EDITOR

Empty promises in
FTA with US.-Mexico

ij ERE we go again. In the mid to late 1980's
_ | the Mulroney government lead us into “free
| _/ trade” talks with the United States and now
be | it’s time to sit down with the U.S. and

fe SI Mexico to negotiate a North American trade

pact.

All of this will be done on a “fast track” negotiating
process to be dictated by the Americans. When
Canada’s International Trade Minister John Crosbie
announced on February 5th our country would become
full and equal partners in the deal, the country was
given the old Tory rhetoric.

“It is important that we participate in this economic
revolution from the outset,” said Crosbie. “If Canada
were not involved in the enlarged free trade agreement
from the outset, important job creating investment
could well decide to go elsewhere.”

That is a classic statement from one of Canada’s
premier trickster politicians, one of the same Tories
who promised Canadian workers good times before
signing the FTA with the United States.

Just where does Mr. Crosbie think “job creating”
investment will flow? To Ontario, which is losing ten
of thousands of jobs to the U.S. and Mexico already?
To Saskatchewan, where thousands of people are
leaving the province in one of the worst economic
disaster periods in the provinces’ history? Or does he
think the jobs will be created in the Martimes. A
region betrayed by Tory economic policy.

Like a lap dog of U.S. President, George Bush and
the Blue Chip Multinational lobby that is cooking up
this deal, the Mulroney government is quick to sell
Canada down the tubes again.

And for what? To get into a formalized trade deal
with a nation that is so oppressive and backwards
that even the ultra conservative Globe and Mail, one
of the deals main supporters acknowledged: “There is
still a long way to go in Mexico to overcome decades
of corporatism which saw a stultifying and corrupt
union of the state, private capital, unions and police.”

In control of Mexican trade union and workers since
1929, Salinas’ ruling party has been described by a
Latin novelist and politician as “the perfect
dictatorship.”

Does Mulroney think that Canadians will compete
against Mexican workers? The average wage in
Mexico’s Maquiladora trade zone is less than one
dollar per hour. The average worker is under 30 years
old, female, and in 70% of time is fired, quits, or is
burnt out in less than one year.

US. Trade Representative, Carla Hills, said before
a Senate finance committee that the Bush
administration didn’t want to “muddy” the free trade
talks with any consideration of human rights or
environmental issues. After all, they are not the kind
of issues that big business wants to deal with. Crosbie
said Canada wouldn't talk about such issues because
Canada doesn’t want to “dictate” social policy to the
Mexicans.

Mexico collects little or no taxes from over 900
Maquiladora industries that operate in hi-tech,
modern factories which can manufacture such
products as automobile engines, computers,
appliances and telecommunications equipment. In
return it offers its workers no social benefits or
services.

Free trade with Mexico would only offer corporate
North America with bargain basement opportunities
to ply its trade and exploit Mexican workers while
other North Americans will lose their livelihoods and
standards of living.

LUIMBERU/ORKER

Official publication of IWA-CANADA.

NORMAN GARCIA, JACK MUNRO... President
Editor GERRY STONEY .. ist Vice-President
NEIL MENARD. . 2nd Vice-President
5th Floor, FERNIE VIALA . . 3rd Vice-President
1285 W. Pender Street ROGER STANYER.. 4th Vice-President
Vancouver, B.C. FRED MIRON . . 5th Vice-President
V6E 4B2 TERRY SMITH . . Secretary-Treasurer
BROADWAY EIEGEES pRINTERS LTD.

4/LUMBERWORKER/FEBRUARY, 1991

Wer

OURICE G1

——

Wf/ Ulli l

Wir

Tories prepare to dismantle
Medicare with new Bill C-69

In another giant step in
destroying the Canadian
social fabric, the Mulroney
government has successfully
had its Bill 69 (An Act to
Amend Certain Statutes to
Enable Restraint in Govern-
ment) pass the Senate in early
February and given Royal
Assent. What that means,
among other things, is that
the Tories are reducing and
eliminating all federal cash
transfers for the medical care
system by the year 2004.

The Canadian Labour Con-
gress predicts that C-69 will
create a two-tiered medicare
system “where wealthy peo-
ple can pay for and get first
class medical care (and) oth-
ers will receive second class
care or no care at all.”

The new bill will eventually
weaken the Canada Health
Act, legislation introduced
during the late Trudeau
years, which ensured federal
standards for health care.

Under the Act, Canadians
are guaranteed on one tiered
medical system based on uni-
versality, accessibility, porta-
bility, comprehensiveness and
proper public administration.
The Act also prevented prov-
inces from imposing user fees
by withholding cash transfer
payments of equal amounts.

Quebec's provincial govern-
ment has come out with new
legislation calling for the
scrapping of the Canada
Health Act. In early Decem-
ber, 1990, the province intro-
duced a bill which will see
people pay user fees and also
pay for supplementary ser-
vices based on a formula
which is added to their income
tax.

Quebec Intergovernmental
Affairs Minister, Gil Remil-
lard said provinces should be

allowed to do whatever they
want to finance medical care
including extra-billing and
user fees.

In British Columbia, Fi-
nance Minister, Mel Couvelier
has made similar overtures
which “would enable provin-
cial governments to revisit
the continued desirability of
continued expensive social
programs available on a uni-
versal basis.” Couvelier has
also said that it is “appropri-
ate to do away with most
national health standards.”

At the same time in British
Columbia, hospitals are fac-
ing a shortage of nursing
staff, available beds and
lengthy waiting periods for

elective surgery.

In an appearance before a
Senate Finance Committee
one of Canada’s health care
experts, Dr. Michael Rachlis,
said Bill C-69 would “sound
the death knell for medicare”
if allowed to pass.

“It has slipped by the con-
sciousness of many Canadi-
ans, yet it represents the most
pressing problem facing Can-
ada’s health care system
today, said Dr. Rachlis.

Until now the Federal gov-
ernment has paid out half of
the funding necessary to
ensure national standards in
health and education. From
1977 to 1986 the rate of pay-
ment increases were related
to growth in the nation’s
Gross National Product. In
1986 the government reduced
an increase to the GNP rate,
less 2%.

Under Bill C-69, $9 billion
in cash payments will be elim-
inated by 2004, which will
cause either drastic increases
in provincial and/or munici-
pal taxes, or see a complete
erosion of medical services.

The Tories, under C-69, are
also ending their support for
transfer payments under the
Canada Assistance Plan,
which is used, in British
Columbia, to pay for the
majority of spending by the
Ministry of Social Services
and Housing.

The Mulroney government
has systematically and relent-
lessly attempted to undo Can-
ada social programs. It has
stopped Federal funding for
unemployment insurance and
reduced and eliminated bene-
fits. It has partially de-in-
dexed baby bonus, cut back
family allowances and taken
back money from old age
security payments.

With Bill C-69, the Mul-
roney Conservatives are con-
tinuing on a mean-spirited
agenda of deficit reduction by

enalizing those who can

least afford to be hurt.

Their wealthy constituents
will be okay and, no doubt
their supporters in big busi-
ness would love to see Cana-
da’s health care system crum-
ble. Big business wants an
American style medical sys-
tem, where hospital corpora-
tions profit enormously from
private insurance fees, user
fees and extra billing.

During the 1984 federal
election campaign, Brian §
Mulroney said that social pro-

rams were “a sacred trust.”

‘ince then, and especiall:
since the 1988 election, Mul-
roney has done everything in
his power to break that trust
with the Canadian people.

Canada’s network of human
and social services has been
carefully built up for more
than 40 years. However, the
neo-conservatives are ruining
those programs, that we have
come to know and expect.

eo