Ste. Anne de Bellevue Becomes a Fair Trade town

Fourth in Quebec and the first West Island municipality to get status

By Kevin Woodhouse

The town of Ste. Anne de Bellevue made it official this past Saturday when it was  announced that Transfair Canada had certified that the last little city on the island has earned the title of being a Fair Trade Town.
The road to being certified began three years ago by a former resident who was also the curator of the Morgan Arboretum. And while she has since moved to Beaconsfield, Christina Idziak’s work was not in vain as the town’s Environment Committee picked up the torch and kept working towards the goal.

To receive Fair Trade Town status, municipalities must adhere to six requirements that include the local council to use fair trade products, some businesses sell said products and a steering group, in Ste. Anne’s case it is the Environment Committee, that will continue with initiatives.
Environment Committee member and councillor Ryan Young said that endorsing free trade products “ensures that the small distributor working in a third world country gets a fair price for his work so it isn’t just the large conglomerates that get the best pricing.”

Aline Bennett, a bio research engineering student at McGill, is working this summer for the town and helped put together the documentation for Transfair Canada. “The next step is to write up a sustainable development plan for the town, Bennett told The Suburban.
Young thinks the new fair trade status will “help Ste. Annes promote itself even more as being environmentally friendly since our economic set up is a contrast to the big box shopping experience. But we won’t rest on our laurels and we’ll keep the ball rolling on these initiatives.”
Ste. Anne de Bellevue is the 13th town in Canada and one of the first four in Quebec to receive free trade status.