EDITORIAL

Canada at crossroads

The Special Joint Senate-House Committee on
Canada’s International Relations, a 17-member body,

___ began its work July 15 in Halifax and will end its

hearings in Winnipeg August 2.

Its task is to study Canadian response to the Green
Paper on foreign policy titled: “Competitiveness and
Security: Directions for Canada’s International Rela-
tions.” The first phase of the committee’s work is to
bring in a report by Aug. 23 on two key issues — free
trade with the U.S. and our participation in Reagan’s
Star Wars plan. In official language, the two issues are
called, “Canada’s participation in research on Stra-
tegic Defence Initiative and Bilateral Trade with the
United States.”

The Green Paper itself, a 43-page document, clearly
indicates the direction the right-wing Mulroney
government wants to go. Parading itself as an objec-
tive overview, the paper’s premise is based on two
not-so-new pillars.

The first is that Canada’s economic future is inex-
orably tied to that of the U.S., that the United States is
a dynamic economic motor moving into “new areas of
high technology”. Figures are provided which show
that 75 per cent of Canada’s exports go south, that 80
per cent of all foreign investments here are American;
that U.S. companies control 58 per cent of our oil and
gas. Other data deals with our cultural and military
ties.

The second premise is shop-worn anti-Sovietism.
“The U.S. is the principal member of the NATO
alliance. . the guarantor of the security of the Western

democracies.” It describes NATO in glowing terms,
the USSR as an expansionist, antagonistic threat to
Canadian security and to our “traditional democratic
values.”

The USSR is clearly blamed for the arms race now
underway, while Reagan’s policies escape unscathed.
Grenada and Nicaragua, for example, are not menti-
oned in the short section on the Caribbean.

In short, the Green Paper’s thrust is to continue and
accelerate Canadian economic, political and military
ties with the United States — a dangerous and suici-
dal choice.

Faced with a negative public reaction both to Star
Wars participation and the free trade option, the
Tories may well mobilize every voice in their favor to
“prove” Canadians support their policy direction.
There have already been indications that certain busi-
ness sectors, for example, are touting SDI participa-
tion as a “job creation” bonanza — and Canada
could well find itself involved “unofficially”, but
involved.

The Special Committee should hear the real voice
of the Canadian people — the millions who oppose
Star Wars, cruise testing and rapid absorption of our
military into U.S. “first strike” plans. It should receive
the arguments against free trade which would further
reduce our economic independence, destroy our
industrial and manufacturing base with the corres-
ponding loss of jobs.

The battle is on for Canadian independence in new,
sharp terms. Our country is truly at a crossroad.

A people-vs-profits case

“Freedom,” it appears, is a word with many mean-
ings.

Two court challenges are underway, both under the
guise of freedom. One is a challenge brought by the
Canadian Medical Association alleging that federal
legislation which penalizes provinces that permit doc-
tors to extra bill violates the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.

This one is being launched in the Supreme Court of
Ontario, a province which loses $4.4 million each
month in federal medicare payments so that doctors
can bilk patients. The CMA says its action is to defend
the professional and economic freedom of the indi-
vidual.

A second court action, also using the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, aims at setting the workplace

back to the 19th century. This group, a coalition of
anti-union and business people, well-financed and
connected has chosen the name “Freedom of
Choice.”

It, too, professes nothing but “freedom” as it chal-
lenges compulsory union membership, payment of
dues and union bargaining. Its aim is the open shop,
unfettered exploitation and a “completely free market
place.”

This is a good time to re-raise the need for a Bill of
Rights for Labor which would include the right to a
job, the unhampered right to strike and to picket, the
right to bargain collectively on all matters affecting
workers — from wages and working conditions to
tech change and so-called “management rights.”

It’s a clear-cut people-versus-profits issue.

HAVE AN ICE DAY

\)

* +

“ YES GEORGE, I DID HAVE A LOOK AT THAT
GREEN PAPER ON CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY
--GOOD READING!--- NOW HAVE THE BOYS IN
THE PENTAGON DRAFT UP THEIR RESPONSE

TO OUR STAR WARS PROPOSAL.”

Profiteer of the week

All the guys down at Domtar Ltd., who had been joining the
chorus of blues about the terrible state of the forest industry
and pulp prices, were silent this week when the company
reported profits of $47,500,000 for the first six months of

1985, compared with $44,800,000 a year earlier.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON

Graphics — ANGELA KENYON

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___ TRIBUNE

Business & Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Subscription Rate: Canada — $14 one year; $8 six months

t was less than a year ago that the editor-

ial columns of the two major dailies and
the Nanaimo Free Press were full of con-
demnation for the province’s trade union
Movement for its role in convincing
members of Local 712 of the Ironworkers
to reject a sweetheart deal with AMCA
International that would have cut wages
and conditions substantially on a fabricat-

Point. Remember it all? Columnists edi-
torially shook their heads, claiming that
unionists were refusing to accept the “real-
ities of the marketplace.” They were giving
up valuable jobs because AMCA would
simply take its project to the U.S. where
Wages were “more competitive.”

Of course the whole thing was a scam
from the beginning. As the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor and the local labor council
Pointed out, there never were more than a
few jobs at stake. There certainly were no
guarantees Duke Point would get the pro-
Jéct at any wage level. And then in March

_Of this year, the Nanaimo Free Press went
to Everett, Washington to examine
another similar project and found that the
company was not getting any bargains on
Wages. Much to the Free Press’ delega-
Uon’s surprise, it was paying the going rate
according to the standard union agree-
ments.

Now there is another brief chapter to
add to that series of events. It turns out
that wages in the construction industry in

S province are very competitive com-
Pared to those in the U.S. — often with-

Out taking into account the favorable

ing plant to be set up at Nanaimo’s Duke °

People and Issues

exchange rate. And the source for that
information is about as eminent as they
come for the business establishment in this
province — B.C. Business, which in turn
got its figures from B.C. Central Credit
Union.

The July, 1985 issue of the magazine
published a survey of wages for carpen-
ters, electricians and laborers for seven
Canadian cities, including Vancouver, as
well as four U.S. cities.

While a carpenter in Vancouver earns
an average $22.91 per hour, his counter-
part in Los Angeles earns U.S. $23.14, in
Denver U.S. $20.56 and in Seattle, U.S.
$19.56. When the figures are converted to
Canadian funds for comparison, the dif-
ferences are revealing with wages averag-
ing $30.72 an hour in Los Angeles, $27.29
in Denver and $26.09 in Seattle.

Of the cities surveyed, only Minneapolis
consistently comes up with lower rates
than Vancouver and the difference for
carpenters is only 87 cents Canadian.

The disparity is even more striking in
the case of electricians and laborers who
all earn more than their Vancouver coun-
terparts in equivalent Canadian funds
except in Denver where laborers earn
some $3.30 less an hour. In Los Angeles,
electricians get some $37.99 an hour Can-
adian and laborers $28.71. In Seattle the

same two trades earn $29 and $24.41
respectively.

* * *

ocred Health Minister Jim Neilson’s

comment earlier this month that
overcrowding in hosptal emergency wards
and bed closures during the summer are
both “routine” practices was callous
enough. But when you stack that com-
ment up against the actual numbers of bed
closures it demonstrates pretty clearly the
Socreds’ chainsaw approach to health
care.
The St. Paul’s Hospital unit of the Hos-
pital Employees Union just affiliated its
members to the Vancouver and District
Labor Council this week — just in time
for unit chair Fred Muzin to tell delegates of
the cuts to that facility planned by the
government. In previous years, he said the
budget constraints would force the hospi-
tal to close about 40 of St. Paul’s 550
beds — a figure which, although it would
undoubtedly cause hardship, might be
considered “routine.”

But this August, St. Paul’s will be clos-
ing 283 beds — more than half the total.
Elective surgery will be cancelled.

What worries the HEU — and any-
body concerned about health care in this
province — is that the Socreds will, in

fact, attempt to make such closures “‘rou-
tine.” Said Muzin: ““We’re concerned that
the government is trying to use us as a
permanent budget control measure for

G2

* * *

le were saddened to hear this week of

the passing of long time Tribune
supporter Henry Traeger whose name had
long been associated with the progressive
movement in Chilliwack. Yvonne Hadvick
paid tribute to him at a memorial service
held July 11.

Born in Berlin, Germany in 1910, he
immigrated to this country with his family
at the age of 17 and settled with them in
Northern Alberta where he began work as
a rural postman.

With the opening of the mining indus-
try in the early war years, he became a
miner, following the work across the pro-
vince to mines in Silverton, Kimberly, Bri-
tannia Beach and Hope together with his
wife Christine and his five children. He was

‘a member of the Mine Mill and Smeiter

Workers Union and later the Steelworkers
until his retirement in 1975.

He was also a member of the Commu-
nist Party throughout his working life,
maintaining his activity in the Fraser Val-
ley branch until his health compelled him
to cut back in later years.

In 1984, he was also able to see the
embodiment of his beliefs during a trip to
his native Berlin, now part of the German
Democratic Republic and transformed by

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PG a aa

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 24, 1985 e 3