Each for All: The Co-operative Connection

The BCICS sponsored the first ever Ethical Purchasing Forum at the University of Victoria. The two-day event brought together activists, academics, and community members to explore issues surrounding ethical trade in the Victoria region.

Specifically the forum aimed to increase the market for ethically traded products through policy development at the municipal and institutional levels and by co-operating to increase public awareness and develop locally based regional alternatives for ethical trade.

The forum set out a wide variety of topics to be discussed including:

- Working conditions for producers
- Unfair trade for First Nations communities
- Fair Trade at the Grass Roots level
- Policy initiatives and organization
- Food security and sustainability
- The No Sweat Movement
- Faith perspectives on ethical trade
- And, of course, the role of co-operatives in the promotion of ethical production and consumption.

Over one hundred and thirty people registered for the conference making it a resounding success. The basis of any effective social movement is the establishment of strong social network among those groups and individuals advocating change. We feel that the forum was an important step in this direction.

In this episode, we hear from some of the participants who spoke at the Forum.

First is an excerpt from Jacqui MacDonald’s Opening Keynote address from the Forum. Jacqui is a fair trade consultant who also works with the values based business network here in Victoria. Along with Jaqui MacDonald, Francisco Vanderhoff was also a Key note Speaker at the forum. Francisco is a worker-priest from Oaxaca, Mexico. He helped establish the first Fair Trade label in 1988. Fransico made several inspiring speeches during the two day conference in which he touched on a variety of topics including the deplorable economic disparity between the north and south, the exploitation of producers by wealthy business owners, as well as the how fair and ethically traded goods can begin to provide a mechanism for bridging the immense gap between the rich and poor.

Megan Thom shares her experiences at the forum, including setting up a session on local food and the supply chain of UVic's food system, and talks about her work with UVic’s Sustainability Project (uvsp.uvic.ca).

We also hear from David Rice from the Canadian Labour Congress, Pakki Chipps from the Beecher Bay First Nation here on Vancouver Island, and Susan Draper from KAIROS which is an organization representing faith groups interested in social justice issues.