Fair Trade: The Business of Social Justice

There appears to be an interesting movement emerging in a number of towns in the United Kingdom and the United States: the Fair Trade Town Movement. Garstang in Lancashire, England declared itself the first Fair Trade Town in 2000. Fair Trade Towns have popped up in North America as well, but Wolfville, Nova Scotia is the only declared town in Canada. There are now 250 Fair Trade Towns in the world that have agreed to commit to the following five goals:

• The local council must pass a resolution supporting Fairtrade, and serve Fairtrade coffee and tea at its meetings and in offices and canteens.
• A range of Fairtrade products must be readily available in the area’s shops and served in local cafés and catering establishments (targets are set in relation to population)
• Fairtrade products must be used by a number of local work places (estate agents, hairdressers etc) and community organisations (churches, schools etc)
• Attract media coverage and popular support for the campaign
• A local Fairtrade steering group must be convened to ensure continued commitment to Fairtrade Town status.
  

Many towns will also commit to the purchase of local products by adopting additional resolutions alongside the five above. For example, Wolfville also committed itself to the purchase of products from local farmers:

"As the first fair trade town, we're going into some areas that originally might not have been a strong concept," (Wolfville Mayor) Bob Stead said Tuesday. "But it's almost impossible to talk about fair trade without in this instance talking about buy local and fair price for local produce as well."

Stead said when the town council was discussing the proposal of becoming a fair trade town, local producers were suffering with the closure of poultry and pork processing plants. He noted that if the town planned on committing itself to supporting farmers in developing countries, they should also back farmers in their own town.

The Fair Trade Movement is also adding a new scale, with Scotland and Wales looking to declare themselves as Fair Trade Nations. This would require that a significant proportion of towns in those countries become Fair Trade Towns. Aggressive advocates for this approach are looking to change the way the nation procures all of its government products and services to ensure they met Fair Trade Standards.

It's not really "new" news, but it is pretty damn interesting. This represents what I think is a creative and necessary approach: social justice as a way of doing business. In this case, it is the business of government. But it doesn't just have to be the business of government: it could be the business of doing business, or your own business.

It is also another answer to the question: what can I do? Individuals, businesses, or governments can change their purchasing habits to ensure that their consumer choices reduce poverty, or at least, do not support market conditions that create poverty. We could pursue similar "lifestyle" approaches in Canada and perhaps even link them with living wage resolutions and ecological standards.

Imagine a new, progressive town (or business) that committed to living wages, fair trade principles, and a smaller ecological footprint.

Wouldn't you want to live there?

Home

I've lived in quite a few places in my life, from basement apartments to homes with white picket fences. As a kid, I was always happy to call the place I lived home. Sure, there were always crazy neighbours and the basement was usually a terrifying pit of doom. And I once had a room with a red shag carpet and red velvet walls straight out of a low-budget, made-for-elementary-school-kids horror movie. But beyond these childhood neuroses, it was a pretty comfortable life. The places we lived in were always safe, warm, and clean. Sure, there were encounters with seediness, but they were only momentary events. They were homes. Just thinking about it ignites the five senses of memories past...

Unfortunately, for many folks, it is extremely difficult to call the place they live home.

Joe Fiorito wrote a piece in the Star today talking about community housing. He's been doing a number of pieces recently on the topic, and he received some letters and feedback from readers who live in social housing in Toronto. One reader alerted him to Youtube, which has some really disturbing videos of community housing in the city.

A Tour of a Toronto Community Housing Location
The unnamed director takes you on a short tour through one of the TCHC locations.


Mould

This video was submitted to the Ontario Housing Tribunal as documentary evidence of the mould infestation in a social housing site.

These are just a sample of the many videos available online at Youtube.com. Just type in Toronto Community Housing to check out the other feeds.

Hundreds of thousands of people live in social housing in Ontario, and there are over 120,000
Ontarians on a waiting list for affordable housing in places like these. Certainly, we cannot paint all of these houses with the same brush, and there are honest folks working in the affordable housing sector, from maintenance to management.

But it ain't enough. There aren't enough spaces and the spaces that are available are in significant need of infrastructure upgrades and improved ongoing maintenance. We spend far too little on affordable housing, and the proportion of social housing stock is far below other socially progressive nations.

How can you build a future for yourself or your family without a home?

CBC Sunday: On the Street

CBC News Sunday had some really incredible stories today on the lives of Canadians living on the street. I've figured out how to download the videos from their site, and post them on this blog.

You can watch Frank's story below. Frank O'Dea was the founder of Second Cup, one of the most successful coffee shop chains in the world. Before he made his millions, he lived on the street in Toronto. In his mid-20's, he had experiences that haunted him for the rest of his life, from rape and abuse to isolation and fear. He also wrote a book about his life, When All You Have Is Hope.

In addition to Frank's story, CBC News Sunday also did a piece on Street Health, |...an innovative, community-based health care organization providing services to address a wide range of physical, mental and emotional needs in those who are homeless, poor and socially marginalized." They partnered with the National Film Board of Canada to put together Street Health Stories, an art installation which gives a human face and voice to Street Health’s statistics through photography and sound.

Hard times (in search of leadership)

Thomas Walkom made a really important point in his piece today in the Star. Many of our cities and our people are falling behind and facing hard times. He wrote an interesting story on conditions in Windsor:

"This is a city going through hard times. The rest of the country may be booming; Windsor, where the unemployment rate approaches double digits, is not."

Windsor's unemployment rate is almost double the provincial average, at just below ten per cent. It is struggling like a lot of cities in Ontario, like Thunder Bay and Hamilton. There are parts of Hamilton and Thunder Bay that look like Flint, Michigan. I could hardly believe it when I visited both cities in August.

We can't kid ourselves. Our economy is falling behind. The Conference Board of Canada reported that the seven fastest growing cities in Canada were all in the west. (This is all in the context of declining influence in the Confederation.)

I know I'm an armchair economist, and other folks are still predicting modest growth, but it doesn't look pretty out there. Our manufacturing jobs are getting hammered by a high dollar (we've lost 111,500 since 2005), and we're replacing those jobs in the service sector. There is debate on the quality of jobs we are producing in terms of wages and benefits. But the short and long-term picture shows that we're creating jobs with fewer benefits, lower wages, and less security. Check out the OAFB discussion paper on Working Ontarians.

So what? Well, we've already got a lot of Ontarians living in hunger and poverty. 330,000 of our fellow citizens are served by food banks every month in Ontario. And if our cities are taking a hit, and we're losing good paying jobs, then odds are we're going to have a lot more folks living in difficult circumstances. In the words of the Ragin' Cajun, "It's the economy, stupid."

Some of the party leaders are hitting the right talking points, and some of them do have some interesting ideas from next generation jobs to job protection. (As well as all the bedrock education and learning policies). But we've got to have a harder look and a serious debate about what kinds of jobs we are creating and what kind of jobs we need. And then, what we need to do to make sure we get those jobs.

I think we need to be more focused in terms of economic development, targeting both industries and areas. Why don't we try to make a place like Hamilton the social innovation capital of the world? Or make Windsor a high-tech, high quality manufacturing hub? We face the great challenge of both global competition and local poverty. Why don't we give our cities, our people, and our industries the right supports to ensure they can be successful? They're doing it in New York State, and they're doing it in Bangalore. I'm sure that Ontario's politicians, business leaders, and social justice advocates could work together on a pretty incredible plan to create jobs that ensure we are globally competitive and that we create jobs that provide good wages and a strong social return on investment.

Now let me be clear that it's not all about jobs and the economy. We don't provide enough basic supports for our fellow citizens in terms of social assistance, housing, and child care. That is morally unjust and economically irresponsible. Jobs are only a part of the solution. But I wouldn't have anything to write about in the future if I hammered away at this as well.

In other news, according to the Canadian Press, it is more likely that we'll find ourselves in the midst of another election in the fall. The Bloc has laid out five difficult demands for the Conservatives to meet in their Throne Speech, including the elimination of federal spending powers in provincial jurisdiction. If Harper's Conservatives don't meet these conditions, they won't be getting the Bloc's support, which has been critical to their continued grip on power. It would be a huge risk for Layton or Dion to high five Harper in the House after he lays out a mandate which could become the framework for his election platform.

So maybe there's a shot at convincing a few of these leaders who are searching for a vision of Canada to show some courage and take a bit of a political risk on making poverty reduction a priority. If the recent provincial election debate is any indicator, people seem to be looking for their leaders to lay out a compelling vision for the future, instead of hammering their opponents on their failures. For an interesting fact check of the debate, check out Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.