EDITORIAL

Free trade ata price

Another ignominious page has been added to the Mulroney government record. Bill
C-22, one of the most unpopular and tainted bills ever introduced by a Canadian
government, is now law.

Not only will Canadians, especially senior citizens and people on low and fixed
incomes, pay more for the medicines they need; Canada has lost a hefty chunk of its
sovereignty and dignity.

The fight to stop Bill C-22 went far beyond the constitutional issue of a partisan
tug-of-war between a Conservative government and a recalcitrant Liberal-dominated
Senate. Bill C-22 shows in microcosm exactly what overall political agenda the Tories

have in mind.

For the next 10 years, the manufacturers of all new drugs sold on the Canadian
market will receive a total monopoly on both the product and the price. There will be
no “generic copying” that has saved Canadian consumers about $200 million a year
over the past decade.

In return, the multinationals have supposedly pledged $1.5-billion in research here in
Canada over the next decade. That figure, if ever realized, is extremely misleading.
First, it is less than 0.1 per cent of world-wide research and development. Second, most
foreign-owned pharmaceuticals do most of their new drug development at home. Their
research activity in Canada is mainly confined to non-creative clinical testing.

Third, the number of new jobs to be created by this extra $1.5 billion is estimated at
about 2,000 — important, but is it worth the coming hardship to be faced by the many
who will not be able to afford the new drugs?

What the Tory government has done is allow the pharmaceutical multinationals to
greedily bloat an already lucrative market. In 1982, drug sales in Canada totalled $1.5
billion. Of this, 84 per cent went to foreign-controlled pharmaceutical companies, most
of them U.S.-based. Between 1967 and 1982, their after-tax profit rose by 42 per cent.

Bill C-22 is part of the price the Mulroney goverment has paid in advance for a free
trade deal. A page — since shredded, deleted and disowned by the Canadian negotia-
tors, but never by the American — that was removed at the eleventh hour from the
initial free trade agreement made it clear the bill was one of the many concessions
demanded (and received) by the United States. :

Bill C-22 is cerainly not the only concession to the Reagan administration and
American big business that will not show up in the text of the free trade agreement. As
ume goes on, Canadians will find out that the Tories sold out much more.

Liberal Senate leader Allan MacEachen said the Senate allowed this unpopular bill
to pass so that the Tories would be hoisted on their own petard in the next federal
election. He may be right, but the cost will be high. Canadians must demand that the

ext government make one of its first priorities the repeal of Bill-C’ 22 and the

re-introduction of generic copying.

Office of the President
The White House
Washington D.C,

U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Mulrooney,

Please be informed that with this Free Trade agreement
the United States Government finds your office redundant
and request your resignation forthwith.

You are, however, encouraged to run for the upcoming
Governorship of the State of Canada.

a)

Sincerely,

Ron (Irish Eyes) Reagan

TRIBUNE

Published weekly at

~ EDITOR
Sea riffi 2681 East Hastings Street
n G u Vancouver, B.C.
ASSISTANT EDITOR V5K 1Z5
Dan Keeton Phone (604) 251-1186
Subscription Rate:
scan ‘ie sia Canada @ $16 one year @ $10 six
ike Proniu months @ Foreign ®@ $25 one year
GRAPHICS Second class mail
_ Angela Kenyon registration. number 1560 jeiosie ,ylaimee

f you're of the thousands of Canadians

who think that the continued existence
of Canadian magazines depends on pre-
ferential postal rates, you’d better wrap
one leg around behind you and kick your-
self in the butt for being an unrepentant
nationalist. Because according to US.
lobbyist for the Printing Industries of
America Inc., you’re “contorting” the pos-
tal rates aspect of the free trade debate
“into a cultural issue.”

As has often been the case with so much
of the material on the free trade agree-
ment, more is to be gleaned from trade
Journals than from the press releases
issued by the prime minister’s office. In
this instance, the journal is PrintAction,
put out by the printing industry.

The November issue quotes Benjamin
Cooper, senior vice-president for the Print-
ing Industries of America, as saying that
the U.S. is expecting changes in the postal
tates schedule, either to eliminate the two-

tiered postal rate that now favours
Canadian-published magazines, or to
make the same subsidy available to U.S.-
published magazines. It now costs Cana-
dian magazines approximately five cents
to mail a magazine in Canada, compared
to 41 cents for U.S. magazines.

Now, you'll remember that the Tories
have insisted that Canada’s cultural indus-
tries are “exempt” from the free trade
agreement. And the reason Cooper says
that postal rates are being “contorted”
into a cultural issue is that the both the
Americans and the Canadian negotiators
at the free trade table were on the same
wavelength in not considering Canadian
magazines a “cultural issue.” Moreover,
the Americans have obviously been prom-
ised, and expect, changes to Canadian
postal rates — changes that will enable
them to pump U.S. magazines and period-
icals into Canada at favourable postal
rates.

People and Issues

According to PrintAction, various
options are being considered by the federal
government, including elimination of the
subsidy for Canadian journals — which
would force many of them out of
business — or elimination of the subsidy
for those “that can afford it.”

Either way, Canadian magazines —
which are, after all, a vital part of the way
we define ourselves as Canadians — will
pay the price for a decision made at the
bidding of the huge U.S. magazine pub-
lishing and printing industry. And Coop-
er’s comments indicate that half measures
won't be enough to appease the industry.

“Tf the changes eliminate all discrimina-
tory postal rates, it’s good,” he said. “If it
eliminates the rates only for certain publi-
cations, it’s still discriminatory.”

As with the rest of the trade deal, the
more we see, the worse it gets.

Se ee

mong the Nicaraguans, they are

known proudly as “brigadistas” —
the people from around the world who
have come to that embattled Central
American nation to assist in construction
and in harvesting the crops that are vital to
the economy. The long and crippling con-
tra war which has forced the Sandinistas
to maintain a large defensive force, has
made the need for the international volun-
teer workers even more acute.

Over the past five years, the Prague-
based World Federation of Democratic
Youth has organized brigades, drawn from
youth organizations around the world,
and has sent them annually to Nicaragua
as part of its commitment to international
solidarity.

Again this year, the WIDF is sponsor-

ing a group which will include several
Canadians, including members of the
Alberta Federation of Students, the
Young New Democrats and the Young
Communist League.

Two people from this province, John
Rex and Matt Tarasoff, will be with the
delegation, which will be leaving Canada
Jan. 4 to travel to Nicaragua to help bring
in the coffee harvest, which is critically
important for the country’s export econ-
omy. They'll be staying on a collective
farm during their 42-day stay in Nicara-
gua.

Both Rex and Tarasoff are members of
the YCL which has also issued an appeal
for assistance in defraying travel costs and
in helping them make an additional ges-
ae of solidarity to the Nicaraguan peo-
ple.

Donations are welcome, we’re told, but
YCL members are also making them-
selves available for household repairs,
clean-up and other chores in the Van-
couver area. The proceeds will go to the
travel fund. ;

They’re also looking for donations of
sports equipment, particularly baseball
equipment and soccer balls, that brigade
members can take with them as a gift to
the Nicaraguans. 4

If readers can help or if they have work
to be done, they should call John Rex at
255-2766 or Reg Walters, 255-2817. Dona-
tions can be sent to the YCL, 100 — 1726

E. Hastings St., Vancouver B.C. V5K
ISL.
een

ia € was a man who had quickly won
friendship and respect in the indus-
tries in which he had worked and the

many organizations in which he took a
leading place. And the people who came
out to Maple Ridge Friday to pay final
tribute to Uno Soderholm attested to that
fact.

Uno, whose name had been on the
Tribune’s subscribers’ list virtually from
the paper’s inception, passed away Nov.
24 in Maple Ridge Hospital.

Born in Sakijarvi, Finland in 1910, he
came to this country as an infant with his

parents who brought with them their links —

with the socialist movement of their native
country, then -part of Czarist Russia.
Raised by his father following his mother’s
death, he continued the progressive tradi-
tion of his family, joining the Finnish
Organization of Canada while in his 20s
and later becoming a regular contributor
to the organizations’s newspaper, Vapaus,
first launched in 1907.

Moving to Vancouver from Finland,
Ontario in 1929, he worked where he
could, in the logging and fishing industry,
and put in a three-year stint with his wife,
Bertha, as the caretaker of the FOC’s Clin-
ton Hall.

It was also during the 1930s that he
joined the ranks of the Young Communist
League and later the Communist Party,
remaining a member of the Maple Ridge
Club of the CP until his death.

Following a move to the Finnish set-
tlement of Websters Corners in 1940, he
went back into the fishing industry, work-
ing variously as a tallyman and fish collec-
tor for a number of fishermen’s co-op-
eratives. A long time member of the
United Fishermen and Allied Workers, he
also served on the union’s general execu-
tive board.

Although he retired from fishing in
1974, he continued active membership in a
number of organizations, including the
Websters Corners Peace Group which he
had helped found in 1947.

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 2, 1987

he