Canada Native hunger strikers facing trial _By PAUL OGRESKO Eight Thunder Bay Native students who took part in last spring’s hunger fast against federal education cuts were scehe- duled to go to court Oct. 26. They were facing charges of trespassing and, accord- ing to the Native students, the charges were being pressed by the local Depart- ment of Indian Affairs, not by the police. The charges stem from a March sit-in held in Thunder Bay just prior to the stu- dents taking their protest against the fed- eral cuts to Ottawa. “We are all pleading not guilty,” Carol Buswa, one of the students, told the Trib- une before their court appearance. “The basis of the plea is that the District of Indian Affairs is supposedly there to represent Native people (in dealing with the federal government).” Unlike a two week sit-in held the pre- vious fall, the response of DIA to the March sit-in was radically different. “We have a video tape of what hap- pened in the spring,’ Buswa said. “It wasn’t very nice. They called in the police. Initially DIA had said they would allow some of us to go in, then at the last minute they said they would allow only one. “Then the police came in and started to pull everyone out — one by one. There was an elderly woman there — the way she was treated was terrible. The police were pulling us out by the hair. It was an awful experience.” Despite the possibility of fines or impri- sonment the Native students, part of the Native Student Network, are determined to keep the momentum going against the education cuts. According to Buswa, the students are co-ordinating the work of a Canada-wide Native student network to bring together Native students for a united response as well as maintaining links to non-aboriginal organizations such as the Canadian Federation of Students. On Sept. 12, Indian Affairs Minister Pierre Cadieux announced an alteration to the original federal plan to cap the Native education program at $130 million a year. Native bands will now be able to hand out more money to individual students but the overall budget cannot exceed that outlined by Cadieux in March. For many first nations it is a “‘catch-22” situation, with the federal government, in effect, saying ““OK — you can fund your students but you have to pay for it out of your existing budget.” Bands will have to cut other programs — such as secondary schools, daycare, housing, community programs or policing. “There are students now who are not being funded,” Buswa said. “The changes Cadieux has announced are very vague and very token. There are eligible students not being funded because their bands simply do not have money.” Currently there are more than 15,000 status Indians seeking post-secondary education, even though only one in 20 Native students is currently seeking admission to university, compared to the non-Native average in Canada of one in four. For Buswa, the issue centres not only on getting the recognition of aboriginal and treaty rights, long ago promised by the Canadian government, but also of hav- ing hope through education, of some day achieving true self-determination and of breaking the cycle of poverty and colonial- ism. : “Tf it stays the same it’s just a continua- tion of genocide. And it’s all because of the failure to recognize that we are people who exist in this country and we have made treaties with the colonizers that have yet to be fulfilled,” Buswa said. “Still, we are coming out of the wood- work and generating awareness of what the issues are. I had a meeting with the Ontario Federation of Students and what they would like to do is get a representative from each Native student’s organization in Ontario. They were concerned that there could have-been a lot more support from non-Native people across Canada last spring. That’s one of the things we lack on the left.” GM van plant closure linked.to trade deal Special to the Tribune TORONTO — The bombshell announce- ment by General Motors that it is shifting van production from its Scarborough plant in Metro Toronto to Flint, Michigan has left the 2,700 affected workers stunned, uncertain of their future, and angry. Officials from the Canadian Auto Workers union, from shop floor to the top leadership, see the workings of the Canada- USS. free trade agreement as providing the framework for the auto giant’s job- threatening decision. On Oct. 12, with absolutely no advance warning, GM notified workers of its deci- _ sion in a terse, one-paragraph statement. It stated that production of full size GM vans will be consolidated at the Flint facility in the U.S. Scarborough’s “twin van plant at Lordstown, Ohio will also be re-located to Flint. But the company gave no indication when that shift would take place, and as far as the future of the Scarbérough plant is concerned, it has only said that a study is underway to find a new product. At Tribune press time, a meeting was scheduled between CAW officials and top GM Canada management, at which the union will be pressing for a timetable and other details. “T just feel as if they kicked us right in the gut,” said Roger Kennedy, vice-chairman of the shop committee at the plant, a unit of CAW Local 303. Added 10-year veteran John Legge: “It was devastating.” Bob Elliot, the local’s president, noted that about 30,000 people depend on this plant, including suppliers and workers’ fam- ilies. Shop Chairman Bob Ryan declared: “There are people here who have given their lives to GM. There are people who have lost their limbs in the service of GM. This is real thanks.” On the same day as the company’s announcement, the local leadership was off the mark with an initial plant-gate leaflet, assuring workers everything possible would be done to “help develop a strategy to see us out of these difficult times.” It added: ““We ask you to avoid panick- ing. We want to respond together, pooling our resources together as a united union. This will take time, organization and plan- ning. And it will not come easily.” 6 Pacific Tribune, October 30, 1989 A main focus for the union will be to step up pressure for a new product at the Scar- borough plant. The union will seek labour and community support and will press poli- ticians at the local provincial and federal : levels. As an initial step, the union will publish an advertisement in the Scarborough Mir- ror. Targeted at Brian Mulroney, the ad stresses that the Scarborough plant is both productive and profitable. It notes the “economic facts” about the plant: “It has produced net annual profit of $300 million (GM Figures). It has had $37 million recently invested in it; it is com- pletely paid for and has recently been re- tooled to be the sole supplier of the extended and chop van, and it has net wages and benefits which are $7 per hour less than Flint.” Why then, asks the ad, are 2,700 jobs on the line at the Scarborough van plant? “The threat to our plant is coming from political, not economic decisions. The free trade environment has allowed corpora- GM VANS ... auto giant shifting Canadian plant production to U.S. tions to move jobs, at will, across the border. Already 55,000 have been lost Canada-wide.” On the same day as the company’s announcement, CA W President Bob White connected the decision to the free trade pact. GM’s move could affect hundreds of others in the auto parts industry, in addition to the Scarborough plant workers, he said. “The decision by GM to phase out the van production and transfer production to the United States is exactly the kind of deci- sion encouraged by the Mulroney Free Trade Aagreement and by the elimination of important restrictions given up by Can- ada regarding the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact. “Prime Minister Mulroney promised Canadians hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result of free trade. Thousands of Can- adian workers have already lost their jobs since free trade and this decision could add over 3,000 to that number.” Federal NDP leader ED Broadbent charged that in the “‘absence of investment safeguards, and as Canadian plants age and become uneconomical, the auto makers will invest in the U.S. This is a free-trade issue.” Federal Liberal Trade Critic Lloyd Axworthy said the jobs of the Scarborough workers “are on the chopping block as a direct consequence of the free trade agree- ment.” Tory industry minister Harvie Andre tried to brush off the free trade link arguing GM needed to “rationalize” production. Ontario Liberal Premier David Peterson played down any free trade link and said the province can not legally challenge GM’s move. Peterson’s industry minister, Monte Kwinter, echoing his federal counterpart, was “optimistic” that GM would save the jobs of the Scarborough workers. He even called the GM a “good corporate citizen.” NDP MPP Richard Johnston said K win- ter had been “hoodwinked,” and had brought the company line, “like you always do, hook, line and sinker.” Johnston told reporters that “unless this government puts on a enormous amount of pressure, and doesn’t sort of play patsy to GM as this minister seems to want to do, I can’t see anything being kept here.” Responding to the Scarborough situa- tion, Mike Phillips, Metro chair of the Communist Party said that without the Free Trade Agreement GM would not have had the opportunity to move production in such an arrogant fashion. He called the 2,700 jobs at the plant, “among the best in Metro.” “The threat to them comes at a time when there is alarming de-industrialization already taking place in Metro and an explo- sion of service jobs which are non-union and low paid. All of which bodes a grim economic future for the region. “It is important that the labour move- ment and the community rally in support of the Scarborough workers and do what is necessary to save their jobs, whether through a new product or other solution. It — | should not be accepted as a foregone con- clusion that the jobs are lost. Pressure should be mounted at all levels of govern- ment. “The threat at Scarborough, must be a signal to the labour movement and the peo- ple of Metro not to allow corporate restruc- turing, at the expense of workers, without a struggle,” he said.