Readers of Mysteries of Canada will know that Canadian history
is not always old and dusty. Sometimes old is not so old.
Such is the case with a food co-op I was introduced to recently in
Toronto.
The Karma Co-op is tucked away down an alley and stuck
between two houses at 739 Palmerston Avenue in Toronto. From
the outside the store looks tiny but not so on the inside.
The co-op was started in 1972 and was the first food co-op
established in Toronto.
People in western Canada know about co-op stores.
Westerners join them, buy their stuff there and at the end of the
year they get back a refund. There is really no participation
in the running of the stores for most members. Not so with the
Karma Co-op.
Karma is a member-owned and operated co-operative food store that
emphasizes organic and local foods and environmentally friendly
household products. Any profits that are made go back into improving
the store and other member benefits. This helps keep prices
low compared to many grocery and health food stores. In
addition, you can get credit for volunteering to work at the store,
usually a few hours per month on the cash or cleaning up.
Karma is choosy about the products they carry. They have
Food Issues Committee who oversees a Product Policy. The
policy is based on a series of considerations:
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Political and economic
considerations:
Our decisions to buy products are
also decisions to support those who produce and
distribute them, to ensure their continuing presence in
our communities. Large, remote
corporations can too easily lose the ability to balance
business and community concerns; foreign businesses,
however well-intentioned, will not reinvest their
profits in our own communities. Our
own co-operative also must achieve such a balance,
remaining both financially healthy and true to its
principles. Accordingly,
·
We strongly support local,
regional, and Canadian producers.
·
We strongly support small,
co-operative, and community businesses, rather than
large, multinational corporations or their subsidiaries.
·
We strongly support stocking
products that are affordable by members with limited
income, while not rejecting products that, while
affordable by only some members, contribute to the
store’s economic well-being.
Environmental considerations:
Our
decisions to buy products are also decisions to support
physical systems of production and distribution, with
consequences that can be destructive, benign, or
beneficial to the natural environment.
Organic production addresses these issues for the
farmers, the primary producers, but similar issues arise
at the stages of processing, packaging, and
distribution, where there are fewer clearly accepted
standards of conduct. Accordingly,
·
We strongly support the
principles of organic agriculture, especially from farms
certified as such, but also from farms in transition or
from those avoiding pesticides without seeking
certification.
·
We support environmentally
and personally safe alternatives to the dangerous
chemicals sometimes used for personal hygiene, household
cleaning, and pest control.
·
We oppose wasteful
packaging, especially when there is no effective way to
biodegrade or recycle what cannot be reused.
·
We oppose the transportation of products from distant
sources when locally-produced alternatives are
available.
·
We strongly oppose the use
of irradiation in food preservation.
·
We condemn the genetic
modification of plants and animals.
Ethical considerations:
Our decisions to buy products are
also decisions to support relationships with the human
and animal inhabitants of our communities.
Inexpensive, widely available products should not
be obtained at the cost of exploitation and pain: those
ends cannot justify those means.
Accordingly,
·
We strongly support other
organizations with an explicit and positive social and
environmental commitment.
·
We strongly support
initiatives to ensure that primary producers are paid
fair prices for their products.
·
We strongly support the
raising of animals in free-range conditions without
growth hormones or other unnecessary drugs.
·
We condemn the raising and
slaughtering of animals under inhumane conditions.
·
We condemn testing products
for toxicity by using animals.
·
We condemn the exploitation
of labour.
·
We condemn the ownership and patenting of genetic
material.
Nutritional and health
considerations:
Our decisions to buy products are
also decisions to bring products and their chemical
constituents, natural and otherwise, into our homes and
our bodies. Whether we prefer
traditional or modern diets, whether our bodies tolerate
a wide or a narrow range of food, we require that food
to be of high quality, nutritious, and honestly
described. Accordingly,
·
We strongly support the
provision of full, accurate information through
ingredient labels and signs.
·
We strongly support the
production of minimally-processed, whole foods.
·
We oppose the use of
artificial chemical additives or preservatives. |
As an observer of politics, worldwide, I note that
most, if not all, the considerations listed above represent very
progressive issues that our politicians should review when
creating their policies. While this list is constantly being
updated, remember that Karma goes back to 1972, when political
correction was not in vogue. I am not a
member of Karma. I live in the wrong city. If I was in
Toronto, I would be a member; not only for the good prices but also
for the progressive considerations. Karma
Co-op is as part of our Canadian history (and future); as important
as Riel, MacDonald and the BNA.
30/10/2007 |
