Nunavut MP says kids are starving, as Liberals' budget sparks debate about potential impacts

In a buzzing House of Commons foyer on Wednesday, NDP MP Lori Idlout quietly explained how children are going hungry in her Nunavut riding as families grapple with an acute affordability crisis that, she said, will only worsen with federal spending cuts.

"The Liberals' political decisions are already having a devastating impact," Idlout told CBC Indigenous.

"For example, for no reason other than politics, when they decided to cancel the ICFI’s hamlet food voucher program , Inuit were placed back into poverty."

She was referring to the Inuit Child First Initiative, which in 2023 began providing Inuit communities with grocery vouchers in a territory where 79 per cent of children under 14 lived in food insecure households in 2022.

The Liberal government ended the collective food vou