Point Lumber Supply and Arctic Connection).
“Anyone who wanted to use another store could, absolutely, have written the name of the store in. People had choices and people made choices.
“This was about getting the food to the families. We took 900-plus applicants and, from the time we finished doing mass registration, it was a day short of three weeks that we released the authorization sheets to the retailers. And, two days after that, it was loaded and people were filling their shopping carts.
“I walked in the stores and watched people going with heaped-over carts of groceries, and kids with beaming faces loaded up with milk, chocolate milk and all kinds of good food. Kids were just beaming.”
Flynn said it may be unfair for people to also insinuate that local retailers were jacking-up their prices in anticipation of the food voucher program.
He pointed out that the latest carbon tax increase came into effect — another eight cents per litre of fuel — which impacted trucking companies and airlines.
“Obviously they pass that cost on and it ultimately ends up affecting the retailers, too, and they pass it on to the consumer.
“It just so happened to occur at the same time that some of the communities were coming out with Jordan's Principle.
“And, a number of people automatically concluded that it was a result of the new injection of money. No it wasn't. It was because of the eight-cents-a-litre carbon tax increase imposed on April 1.
“I'm actually surprised things didn't go up more. Now, I'm not defending the retailers here, not for one moment, but, at the same time, people are making an awful lot of comments without any real substantiation.”
