New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh and the NWT’s NDP candidate-to-be, Kelvin Kotchilea, appeared in front of Yellowknife’s uptown Independent on Tuesday carrying a box of groceries.
The two were performing a “price check” on the high cost of groceries across the NWT, Kotchilea said at a news conference scheduled for 11am in the store’s parking lot.
“When you go into a grocery store and you’re buying and spending more than ever before, and you’re leaving with less than ever before, people feel ripped off,” said Singh, who has been an annual visitor to the territory lately.
Singh and Kotchilea, who said they had just been shopping inside the Independent, held up President’s Choice branded bags of apples and peaches alongside a bottle of olive oil. The three items together cost $40, Singh said.
Those numbers likely won’t be surprising to many northerners, as the rising cost of living has reduced food security in the NWT and increased strain on food banks.
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Kotchilea, a Tłı̨chǫ citizen, said his family of four was spending about $200 a week on groceries a year and a half ago. Now, he said, the Kotchilea family grocery bill is around $350 a week.
“One key thing for me, it’s either eat your food as medicine, or your medicine as food,” Kotchilea said. “It’s not fair to me or to my children, to my wife, that we have to … go for products that are not really good for our consumption.”
Kotchilea said some community members have little money left over to pay for extracurricular activities that would keep their children “in a healthy state and keep them active.”
Singh used the appearance to emphasize a key plank of the NDP’s anticipated platform for the forthcoming federal election: that the party would act to stop large, corporate grocery stores from “ripping off consumers” through a proposed price cap.
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“Given that they’re making record profits, if they don’t reduce the price of food essentials, we will impose a price cap,” Singh said of large grocery chains.
The cap would affect items like “bread and baby formula, essentials that people need,” the NDP leader said. “They should be able to be affordable.”
“We know the North has already been struggling,” Singh said. “It’s already been hard to put groceries in the North. It’s even harder now.”
Asked about small, isolated communities in the NWT, where groceries are often sold through chains like Northern but can also be sold through locally owned stores, Singh said the NDP’s main target was corporations.
Singh also called the Nutrition North subsidy program “a failure.” The program offers a subsidy that flows through grocers and is intended to reduce food costs in the North.
The North West Company, which owns chains like Northern and NorthMart stores, was recently accused of failing to give northern customers as much of the subsidy as it should, while continuing to record significant profits.
In June, a federal NDP motion to reform the Nutrition North program failed to pass in the House of Commons.
Kotchilea has already been nominated by the NDP to serve as the party’s NWT candidate at the next general election, whenever that may be. One must be called on or before October 20, 2025.
Singh and Kotchilea are in Yellowknife until Thursday night. They will visit the Yellowknife Farmers’ Market at 5pm on Tuesday, where Singh is a returning customer.
