Wal-Mart documentary a sordid tale
Wal-Mart documentary a sordid tale
By YURI WUENSCH - Edmonton Sun
In 1958, movie audiences were terrified by The Blob, a sci-fi thriller about an alien life form that consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows.
Today, we have Wal-Mart.
The retail giant is the world's second-largest corporation and the world's largest private employer. Its multi-billion dollar gross domestic product rivals that of many small nations. Wal-Mart's five owners, all members of Arkansas's Walton family, currently rank 17th to 21st on Forbes's annual list of the world's richest people.
It's that vestment of wealth and power in the hands of so few and Wal-Mart's effect on everyday Canadians that are the focus of Montreal director Sergeo Kirby's documentary, Wal-Town: The Film.
Kirby is in Edmonton tonight, screening the film at Metro Cinema (Zeidler Hall, Citadel Theatre). The movie plays tonight and Sunday nights at 7.
The documentary follows six university students, calling themselves "Wal-Town," who undertake a tour of Wal-Mart locations across Canada to raise awareness of the corporation's business practices and how they have affected cities and towns across the country.
When Wal-Town began in 2004, an anti-Wal-Mart movement was already alive and well in the U.S., but there wasn't as much information about Wal-Mart's presence in Canada. That's part of the reason Kirby signed on for the tour.
"I actually went to Concordia University with the group and it was roughly two weeks before they started that I jumped on board," he explains. "So, it was a scramble to get someone from my end involved and to raise some of the initial funds."
Joining the project late also meant Kirby didn't have much time to conduct much preliminary research.
His previous films have covered things like the B.C. logging industry and the most recent Balkan war, so he definitely had an interest in social issues. But he didn't have much of an impression of Wal-Mart beyond the most common negative stereotypes that are associated with multi-national corporations.
"I was very curious - why Wal-Mart? It's sort of an example of how innocuous it is as a company, because it is so ubiquitous.
"Most Canadians are sort of wary of large American companies and are aware of how it affects culture, giving access to a lot of American products and how it doesn't reflect our indigenous interests.
"It's generally known that Wal-Mart has cheaper prices, but it's also known it has inferior goods. I'd heard facts about it using sweatshop labour, but I was largely concerned about the impact it had across Canada."
More than one million Canadians shop at Wal-Mart everyday and about 80% of Canadians have shopped or will shop at Wal-Mart.
Many Canuck consumers on fixed incomes shop at Wal-Mart because of its affordable prices.
Others shop there because of a form of economic entrapment - it's often the only game in town.
Wal-Mart has a sordid history, believes Kirby, of moving into smaller communities and undercutting prices of local businesses, which can't compete with the chain's buying power.
As a result, many of those smaller businesses end up going under.
"When you go to the States, you sort of see where Canada could end up 20 years from now," Kirby says. "You just see these stretched-out communities, devastated downtowns. Their cores are gone, now basically just parking lots and coffee shops. You see this fast-forward motion of us becoming less connected as communities, especially in small towns."
The film details how it's already happened in places like Guelph and its example is exactly what the townspeople of communities like Stratford fear.
But Wal-Town: The Film, Kirby notes, is meant to be less an indictment of the corporation's policies and more an examination of how we as a society allow such blobs to be created in the first place.
"Fundamentally, it boils down to a question of how our economic society is structured. There have to be some checks and balances. What sort of values are rising to the top? The ones that are lost are things like citizenship - our participation - within this economic engine that we've constructed."
Copyright © 2007, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.
By YURI WUENSCH - Edmonton Sun
In 1958, movie audiences were terrified by The Blob, a sci-fi thriller about an alien life form that consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows.
Today, we have Wal-Mart.
The retail giant is the world's second-largest corporation and the world's largest private employer. Its multi-billion dollar gross domestic product rivals that of many small nations. Wal-Mart's five owners, all members of Arkansas's Walton family, currently rank 17th to 21st on Forbes's annual list of the world's richest people.
It's that vestment of wealth and power in the hands of so few and Wal-Mart's effect on everyday Canadians that are the focus of Montreal director Sergeo Kirby's documentary, Wal-Town: The Film.
Kirby is in Edmonton tonight, screening the film at Metro Cinema (Zeidler Hall, Citadel Theatre). The movie plays tonight and Sunday nights at 7.
The documentary follows six university students, calling themselves "Wal-Town," who undertake a tour of Wal-Mart locations across Canada to raise awareness of the corporation's business practices and how they have affected cities and towns across the country.
When Wal-Town began in 2004, an anti-Wal-Mart movement was already alive and well in the U.S., but there wasn't as much information about Wal-Mart's presence in Canada. That's part of the reason Kirby signed on for the tour.
"I actually went to Concordia University with the group and it was roughly two weeks before they started that I jumped on board," he explains. "So, it was a scramble to get someone from my end involved and to raise some of the initial funds."
Joining the project late also meant Kirby didn't have much time to conduct much preliminary research.
His previous films have covered things like the B.C. logging industry and the most recent Balkan war, so he definitely had an interest in social issues. But he didn't have much of an impression of Wal-Mart beyond the most common negative stereotypes that are associated with multi-national corporations.
"I was very curious - why Wal-Mart? It's sort of an example of how innocuous it is as a company, because it is so ubiquitous.
"Most Canadians are sort of wary of large American companies and are aware of how it affects culture, giving access to a lot of American products and how it doesn't reflect our indigenous interests.
"It's generally known that Wal-Mart has cheaper prices, but it's also known it has inferior goods. I'd heard facts about it using sweatshop labour, but I was largely concerned about the impact it had across Canada."
More than one million Canadians shop at Wal-Mart everyday and about 80% of Canadians have shopped or will shop at Wal-Mart.
Many Canuck consumers on fixed incomes shop at Wal-Mart because of its affordable prices.
Others shop there because of a form of economic entrapment - it's often the only game in town.
Wal-Mart has a sordid history, believes Kirby, of moving into smaller communities and undercutting prices of local businesses, which can't compete with the chain's buying power.
As a result, many of those smaller businesses end up going under.
"When you go to the States, you sort of see where Canada could end up 20 years from now," Kirby says. "You just see these stretched-out communities, devastated downtowns. Their cores are gone, now basically just parking lots and coffee shops. You see this fast-forward motion of us becoming less connected as communities, especially in small towns."
The film details how it's already happened in places like Guelph and its example is exactly what the townspeople of communities like Stratford fear.
But Wal-Town: The Film, Kirby notes, is meant to be less an indictment of the corporation's policies and more an examination of how we as a society allow such blobs to be created in the first place.
"Fundamentally, it boils down to a question of how our economic society is structured. There have to be some checks and balances. What sort of values are rising to the top? The ones that are lost are things like citizenship - our participation - within this economic engine that we've constructed."
Copyright © 2007, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.
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