Canmore Now a Fair Trade Community

TransFair Canada has given the Town of Canmore the official designation of “Fair Trade Town”, making Canmore the second community in Alberta to receive this designation.

The Town of Canmore approved a resolution to support Fair Trade on June 1. Since then the Town has been purchasing Fair Trade coffee for their meetings and looking for opportunities to use Fair Trade products and promote awareness in the community.

Along with the commitment of local government, several other partners in the community had to come forward in support of Fair Trade. Participating businesses include Communitea Café, Beamer’s, WANT, Polar Pin, VATSU Chai, Nutter’s, Nu Roots and Spring Creek Mountain Village.

Canmore Mayor Ron Casey brought the idea of getting the Fair Trade Town designation back from a conference after meeting the Mayor of Wolfville, NS, the first Canadian Fair Trade community. “It just made sense to me that Canmore would be part of this project” he said. “We have enough Fair Trade things happening in Town that it made sense to me that we coordinate our efforts and highlight all the things already going on.”

“We had a great response from the community,” said Sally Caudill,Communication and Environmental Care Coordinator for the Town. ”When we sent in the application there was more than enough interest to meet the designation criteria. I think it will only grow from here.”

How the Fair Trade designation moves forward and what it means for Canmore will be up to the community to decide. ìThis will be a community initiative that will be facilitated by the Town but needs to be driven by community interest and desire,î says Caudill.

Fair Trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries obtain better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as social and environmental standards. It focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine, fresh fruit, chocolate, flowers and gold.