Despite Wal-Mart’s reputation as a bad boy of the business world, 20 million shoppers a day choose savings over scruples. With the uber-retailer about to set up shop in the Manitoba Bible Belt town where I grew up, I wanted to know whether the Mennonites of Winkler — who make up roughly 85 per cent of the town’s 8000 inhabitants —are any less blinded by the bargains than the average shopper.

For centuries, we Mennonites (mechanized cousins of the Amish) dodged the advances of the “world”, moving to other countries and continents when the dominant culture encroached on our lifestyle. In the same counter culture tradition we have had a strong ethical voice on issues of peace, restorative justice and food security. But now we are welcoming one of the most aggressive corporo-cultural power brokers into the fold.

Winkler pastor Kelvin Dyck says he generally steers clear of the “glut of things” encountered inside the windowless world of big box stores. “[There is] so much I don’t need and shouldn’t want.”

Dyck adds, “Wal-Mart and other box stores are symptomatic of the way values are assessed in our communities,” with priority granted to “efficiency and low cost” versus “creativity and local products.”

But the arrival of the U.S.-based cultural goliath is not an issue in his church, and that seems to be the case across town. Two other ministers I spoke with had little or nothing specific to say about Wal-Mart. City Councillor Dave Penner said that very few people have raised concerns with Council.

It is not that Winklerites are afraid to stand up to “worldly” trends. In 1998 the community voted by a 78 per cent majority to get rid of provincially regulated video gambling machines, and thus forgo the revenue that would have been allotted to town coffers. It was a decisive choice of ethics over economics. But Wal-Mart seems to fly below the ethical radar.

In contrast, the Jesuits of Guelph consider Wal-Mart’s development plans an issue of direct spiritual consequence. For nine years Wal-Mart has tried to locate next to the Jesuit farm and spiritual retreat centre. Jim Profit, S.J. is director of the centre and has worked hard to buck the big box trend. Addressing Guelph City Council in May, Profit spoke of the importance of sacred, serene places of retreat: “Mega shopping plazas, as monuments of consumerism, are the symbolic opposite of these spiritual values. Consumerism masks the need we all have to turn inward to encounter God immanent at our core.”

That night City Council voted to allow big box development beside the Jesuits. The Ontario Municipal Board will have a final say in August, though Profit is not optimistic.

Wal-Mart tends to get its way. With revenues of $256 billion (U.S.) last year, Wal-Mart is the world’s largest corporation. It creates a ripple effect around its 4600-plus stores and 6000 suppliers internationally, influencing laws and market norms.

Evidence shows that Wal-Mart’s trip to the top of the corporate world has involved ethical shortcuts. Reports of labour abuses within its stores (most recently gender discrimination), detrimental impacts on local family-run business, and widespread use of sweatshop suppliers are not easily ignored.

Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Kevin Groh is dismissive of those who see sweatshop demons behind every rack. He says these “select critics” are “unions or union-supported groups.” His antagonistic posture toward organized workers does little to reassure one that respect for workers is a high priority in Wal-Mart’s search for cheap supply factories abroad. Still, Groh says the company has some of the strictest anti-sweatshop measures in the industry, and spends $40 million a year on monitoring.

As for labour practices here, he notes that there is not a single minimum wage Wal-Mart employee in Canada. Most employees at the Winkler store will start at “slightly above” minimum wage.

There is also not a single unionized Wal-Mart employee in Canada (though unionization is pending in Thompson, MB, Weyburn, SK, and Terrace, BC). In fact, Wal-Mart wrote the book on union-busting — literally. A manual handed out to management includes detailed instruction on sniffing out and stamping out organizing activity.

Citing Wal-Mart’s record, Jim Profit says “we have to care about why [Wal-Mart products] are cheap.”

Back in Winkler, Dave Penner agrees. But it would appear the morally-minded majority of his fellow Winklerites will be smiling all the way to the check-out. And in this “democracy of the cash register,” as long as shoppers hunt for deals, Wal-Mart and its competitors will hunt for the cheapest ways of putting those products on the shelves.

Where we Mennonites once reacted (and probably over-reacted) to the encroachment of “worldliness”, our ethical instincts seem to have been lulled to sleep by the mantras of economic growth and the promise of cheap stuff, even though the cultural consequence of Wal-Mart is probably far greater than the worldly forces we used to flee.