Fair Trade: The Bane of Slavery
March 31, 2007, 8:07 pm
Filed under:
Sustainable Living & Social Issues | Tags:
cbc,
chocolate,
coffee,
corporation,
cost benefit,
cotton,
fair trade,
learning,
slavery,
social responsibility,
sustainable livingGuest writers: Robert and Kim Daisley
Chocolate: the new nectar of the gods; the perfect pleasure; the sweet seductress. Oh, and it supports a multinational trade in slaves. Of course, I didn’t know this when I was gulping down Mars bars to stay awake on night shifts. Well, I mean, I knew that chocolate tasted good even though I may not yet at that point have made up the lame metaphors regarding that great taste and the hold that chocolate has on our society, but I didn’t know about the slaves. I was listening to CBC’s As It Happens and heard Carol Off promoting her new book Bitter Chocolate. She described the atrocious working conditions of many of the people who were involved in the production of the cocoa beans that are used in (and crucial to) the production of chocolate. She told how the beans can only be grown in certain parts of the world near the equator and how Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is one of the main cocoa-producing countries. Off also described how the conditions in the cocoa industry (spearheaded by multi-national conglomerates such as Nestle) result in slavery.
When I called my wife and asked her to tune in to the program, she did, and found it very interesting. It also prompted a frenzy of research on the internet, covering websites from environmental, social justice, and capitalist (read “Nestle”) organisations. Of course, the information available conflicts in many ways, but after some analysis and discussion, we decided that the evidence weighed firmly in favour of supporting fair trade chocolate. Without rehashing all of the arguments for and against (google if you want to read them), the main reason that we decided to support fair trade was that we don’t agree with the concept of a multinational corporation dictating the “market forces” because of their near-monopoly power, the result being that the people who actually produce the goods live in poverty.
When you eat Fair Trade Chocolate you are saving the world
So we decided that we’d try to purchase only fair trade chocolate. It’s not always easy, it’s not always fun, and it’s not always possible. But we try and I guess in some small ways, we’re making a difference. For the most part, we get our fair trade products in Brandon. But since we learned about fair trade chocolate, we also learned about other fair trade products including coffee which can be purchased at our local grocery stores. Kicking Horse coffee (including the “Kick Ass” blend) tastes good and feels great.
It’s not all roses. Sure, we feel better about our purchasing decisions, but it can be hard on the pocket book. The coffee costs $12 on sale and last two weeks. But you can buy coffee for half the price in a quantity that will last four times as long. So when you look just at the economic cost at the checkout counter, it’s a big difference. And when we bought the fair trade chocolate bars, Kim noticed that they don’t taste the same and wasn’t actually too impressed with the difference in flavour.
Our bottom line, however, is that we remain firmly committed to fair trade products, as long as it doesn’t cost us too much (for the moment, we’ve drawn the line at those fancy fair trade, organic cotton shirts that sell for $30 instead of $5).
Why the government shouldn’t gamble.
I don’t believe that gambling is harmless entertainment. I continue to hear stories of how it hurts people with addictive personalities. How it hurts the companies they embezel from. How it hurts the families that are neglected while they gamble, both emotionally and financially.
Gambling hurts the businesses that otherwise would have created value by creating something. If a tourist spends money on gambling, that money is not available for souveniers / hotel / dinner etc. We are a debt ridden society and need to encourage financial responsibility and self control not irresponsibility. Gambling is a tax on those who can’t do math well. The poor and the uneducated are its most common prey. The government has a fiduciary duty to protect those most at risk. Gambling is an unproductive activity, which entices many to throw away the money they have to chase an unlikely dream rather than working or investing what they have.
Despite the promises of economic growth, it is my understanding that increased gambling in an area typically results only in low end jobs increased crime and reduced property value. All of this is at a huge economic cost of government subsidies. People work hard for their taxes, their taxes should not support such an industry. Many of the arguments used to justify the gambling industry are also used to justify the pornography industry. Those are my immediate thoughts and I hope to study the issue in more detail so I can speak less from my feelings and more from my head (I do trust my gut on this one…).
Here is a letter that appeared in the Abbotsford News.
“this is in regards to the article “Langley’s new caasino coming up aces” (The News, Aug. 1) Economics 101: taking $90 million out of a community and handing back $4 million is not sustainable in the long run. This means people in the langley area contributed $90 million to a single business with a percentage going to municpal, provincial and federal coffers. The amount given back to individuals as “winnings” are other people’s “losings” and are nominal, usually spent back to the house. Research confirms that the first three or four years of a casino will be a honeymoon period. National and international studies show decreases in crime, improvement in local economies, and upgrading of unattractive areas to be short-term as addictions take time to take hold and personal / family resources take time to deplete. It is the long-term effects which are so sobering. A study by Laval University on Quebec’s Hull Casino showed that after on year of the casino opening, the proportion of local residents who gambled increased from 13.8 per cent to 60.4 per cent. The at-risk gamblers more than doubled, from 3.3 per cent to 7.8 percent, like many other studies showing availability and marketing increases addiction levels. The very purpose of marketing is to attract clientele and reveals the slogan of “people would gamble anyway” as the ruse of a profit hungry gambling industry. Like smoking, decreasing availability and advertising while increasing education on the dangers decreases addiction. The gambling industry is only profitable because it does not cover its true costs of operation. It produces addicts and smillingly hands back a minute amount of the local money, leaving communities to pay for the estimated $10,500 to $19,000 costs per year, per addict. While the province earned a net $818.0 million in 2004-2005 from gambling revenues, social costs are estimated (at their lowest) at almost $1.3 billion. So family and children ministries suffer, while the government robs Peter to pay Paul and spins the numbers to look good. As for organized-crime involvement in legalized gambling, I suggest the reporter do some research on RCMP studies on the subject. It only takes a moment to search and I grieve over the lack of investigative reporting that results in gambling industry advertising being presented as facts. I challenge “Black Press” to say “This approach is far better” a few years from now to the families of those who watched their loved ones slip away.
Since the letter was written, we’ve had a similar push for a casino here in Abbotsford; or uh, sorry its not called that by enlightened people, its called a “community gaming centre”. There is more thoughtful commentary to share on this topic, but that will have to wait. let me be absolutely clear. I’m saying government shouldn’t be actively profiting from it gambling.
Transcanada Highway Lower Mainland
March 10, 2007, 4:31 am
Filed under:
Quality, Excellence & Design | Tags:
congestion,
cost benefit,
excellence,
freeway,
Golden Ears Bridge,
improvement,
interchange,
lower mainland,
meter,
off-ramp,
on-ramp,
overpass,
planning,
quality,
safety,
traffic,
transcanadaThe Trans-Canada highway in the lower mainland of BC South of the Fraser river has remained virtually unchanged since the 1960s. As you drive over the 40 year old overpasses, you can see the date of their construction stamped in the concrete. Each overpass following the same 2 lane bidirectional model with few exceptions. In recent years three of these interchanges have been upgraded or replaced. First the 208th street overpass (+2 lanes) in Langley was built to relieve pressure on 200th street, then 200th street (+2 lanes), Vedder Rd (+2 lanes) in Chilliwack, and Mt Lehman (+5 lanes) in Abbotsford. The total increase in lanes crossing the freeway since 1960 appears to be 11 for a distance spanning approximately 85KM. This is in an area where the total number of lanes crossing is now 66 lanes increasing from the 55 provided in the 1960s.
Now the Lower Mainland and Victoria areas of BC account for 9% of the population of Canada. In 1961 the population of BC was 1,629,082 just 20 years earlier it had been half of that. 30 years later it had doubled to 3.2 Million in 1991. At that time there had been no increase in lanes, with the 208th overpass being added some time in the 1990s. In 2006 the population of BC was 4,1 Million. That population increased 2.5 times from 1961 to 2006. In 2006, the combined population of the area south of the Fraser in the lower mainland including Chilliwack, Abbotsford, the Langleys and Surrey was 692,000. We can infer a similar increase in the population of the lower mainland that is accurate enough for this discussion.
The population increases to 250% of 1960 levels, but the overpasses increase of 20% of 1960 levels. Clearly the capacity enjoyed in the 1960s is not enjoyed today and the Federal and Provincial Governments have not paid close attention to maintaining our transportation network.
The 200th street fiasco got delayed for years (6 years?) because as I understand it, the provincial government tried to avoid paying cash for the interchange, and instead managed to trade adjacent land and favourable zoning to the developers. This delay affected thousands of area residents who were forced to queue for years to cross the freeway. Nowhere in the cost savings, was the inconvenience to citizens measured. Eventually the existing 2 lanes crossing the freeway were torn down and replaced with other lanes crossing the freeway, and a big box shopping centre was installed in every adjacent piece of property to the detriment of the traffic.
Now to area residents, it seems that when the Golden Ears Bridge comes in 2009, that the 200th st interchange with its multitudes of traffic lights and single lanes will be completely overwhelmed. It has been obvious for the last 10 years or so that the only logical location (the empty place in the river where the roads have been aligning) for the Maple Ridge Langley bridge to exist is at 201st street near the water treatment plant on the Fraser river. However, area traffic has been queuing excessively between freeway and big box retail area and industrial area for 15 years. In 2009 when the bridge traffic joins the freeway at 200th we’ll see what happens. Currently, in the mornings, Westbound commuters have found traffic trying to exit Northbound at 200th from the Freeway. These vehicles are often lined up for 1/2 a mile along the side of the freeway. Naturally some of these vehicles stick into the Freeway lanes, creating an extreme traffic hazard for the 100 KM/hour traffic. The exit needs to have double the capacity to carry traffic from Westbound Freeway to North and Southbound 200th. The Lights at the interchange at 88th North of the freeway need to function so they do not impede the flow of traffic off of the freeway. Sensors in the roadway on the exit ramp should be linked to these lights, such that when there is a backup of traffic attempting to leave the freeway, the light stays green allowing the traffic to continue to flow North across 88th and off the the Freeway. It is much more important that a traffic light not impede the flow of the freeway, than that cars are allowed to get onto the freeway. It comes back to our methods for handling intersections and our fascination with traffic lights despite their implicit need to stop “some” traffic at all times. So 200th looks like too little too late, and time will tell us this year whether the engineers and architects planned well or planned poorly
Apart from inadequate overpasses to get local populations across the freeways, truck traffic, has not been given fair treatment on our freeway. Nowhere except at the East bound truck scales (near 160th) do we find a third lane provided for trucks to gain speed as they climb a hill. [EDIT: since I started drafting this article, a climbing lane has been added Westbound at Mt-Lehman THANKS]. This “feature is missing in many locations including but not limited to: 200th to 216, 232 to 208, 232 to 264, Mt Lehman, Sumas way to Macallum Road and Peardonville to MtLehman. Since our society seems to have embraced freight bearing trucks and largely dispensed with rail, it is strange to see that government is not adequately supporting the needs of trucks on our roads. Clearly there is much to be said about how freight trucks on our roads interact with other drivers, but that will have to wait for another article.
Interchanges, trucks, another deficiency of the Transcanada highway in the lower mainland that bears mentioning is that we do not find reasonable on-ramps. There does not seem to be a standard for a safe on-ramp despite the pretty illustrations in the Province’s driver’s handbook. Almost every freeway interchange is designed uniquely and differently from other interchanges. In some cases these on-ramps and off-ramps, and these are becoming increasingly dangerous as the level of traffic congestion increases. One feature that we sometimes see on the freeways in other cities which is absent in our own is the feature of a lane that links the on-ramp at one interchange with the off-ramp at the next. By way of example, in Abbotsford Westbound between Sumas and Macallum exits, there is a relatively short distance of about 1 km where such a lane would allow traffic to merge less suddenly, allow traffic leaving the freeway to get out of the flow of traffic earlier, would have a limited cost and would reduce congestion by smoothing the flow of traffic onto and off of the freeway while increasing capacity between interchanges.
As fragile and full as our freeway traffic may be here in the lower mainland on the transcanada highway, another factor that contributes to the overall situation, is that we allow overloading the freeway with spikes of traffic. For example at 232 Eastbound in the afternoon rush, traffic coming in on the on ramp is equal in volume and speed to the traffic in the fast-lane. The slow-lane has emptied itself of cars at the other side of the interchange as everyone preemptively avoids the merging traffic. Imagine with me, that if the freeway is at 100% capacity before the merge, then it is at 150% after the cars merge on. They come in bunches. The bunches overwhelm the freeway’s ability to smoothly absorb the traffic. There is a bunch and then nothing and then another bunch. Bunches are equal to the density of traffic in the fastlane. Other jurisdictions address these spikes in traffic volume by leveling or smoothing the traffic admitted to the freeway. Metering the on-ramp would lower the density of the traffic coming on to the freeway, spreading it out and allowing for a responsible and sustainable merge into the slow-lane from the on-ramp. This should better allow the freeway to retain its flow (its speed). When the speed of the freeway drops to a crawl the people who just merged on, can force their way across to the fastlane, further disrupting the flow of traffic. Ideally where there are merge points, there would be some method to reduce lane switching to reduce the “turbulence” created by merging traffic.
If that isn’t bad enough, some commuters, knowing about this issue, choose to exit the freeway and drive in the decelleration lane only to re-enter the freeway at the point of congestion. They effectively drive around all of the patient drivers who are slowing prior to the congestion, but they compound the problem by further disrupting the flow of traffic at the merge point, perpetuating the situation they “avoided”.
Congestion on this highway is such that it took me 37KM from the 160th exit in Surrey to exit 87 in Abbotsford BC to catch up with a semitrailer hauling large sections of steel pipe. With uphill sections and that kind of weight, you can appreciate he wouldn’t be the fastest vehicle. It goes to show you how inefficiently our freeway is working, when a capable vehicle cannot pass a lumbering vehicle , much less catch sight of it. This suggests the need to pro-actively increase the number of lanes to maintain traffic capacity.
I have hear the argument time and time again that if we build better roads, more people will drive their cars. While it is probably true that people who already drive their cars will drive further because they will get there in the same or less time than they currently do. We are currently experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of cars on the road despite no new roads being built. The argument would be fair if there was an alternative that was cost effective, reasonable and efficient. Unlike much of Europe and many major US centers, we do not have an effective rail transportation system unless you live and work within a 1/2 mile of the sky train. Bus service is “spotty” at best especially if you live outside of the Vancouver core. Traveling from Fleetwood in Surrey to BCIT in Burnaby by bus and skytrain takes 1 hour longer per day than making the same trip in a car on the freeway. How a 45 minute trip could take 30 minutes longer by using transit (1:15) highlights the situation that the lower mainland’s transit is in many cases 60% less effective at moving people. So we must have our roads alongside other solutions. If we neglect the roads we neglect the citizens who must travel them to hospitals, to work, to return home, we neglect the freight corridors that bring food to the supermarket etc.
We need to think twice about only doing what is “cost effective” and need to start doing what is “traffic effective”. The whole point of building a transportation infrastructure is not to “save money”, the point is to provide transportation. It is expected to be costly because it is a long term investment which yields continuing dividends in terms that may never appear on the bottom line. Reduced pollution, shorter commute times, higher efficiency, improved commerce, improved health through lowered stress, better safety resulting in fewer injuries and medical costs. It is like the cost of minting a penny. some people object to a penny costing more than 1 cent to mint, thinking that somehow there is a loss, but in reality, a penny allows for commerce, and will be used and re-used many hundreds of times in its lifetime creating a value that far outstrips the cost of minting it.
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