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- Sun, September 19, 2004
Calgarians shouldn't buy into child labour
By Ian Robinson -- Calgary Sun
Good ideas sometimes come in the strangest fashion and in the strangest
places.
Take the Greek scientist Archimedes. He was splashing around in the
bath-tub one day and discovered the theory of water displacement.
The only thing most of us discover when we're in the tub is whether a
fleet of rubber ducks can beat a bar of Dial and an empty shampoo bottle in a
sea battle.
But not Archimedes. He found that when you put something in water, the
mass of the object displaces an equal amount of water. For some reason, this
was important to him -- aside from the fact that it explained why he was
slopping water all over the bathroom floor and his wife was yelling at him --
and he is alleged to have shouted, "Eureka!" which is Greek for "Holy
mackerel" and gone running naked through the streets in his excitement.
Good thing he lived in ancient Greece. Try that in Calgary, you've got
cops at the door and chances are they aren't going to believe it was all the
result of a science experiment.
I had one of those Eureka Moments recently and, like Archimedes, it
came from a strange source: Ald. Joe Ceci and Ald. Druh Farrell.
Note: I cannot stress enough that, unlike Archimedes, this did not
occur in the bath.
The pair are among Calgary council's more noted members of the
well-meaning loony left, and I'm sure they'll be as embarrassed as I am that
we've found grounds for agreement.
For their comfort and mine, I suggest we think of it as a temporary and
pragmatic alliance that sees us turn on each other like rabid dogs afterwards,
sort of like the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
The good aldermen have put forth something called a "sustainable
environmental and ethical procurement policy" for the city.
What this comes down to is this: moral shopping.
It sounds goofy on the face of it, but purchasing can be an ethical or
unethical act. If you don't think so, start buying heroin in any quantity and
just wait till you're up in front of the judge.
He'll clear it up for you.
Ceci and Farrell want the city to buy stuff that only comes from
ethically produced sources, i.e. not produced by child labour or made from
elephant ivory or rainforest lumber.
One of the unfortunate side-effects of globalization is that large
corporations -- it's easy enough to find out who they are on the web -- have
taken to herding a bunch of kids and young women into enclosures in some of
the world's less savoury places and putting them to work making sneakers,
clothing and other goods.
One of the largest manufacturers in China -- the big part that used to
be coloured red on the maps, not the free and democratic island of Taiwan --
is the Chinese army, and they run those factories with convict labour.
Not that there's anything inherently wrong with convict labour, but it
shouldn't be allowed to compete internationally with products made by free
people, and one should also consider the fact that in China, it doesn't take
much to become a convict, given that it's a repressive police state where you
can wind up in jail for meditating wrong.
Just ask the poor folks in Falun Gong and all those Christians doing
hard time.
Child labour -- while a reality around the world -- is an abomination.
The consumer craving for inexpensive goods is such that we've exported
millions of manufacturing jobs overseas and many of the people who have those
"jobs" are virtually enslaved.
Purchasing goods whose production is a clear violation of the basic
standards of human decency can be considered an unethical act.
It's probably too much to expect the average Calgarian to read the
labels in everything they buy and be able to cross-reference it to a ethical
supplier.
The City of Calgary is another matter.
It pains me to say it, but congratulations aldermen.
Good work.
Hope your measure passes.