British Columbia

Trade pact includes
water, book warns

Tory attempts to defend the controver-
sial Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
were given another setback last week with
the announcement of a new book which
shows that Canada’s water resources are
threatened by the pact.

The tariff schedule attached to- the
agreement clearly shows that water, includ-
ing bulk shipments, is in the deal, authors
who contributed to the book, Water and
Free Trade, said during a national promo-
tion tour.

Also revealed last week was the fact that
two bulk water shipments approved by the
British Columbia provincial government
exceed the limits laid down in federal legisla-
tion tabled earlier this year.

The revelations show that, Conservative
government claims to the contrary, mass
shipments of water from Canada to the
United States are very much part of the
deal.

Water and Free Trade, with 14 contribut-
ing authors who are experts in the field of
water resource and export, was edited by
Vancouver resident Wendy Holm, presi-
dent of the B.C. “Small” Small Business
Group.

Holm, who has done extensive studies on
the issue and who has written government
officials demanding clarifications on water
exports and the pact, said earlier this year
that water is defined as a good in the Gen-
eral Agreement of Tariffs and Trade, to
which the FTA adheres.

Along with former diplomat Ken War-
droper and former water treaty negotiator
Tony Scott, Holm warned. that the free
trade pact prohibits governments from cut-
ting off “normal channels of supply” for
any goods defined in the agreement.

Wardroper and Scott are among the 14
contributors to the book, which also
includes essays from Mel Clark and Don
Gamble, former water negotiators who also
warned earlier this year about the dangers
inherent in the pact.

Ata Toronto press conference last week
Clark, deputy chief of the Canadian delega-

tion to the Tokyo round of GATT talks in
the late 1970s, pointed out that the tariff
schedule attached to the FTA specifies
water. It defines it as “Waters, including
natural or artificial mineral waters and aer-
ated waters, not containing added sugar or
other sweetening matter nor flavoured; ice
and snow.”

Water is also alluded to in Article 711 of
the agreement, under the agriculture sec-
tion, although in line with several items in
the FTA, it is referred to by code number.

In a circular promoting the new book,
Holm notes that even such costly futuristic
schemes as massive water basin diversion
projects (notably, the GRAND canal
scheme, whose backers, including FTA
negotiator Simon Reisman, are still promot-
ing the scheme) are possible because of the
U.S.” dwindling water supplies. »

Holm, who is also president of the B.C.
Institute of Agrologists, points out that
under Article 711, Canada would be bound
to ship water to U.S. farmers even if it hurt
supplies for Canadian agriculture. That is
because the GATT definition of “national
treatment” has been extended under the
pact to include exports as well as imports.

Holm also warns about supertanker
exports of water from B.C., noting that the
B.C. government has already issued five
export licences. She points out that under
the pact, “supertanker exports of water are
forever,” and that Canada is locked into
selling water to the U.S. even if it could find
a better market elsewhere.

Last week North Vancouver Liberal
candidate Jim Hatton revealed that two of
those export licences involve amounts in
excess of the limits laid down by Bill C-156,
the Tory government’s water policy bill that
died with the dissolution of Parliament.

The bill limited yearly exports to 16,200
acre feet. The agreement for the Ocean Falls
operation, part of Western Canada Water
Enterprises Inc., allows 43,000 acre feet per
year. Another licence grants Central Coast
Power Corp. to export 24,500 acre feet per
year.

Citation vote okayed;
strike notice issued

Pickets are likely to go back up later this
week at the Citation Industries plan in
Richmond as Carpenters Local 1928 served
72 hours strike notice against the company
Wednesday — the second time strike
notice has been served in the year-old dis-
pute.

Local 1928 business agent Dave Streb
said Tuesday that members had voted
“overwhelmingly” for strike action in a vote
taken Oct. 24. It had been supervised by the
Industrial Relations Council after the B.C.
Federation of Labour had given the local a
“tactical exemption” from the labour
movement’s boycott of the IRC.

Citation had sought to challenge the
validity of the strike vote on the basis that it
had fired all its employees last summer fol-
lowing their defiance of an IRC ruling that
was subsequently reversed.

But in an decision brought down Tues-
day, IRC vice-chair Catherine Bruce ruled
that the strike vote was valid, arguing that
employees had a “sufficient continuing
interest in the outcome of the dispute.”

Of 133 employees eligible to vote, 108
took part in the strike balloting, Streb said.

He noted that the company could still
apply to the IRC to restrict or even prohibit
picketing — a distinct possibility, given the
pattern set by Citation throughout the dis-

12 « Pacific Tribune, November 7, 1988

pute. The company has repeatedly turned
to either the courts or the IRC in an effort to
circumvent the bargaining table.

Local 1928 members initially served
strike notice and set up picket lines in July
after conducting a non-IRC vote in line with
B.C. Fed boycott policy. But Citation app-
lied for and got a cease-picketing order after
the company successfully argued that a col-
lective agreement was in force at the plant.

The order was subsequently filed in
Supreme Court but, ina ruling that startled
many in labour relations, B.C. Supreme
Court Justice William Trainor ruled that
IRC orders could not automatically be
enforced in court without making the courts
a “rubber-stamp” for a quasi-judicial body.

Last month, however, the Appeal Court
overturned Justice Trainor’s decision, forc-
ing Citation workers to take down their
picket line or face contempt of court pro-
ceedings. Citation also filed a $1.25 million
suit for damages against the union.

But also last month, the IRC ruled on an
appeal of its earlier decision on the existence
of a contract, and decided that there was
not, in fact, a valid collective agreement in
force at Citation.

That decision paved the way-for th
union to proceed with a new strike vote.

Americans sabotage
Canadian safety law

The Mulroney trade deal hasn’t eve’
come into effect yet, and the Americans
are already trying to tell our government
they can’t implement legislation that will
protect workers on the job from expo-
sure to toxic substances. :

By the end of this month, the Work-
place Hazardous Materials Information
Systems (WHMIS), the product of an
agreement hammered out by labour,
industry and both provincial and federal
governments will be legally put into
place.

While it falls short of what labour
would like, WHMIS and the three pieces
of legislation that will implement the
agreement are nevertheless seen as a
giant step forward, forcing corporations
to inform employees of the hazardous
materials they handle during their day’s
work.

Through a medley of new federal and
provincial laws, WHMIS will require
businesses importing or selling hazard-
ous materials for use in workplaces in
this country to provide customers with
labels and Material Data Safety Sheets
(MSDS).

Provincial laws under WHMIS will set

Mike
Phillips

LABOUR
IN ACTION

out the employers’ duties; it will compel
them to make proper MSDS available to
workers on the job and to their health
and safety committees. And they will
have to co-operate with joint health and
safety committees to set up worker train-
ing programs teaching workers how to
understand MSDS and the information
on labels, as well as how to handle, con-
trol, use, store and dispose of the dan-
gerous materials they’re exposed to.

With more than 6,000 Ontario
workers killed by workplace toxins each
year, the labour movement has been
lobbying mightily for WHMIS. Agree-
ment was reached on the program in
April, 1985 and the appropriate federal
and provincial laws were put into place
in June 1987. WHMIS was set to go into
effect Oct. 31.

So labour was naturally outraged
when the news leaked that the U.S.
government had sent telegrams last
August to its embassies in Ottawa, Brus-
sels, Paris and Geneva mounting a con-
centrated attack on the program.

Specifically, the Americans wanted
Canada to undertake “technical consul-
tations” with the U.S. government and in

the meantime, delay WHMIS implemen-
tation “until at least April 30, 1989.”

The leaked message provides a
glimpse of how Washington can put the
squeeze on our government. It instructed
embassy personnel to bring copies of the
message to the Minister of Corporate
and Consumer Affairs, to various Euro-
pean Community, British, and other
“appropriate host governments or inter-
national officials dealing with exports to
Canada.”

The instructions stressed the need to
note how these countries “exporting to
Canada will face the same problems as
U.S. companies” under WHMIS, and
those making the contacts were told to
“please report back to Pep Fuller,
USTR, Washington, the date the mes- —
sage was delivered and to whom (name
organization, address, telephone and
telex numbers.)”

Basically, the Americans don’t like
WHMIS because they don’t want to pay
the costs of the labelling and producing
MSDS implied in the program. Though
the process of developing the regulations
has been underway since 1985, they
claimed American companies wouldn’t
have enough time to comply by Oct. 31.

“Some U.S. manufacturers,” the
American government telex warned,
“have already indicated that they may
choose to eliminate exports to Canada
rather than risk divulging trade secrets
information or investing significant
funds. in substantiating trade secret
claims or developing the msds.”

Then to make sure the message gets
across, the document attacked WHMIS
for being contrary to the spirit of the
Mulroney-Reagan trade deal.

“Chapter 6 of the proposed Canadia-
n-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
extols each party ‘to the greatest extent
possible ... (to) make compatible its
standards, related measures and proce-
duress

“The ‘standstill’ provisions of that
agreement,” the U.S. telex said, “commit
us both to exercise discretion in the
period prior to entry into force so as not
to jeopardize the approval process or
undermine the general spirit and mutual
benefits of the FTA.

“The pending implementation of
WHMIS will unfortunately not be con-
sistent with the standstill provision or the
spirit of the FTA.”

In an Oct. 20 statement, Ontario Fed-
eration of Labour president Gord Wil-
son called the American government
move “blatant and unashamed political
interference in a major decision that was
reached by consensus among Canadian
business, labour and government.”

The attack on WHMIS is but a taste
of what’s to come if the federal Tories
win a majority in this election and are
allowed to close the trade deal.

| preater sebeenher throb cade strc ee ger berate me

a 7

FRrRIBUNE

Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. VSK 1Z5. Phone 251-1186

Name

tee SO to ee ee ie ey

Suh R679 6. pie wes pce 0 0 gd 0 one 0 0 0 o a:a 0m

Postal Code

lamenclosing tyr. $200) 2yrs. $350 3yrs. $5001 Foreign 1 yr. $3200
Bill me later = Donations........

READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR