What Manitoba seems to be making the news for these days is flooding – Lake Manitoba, the Assiniboine River, to a much lesser extent this year the Red River and Lake Winnipeg.  However, the other flood taking place in Manitoba is a wave of fair trade products flowing into Winnipeg, Brandon and rural communities and flowing out in institutional procurement orders, consumer shopping carts and in church, school and office coffee breaks!

About five years ago, when the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation (MCIC) first undertook its “Fair Trade Manitoba” program, our province had been left behind by more populous, some might say more “happening”, provinces such as Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario.  Not so today!