Fair Trade Flowers for Mom

"For every flower that we are able to sell, a child is able to study. Here in Ecuador, there are so many children that do not study. For this reason, it's very important to buy Fair Trade flowers, because our children are our future."

Those words were spoken by Mariana Vasquez, of the Hoja Verde Flower Farm, but they could be a quote from anyone who works on a fair trade flower farm in any of the other countries where they operate.
With Mother's Day coming up this weekend, you might be thinking of making a gift of flowers on Sunday May 11. Your gift, intended to make your mother's day a little brighter, can do so much more than that, if you make sure the flowers are fair trade certified. In addition to fair wages paid to the workers and protection from harmful pesticides, Fair Trade certification requires the flower farms provide employee benefits that include 12 weeks paid maternity leave, vacation and sick leave, and childcare. The workers are given a premium of between 8 and 12% of each sale to invest in community development, and provided with training to implement development projects of their choosing. These projects can include adult literacy and gardens to feed their families. Some Fair Trade Certified flower farms have even given supervisory positions to women, quite a departure from the norm in most of the countries boasting these farms. Your mother's fair trade bouquet can help to ensure that women worldwide have an opportunity to equal access of employment. It will also help to protect the environment, since Fair Trade certification ensures that farms "comply with rigorous environmental standards governing the use of pesticides, conservation of water, treatment of waste water, protection of ecosystems and more. There is an extensive list of agrochemicals that are completely prohibited on Fair Trade farms, and others that must be phased out over time."
If you have any question about the quality of fair trade flowers,a few figures from Switzerland might provide answers for you. 50 per cent of all roses sold there are fair trade certified, and a whopping 97 per cent of Swiss consumers say the Fair Trade Flowers are of equal or even better quality than the norm.
Click here to find fair trade flowers in Canada, and have a great day this Sunday!

Shoe Sales One-Oh-One

We had the pleasure this past weekend to meet one of the best shoe sales persons you could ever hope to have serving you. Unfortunately, we didn't get to meet her until after our money had been scorned by one of the worst you'd ever want to encounter.
Let's start with Mr. Dumbass, shall we? He works for Harry Young Shoes and we met him at their 67 Front Street East location, although he told us that he was only "on loan" there from the Yonge Street branch. He was going to help us with shoes for my daughter, who wears a B width and has a rather narrow heel compared to the front of her foot. This can mean the shoe salesperson needs to have a little patience, a little more willingness to actually perform the duties for which they were hired, since it is rare for the first pair offered to be the one she takes. That said, however, the number of shoes brought out for her to try is often no different than that brought out for many a woman who simply wants to find the nicest pair, the most comfortable or fashionable pair they can. If the salesperson has that aforementioned skill set, they may well see their efforts end with a satisfied customer trekking to the cash register, wallet in hand. When you get right down to it, isn't that what any sales clerk is supposed to be after - that walk over to ring in the purchase and add to the profit margin of their employer? It would seem to make good sense for a salesperson who wants to help their employer to continue writing pay cheques.
Mr. Moron, obviously, failed Sales One-Oh-One. He started out by measuring my daughter's foot and saying, "Well, you're not one of my narrowest-foot customers." Pardon me for asking, but what exactly was that supposed to mean? For most North American women, "B" width is regarded as the average. It is not out of the norm, so why did he feel obliged to say anything about it? Even if it were a little unusual, any salesclerk with a little bit of a pleasant manner would have nothing to say about it.
This public relations failure headed out back and brought back three pairs for my daughter to try on. With each one, she experienced the problem she so often does, which is that she "walks out" of the heel of the shoe when she lifts her foot in a normal walking motion, if the fit of the shoes is not just right for her. He very quickly began to lose interest, and even said to her about the last pair she tried and declined, "Well, I thought they looked good on you." Again, I have a question to ask. Was that comment supposed to tell her to ignore the comfort factor and buy shoes simply to get out of his way?
At this point, he said "We specialize in narrow fitting shoes." and then he seemed to shut down, standing there just looking at us for a moment. I had gone to their website before our shopping trip, however, and saw that they list themselves as providing shoes up to a "C" width, so I tried saying to him, "You know your stock. You know what you have available. Is there a pair of shoes that you think might fit her better than what she has tried so far?"
His response was actually, " I would suggest you try another store." Not exactly what you might expect to hear, right? Well, we took him up on that, and ended up at "K Shoes of England" where my daughter purchased two pairs of shoes, contributing over $300.00 toward the economic health of that store. The idiot back at Harry Young seemed to have no qualms at all in turning away a potential sale. It makes you wonder how many other times he does that in a day. It makes you wonder if his boss knows about his sales technique, or even cares.
The saleswoman we encountered at the second store was as different from Mr. Moron as night from day. She greeted us with a smile, and it reappeared repeatedly during the time she was helping us. She brought out pair after pair to be tried on, and never once acted as though it was the least bit of a chore for her to do so. She quickly understood what kind of shoe was being sought, (after all, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that) and even brought out a couple of pairs my daughter had not looked at, saying when she did so. "Here's a pair I thought you might like to try. They're a little different from the others you were trying, so you can compare and decide which one feels best." Now that's one heck of a good salesperson. That's a clerk who actually does what she was hired to do. Her super pleasant, helpful manner is one that will bring repeat business to that store.
Both of those clerks provided material for word-of-mouth advertising, and I have no problem offering it to anyone who's interested in listening. As well as telling readers here about the two stores and the encounters we had there, I've already spread the word to various friends and family members. After hearing the details, which store would you rather visit?

World Fair Trade Day

Mark May 10th on your calendars and get ready to do a little shopping that will help to make a big difference. With Mother's Day coming up, the Ten Thousand Villages store near you makes a great place to take part in Fair Trade Day and take care of Mom's gift, all at the same time. You can browse their gifts for "glam moms" and 'earth friendly moms" and know you're acting globally when you take your selection up to the cash register.
"At Ten Thousand Villages, we've come to know that when producers earn a decent living they invest in their environment. The more support there is for Fair Trade, the more chance there is for development goals to be reached both locally and globally.
This year's theme for World Fair Trade Day — Fair Trade Creates Good Climate — draws attention to the fact that Fair Trade helps advance human rights and environmental justice.
On May 10th, World Fair Trade Day events will take place in over 70 countries, as well as across Canada."
There are stores in Alberta, B.C., Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. Click here to find the locations for your province. If you live in the United States, and the idea of supporting Fair Trade appeals to you, follow this link to find a listing of every location in the States, along with their phone numbers and e-mail info. It doesn't get any easier than that.
No matter where you live in North America, visiting a Ten Thousand Villages location on May 10th, or any other shopping day of the year, will be an easy way to help support commerce with a conscience.

Thanks for the Ruling, OHRC

Christian Horizons is an evangelical organization that runs 180 group homes for 1,400 people with developmental disabilities, here in Ontario. It does so under an annual $75 million contract with the provincial government, employing 2,500 individuals to staff the residences. Each one of those employees has to sign a "morality pledge" as a condition of their employment with CH.
The pledge requires the future employee to promise they will refrain from a list of proscribed behaviours that includes homosexual relationships, extra-marital dalliances, pre-marital intimacies, "endorsing" alcohol or cigarettes, and lying. Yep, lying. Of course, everyone who signs that pledge is telling the truth; the whole truth; and nothing but the truth. Aren't they?
It all makes me think of the staff members at the Catholic schools at which I taught through my years before the blackboard. They were all supposed to live a life that embodied all the tenets of the catholic faith, both on school property, and off it. The funny thing was that the vast majority of those staff members had just two children. They would never have used birth control to achieve that, which made it the strangest coincidence imaginable that all those schools hired all those people who all had the same limitations on their reproductive capabilities. They would all be eschewing birth control, since his holiness Benny continues to declare it to be a no-no. Wouldn't they?
Don't get me wrong. I'm quite sure there must be at least one or two staff members, both at those aforementioned schools, and at the residences run by CH, for whom the pledged living of christian values is actually more than a convenient fudging of the truth in order to land a job, but you know bloody well they are few and far between. For the rest of the employees and the pledge wielding employers, it's all hypocrisy.
That pledge has now gotten the CH into trouble with the OHRC (Ontario Human Rights Commission), because it has used it as the grounds on which to terminate the employment of one Connie Heintz, who realized herself to be a lesbian, after she inked her name on the pledge's bottom line. When CH forced Heintz out, she brought a complaint against them and the OHRC has ruled in her favour, ordering Christian Horizons to pay Heintz two years' wages and benefits, plus $23,000. in compensatory damages.
The OHRC has also ruled the CH must "develop and adopt an anti-discrimination and an anto-harassment policy" in compliance with Ontario's human rights legislation. The ruling has some people bleating now about the OHRC being "thought police" and whining that the ruling proves the commission is out to make everyone think the same way they (read 'the government') do. Lorne Gunter is one of those expressing outrage at the ruling. Gunter, a columnist at the Edmonton Journal and a commentator for both CBC Radio and Global TV, is calling the OHRC Ontario's "thought police". Gunter and all the others adding their voice to the chorus of complaints about the ruling should give it a rest.
The Commission is not trying to tell anyone how to think. Anyone who gets their jollies from being homophobic is free to think all the narrow-minded thoughts they want. They simply are not free to act on those thoughts. Whether the group takes government funding or not, the point is they are operating here in Ontario where we, as a society, are guided by principles of inclusive acceptance of all, including bigots. Even Gunter himself, if he stops to give it a rational thought or two, should actually be grateful that the OHRC ruled as it did. Their ruling represents a continued societal striving for equality and fairness for all. While Gunter feels himself to be a part of the moral majority, the power group, right now; he should keep in mind that when you back a system built on any kind of exclusion, there is never any guarantee that you might not one day find yourself on the wrong side of the guidelines used to set some apart. Arbitrary guidelines have a bad habit of being no more firm and lasting than a bowl of jello left out under a scorching summer sun.
Thank heavens for the OHRC, I say. It is doing the best it can to drag narrow-minded types like Gunter, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, in spite of themselves. I think their ruling on this case is cause for celebration.

nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey yeah, goodbye!

Montreal just beat the shit out of Boston - 5 to zip, nada, zilch, to be precise. There are one hell of a lot of happy, happy, happy Canadians going to bed wearing a big grin tonight.

All the Children Need a Proper Burial

Two events made themselves known to me this past weekend. One brought me to tears; the other just left me feeling disgust. The first event I learned of was the April 10, 2008 document released by the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders. It lists the location of twenty eight mass graves of aboriginal children murdered in the Indian Residential Schools across Canada.
The other event was Pope Benny the PeaBrain mumbling mass at Yankee Stadium and exhorting the benighted faithful to concede the authority of the church. Since being named as the latest successor of Peter, the pope has stressed his opposition, among other things, to administrative transparency within the church. That is not all he opposes, of course. Pretty much anything that seems to require a functioning brain on the part of church congregants is against what this man wants. After having spent some hours shaking my head in sorrow and incomprehension over the sadism inflicted on the innocent Aboriginal children victimized by the residential schools, looking at any picture of Benedict parading in his fancy robes was like looking at something vaguely pornographic.
The list of mass graves was distributed to the world media and to United Nations agencies, and yet it has not made the big splash in the media that the pope's latest departure from rationale has. Why is that?
By now, the list will have been presented at the United Nations, and the request will have been made that United Nations' agencies protect and monitor the graves as part of an independent, non-governmental inquiry and judicial prosecution of those responsible for what the First Nations are calling the Canadian Genocide and the Aboriginal Holocaust. (When you know that the United Nations' definition of genocide includes "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" you know you are seeing a finger pointed directly at the government-sanctioned Indian Residential Schools.) Hereditary Chief Kiapilano of the Squamish Nation, Chief Louis Daniels (Whispers Wind), Anishinabe Nation Chief Svnoyi Wohali (Night Eagle), Cherokee Nation, Lillian Shirt, Clan Mother, Cree Nation Elder Ernie Sandy, Anishinabe (Ojibway) Nation Hereditary Chief Steve Sampson, Chemainus Nation, and Ambassador Chief Red Jacket of Turtle Island will serve as the presiding judges of the inquiry's Tribunal. They have indicated in their press release a total lack of confidence in the "institutions of church and state that are responsible for these deaths (to) conduct any kind of impartial or real inquiry into them." Imagine the Native Peoples lacking confidence in an institution headed by someone like Benny the PeaBrain.
They have sent a letter of demand to his Better Than Thou-ness and demanded the details of how the children died in the catholic-run schools, and where each one of them lies buried. I do hope none of them is holding their breath on a reply. Benny would just as soon see them all dead as he would acquiesce to their demands for his hierarchy to be held accountable.
Those schools were run by the Catholic, Anglican and United churches of Canada, and they were places of horror, at best. Officials of all three churches want to pretend now that they never existed and so they have refused to respond to the native demands for disclosure of all burial sites, resulting in peaceful occupations of churches across the country, with some of them taking place here in Toronto. Most of the occupations consisted of a group of aboriginal protesters marching up to the front of a church during a Sunday service, and there unfurling a banner demanding the return of the victims' remains, and declaring "All the Children Need a Proper Burial". Some of the protesters are school survivors. I would imagine the pope would like to see residential school survivor Rick Lavallee of the Cree Nation silenced in any way it took to stop him from telling how he saw his brother Randy murdered by a catholic priest at the Pertage La Prairie school. Lavallee and other vocal survivors like him are challenging the authority of the church and demanding administrative transparency, aren't they? Such impudence.
At Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Vancouver, Lavallee handed one of the letters of demand to the priest, Glen Dion. Dion took the letter, smiled at Lavallee and said, "You people are just exaggerating. No children died in our schools."
Such an attitude is commonplace among the clergy of the three churches complicit in the murders of the children, even though it flies in the face of mounting evidence; even though Bob Watts, head of the government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has stated that criminal acts had gone on in the schools - acts that accounted for the deaths of "unknown" numbers of children.
The children who died were the innocent victims of the hate perpetrated by members of the clergy; clerics who saw the children as less than human. Those murderers were members of a clergy who saw themselves as above the need for accountability. You just know they all espoused the same unquestioning acceptance of the authority of a clergy who have lost all sight of the gentle founder of the faith. It is time for the churches who took part in this genocide to stand up and publicly admit their guilt. It is time for them to be held accountable.
Above all, it is time for them to see the children are given proper burial.

Athletes for Africa

"Athletes for Africa is a Canadian charitable organization that has focused its efforts on building a global network of people committed to promoting and protecting human rights, and providing education and opportunities that empower youth in Africa.
Best known for GuluWalk, Athletes for Africa’s mission is to (i) leverage the positive behaviours and profile of†sport to engage youth and educate them about issues facing the people of Africa, (ii) partner with, and fundraise for organizations that foster local†empowerment in Africa, and (iii) advocate to ensure that human rights are remembered and protected."


If you happen to be a basketball fan, especially of the Phoenix Suns, you're not just watching a game when you watch your team play. You're also watching a fundraising effort. Every time the Suns win, Steve Nash, together with Suns teammates Raja Bell, Boris Diaw and Leandro Barbosa will donate $1,500. to Athletes for Africa, a charitable organization of which Nash is the advisoty board chair. “What I love most about Athletes for Africa is that we’re doing more than just supporting vital programs for youth in Africa,” explained Nash, the two-time NBA most valuable player. “We’re providing opportunities for our kids to get educated and get involved. Real change is only going to happen when we’re all better global citizens.”
If this all sounds like something you'd like to be involved in, just click here.