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The Road to Fair Trade: An Activist’s Journey

The journey to fair trade brought Bernadette Blais back to her beginnings as an activist and carried the residents of Hawkesbury, ON along with her.

Born to a family aware of politics, world affairs, and the struggles of the world, Blais first took an interest in being a political activist as early as fourteen years of age. When she attended university, she took this activism to a new level by avidly supporting a political party, attending provincial and national conventions, and participating in heated political discussions. After university, in the 1980’s, Blais chose to attend law school but turned a bit from her avid political activism to settle down and have a family. Blais says, “Although I was in a common breeding ground for activists, I strayed to other activities.” Though she had a brief career in law, she chose to teach paralegal studies at a college in Ontario for eighteen years.

During those years, she became familiar with the urgent political issues and sought out ways to help developing nations. Paying close attention to efforts from various non-governmental organizations, Blais happened across DATA (an organization that helps forgive the debt of extremely impoverished countries through micro-credit, self-sufficiency, and fair trade). Upon discovering fair trade, “the flame was lit and the planets aligned to allow me to change paths,” Blais says.

After this discovery in the 1990s, Blais began to look for fair trade products to buy in her part of Canada and promptly found that they were difficult to obtain. Instead of being deterred, she simply saw an opportunity to provide fair trade products to the local community.

That opportunity was turned into a reality through Marie Olive Fair Trade Store. After many months of research into sourcing and products, Marie Olive opened in June 2006. Marie Olive Fair Trade sells unique handicrafts from countries such as Chile, Haiti, Peru, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, along with many others. Operational since 2006, Marie Olive has found success due to Blais’ commitment to making fair trade products more easily accessible to her community; but, Blais does more than just operate a store; awarded with the Business Woman of the Year Award from ReSaff, Blais has also made efforts to educate the community about fair trade, including being a guest speaker on Rogers TV on the subject of fair trade.

From political activist to student to legal professional to mother to law professor, Blais finds herself an activist once again – but of a different kind. She now works to alleviate poverty in developing nations by selling fair trade products and educating her community about how fair trade can change lives. Thanks to Marie Olive and Bernadette Blais, the residents of Hawkesbury, ON and beyond have a place to use their power as consumers to change lives. “Now stapling posters on utility poles has become placing ads in newspapers,” Blais says, “I am back on the road I was meant to follow.”