Outside View

By David Webb 

Buyer Beware

Is Canada’s largest retailer of outdoor gear taking aim at your heritage?


Big-box retailer Mountain Equipment Co-Op is often shrouded in controversy. The company frequently faces opposition to its not-for-profit designation — a designation that has allowed it to achieve nearly a quarter-billion dollars in annual sales while contributing a mere one-half-of-one per cent of that to the tax man. However, there is another issue surrounding MEC that is of much greater relevance to the sportsman.

Prompted by word-of-mouth information that MEC was contributing money to anti-hunting organizations, I contacted Tim Southam, communications manager for MEC, to find out more.
“We do not support fishing or hunting per se,” Southam wrote to me in an e-mail. “[Our] board-level product design policy specifically states that we will not develop or sell products that kill animals.”
When a company is willing to admit to Canada’s 4.2 million anglers and 1.5 million hunters exactly what its board of directors thinks of outdoor heritage sport — well, you don’t have to shop there but you can respect the fact they’re willing to be up-front, right?
Wrong. If they believed in their politics, MEC would be giving every angler, hunter and trapper the bum’s rush the moment he stepped into the store, or at least be posting signage indicating their stance. But no — MEC will take a sportsman’s money.
“…MEC clothes and gear fishers and hunters use are suited to fishing and hunting,” said Southam, not forgetting to add the items weren’t, “designed for those activities.”
So — you’re still welcome to buy one of their Gore-Tex jackets for your next trip afield, as long as you don’t mind a portion of your money going toward organizations bent on taking the right to hunt away from you. Straight from Southam: “From time to time, we have opposed hunting — notably the grizzly bear hunt in Alberta — through alignment with and support of select environmental organizations.” We all know what happened in Wild Rose Country — a grizzly hunt gone.
As an aside: it is truly ironic for an anti-fishing company that won’t support the killing of animals to be selling Sea Change Smoked Salmon Jerky — made from “wild chum salmon.” And how does the sale of freeze-dried Alpineaire Beef Rotini fit in? Killing cows is fine, but deer are a no-no? They call that: “The Bambi Syndrome.”
Further, Southam did say, after stating his company’s “per se” opposition to hunting and fishing: “[MEC] recognize[s] the need for fishing and hunting for subsistence purposes.” This is where their stance gets particularly muddy. If harvesting a deer becomes a life or death matter, MEC “recognizes” your right not to starve. If harvesting a deer is a conscious effort to feed your family with organic, free-range, hormone-free meat from a legal and proven-sustainable source while contributing to responsible wildlife management — well, that’s not good enough.
And simply “recognizing” the “need” for something is a long way from accepting or understanding it. Southam proved this with his next comment, following my query as to the types of outdoors organizations his company will promote. “We would not accept a posting from the BC Wildlife Federation or the Alberta Fish and Game Association on our website,” he said.
These are the facts — however, I’m not here to ask MEC to change its policies. I’m just making sure sportsmen in this country know exactly where their money goes when they spend it.

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