Finding ways to Encourage Major Retail Outlets to offer the Ethical Choices

First of all, it is of great importance for us to teach the consumer about what shopping “locally” of for “fairly traded” means to the people involved.  I personally have done considerable research or the past year, after some really aggravating trips to the store.  

Case in point, I am completely frustrated by the “junk” that surrounds me in my home.  It’s cheap and seems to break when you want it most.  My electric tea kettle broke, yet again, and I was fed up.  I could not find anyone willing to fix the one I had and this one was barely a year old (so past its warranty).  I decided this time I want one made in Canada or at least made in North America and I was going to pay the price.  Into the store with “Canadian” in its name I went.  There were at least a dozen different kettles on the shelf.  Every kettle was manufactured in one country, and it was not Canada.  I was mad, so home I went without a kettle.  I took out my computer and started surfing.  It seems in our love for “junk” we have lots our ability to manufacture most small appliances in Canada.  So I surfed across the border, but you need to be careful because many are inclined not to list where the product is manufactured.  It was two weeks and still no electric kettle.  Needless to say my spouse had enough and went and bought me a kettle and sorry folks, it’s manufactured in the country we shall not name.

My next consumer frustration came when I decided to replace my Christmas tree lights with a “Greener alternative”.  I wanted LED Christmas lights mostly because I intensely dislike my December electric bill and I wanted nothing to do with the frustration of finding which bulbs were done on the strings I had.  So I went back to the store with “Canadian” in its name.  Why you ask?  It’s in the town where I live and means I’m shopping locally.  Once again the shelves are lined with lights of every size and shape, oodles to choose from.  They were all manufactured in the country I will not name, every last set.  Every other store I went to, same story.  Canadians don’t manufacture Christmas lights?  The land of snow and ice? How did this happen?

Needless to say it has started me down a path where I wanted to see and learn how to be a more socially responsible consumer and has me working a little harder to do the right thing.  I stay out of the mall, which is no small task with two teenage girls.  We buy gently used clothes whenever possible.  We plant our own vegetables.  The shopping gets done at stores and businesses that carry Canadian made products, fairly traded products, or local products.  I am more willing to do without.  I educate others about shopping ethically and I applaud the stores like; Costco, Sobeys and Tim Horton’s, that make the effort to offer me the products that help me be the ethical shopper.  I noticed just a few days ago, that bulk amounts of fairly traded sugar have found its way on to shelves in Costco. Chocolate is the hard part, as a confirmed
“chocoholic”, finding ethical chocolate to eat and bake with is still a challenge.  More and more I do without, which are good for the waistline but affordable choices, are making their way into the market place.  Cadbury sells bars that are clearly marked and Kirkland (Costco) sell a bulk bag of chocolate chips.  Internet research helps to teach us where to spend our money more ethically too.  I find it amusing that I find more and more North American product in our local dollar store.

Why do I go to this much trouble?  We have been exploiting the countries and their people for decades just to satisfy our need for more stuff without any thought to the harm we are causing.  Surfs and child laborers never went away, they just moved to someone else’s back yard, so consumers don’t have to see what they have done.  Business continues to ‘make money on the backs of the world’s poor and needy.  How much does it cost to put a small clinic and school on a plantation so workers and their families can stay healthy and children can learn to read and write?  Exploiting the world’s poor in just wrong, especially when the cost to help isn’t that great.