About Fair Trade

About Fair Trade

"Fair Trade" is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers - especially in the South. Fair Trade organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for change in the rules and practices of conventional international trade.

Jeff sharing in a traditional coffee ceremony with an Ethiopian family.

The strategic intent of FAIR TRADE is threefold:

• Deliberately work with marginalized producers and workers in order to help them move from a position of vulnerability to one of security and economic self sufficiency.
• To empower producers and workers as stakeholders in their own organizations
• To actively play a wider role in the global arena to achieve greater equity in international trade.

Put more simply, Fair Trade is an alliance between producers and consumers that cuts out the "middlemen". In the process, it empowers producers and gives them greater dignity and a fairer price for their products and it provides consumer with high quality products that they know are more sustainable from a social and ecological point of view.

Visit the Just Us! Development and Education Website at www.judesfairtrade.ca

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The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

The Harper government signed the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA) with Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe in November 2008, however it has been stalled for months in Parliament. Human rights groups, unions, social justice and other Canadian organizations, along with the federal NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties, continue to fiercely oppose Bill C-23, ratification legislation for the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The Colombian government has been implicated in perpetuating violence against Indigenous, workers and other civilians opposed to the type of corporate-focused development that free trade will perpetuate. Bill C-23 will make a bad situation worse and it’s imperative that it not be allowed to pass in the House of Commons without a full and independent Human Rights Impact Assessment being carried out first.

For more information on the agreement, go to the Government of Canada website:

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/andean-andin/can-colombia-colombie.aspx

For more critical perspectives on the CCFTA, go to the following websites:

http://www.ccic.ca/_files/en/making_a_bad_situation_worse_long_version.pdf

http://www.nupge.ca/node/2060

http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/CCFTA/index.html

http://www.canadianlabour.ca/index.php/Youth

http://www.cupw.ca/1/1/7/7/2/index1.shtml

http://www.sierraclub.ca/atlantic/programs/economies/NAFTA/index.htm