Posted on 06/27/2002 5:42:46 AM PDT by Lorenb420
CALGARY -- Lids are flipping after media and delegates attending a city-sponsored party were handed free white straw cowboy hats -- made in Mexico.
"That's free trade in a nutshell -- when you have the icon of a Canadian city handed out with pomp and pageantry and they're made in what's probably a sweatshop in Mexico," said Dave Robbins, a trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians.
"It's an irony to be sure."
While Robbins claimed that free trade enables workers in countries like Mexico to be exploited by low standards, ineffective unions and large multinational corporations, the hat issue is also a little bee in the bonnet of a local firm that makes and sells white hats here in Calgary.
"At the very least they should have been Canadian," said Isaac Apt, general manager of Smithbilt Hats.
The company, which employs 15, did make the white felt hats that were given to G8 leaders as they stepped off their planes Tuesday.
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