EDITORIA

Tory agenda will live
. on long after Mulroney

_ rian Mulroney is gone but won't be forgot-
», ten. Or should we say he’s almost gone and
__ the destructive Tory policies he helped
institute will be creating havoc in our

' . country for years to come.

| )

bed | After nearly 9 years of playing servant to
’ ex-U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and

Soe George Bush there is no doubt that Mul-
roney, arguably the most unpopular Canadian prime
minister in history, will be well taken care of. He will be
given just his rewards for delivering of Canada’s sover-
eignty on a platter to U.S. multi-national business inter-
ests.

Mulroney instituted a right-wing corporate philoso-
phy which pervaded all of the Tory goverment's policy
decisions. They include deregulation, privatization, the
destruction of VIA rail, the infamous Goods and Ser-
vices Tax, the cuts for health care and education and
tax cuts for the wealthy.

During the Tory years there have been record unem-
ployed, record debts, and record bankruptcies, both
personal and business. So now Mulroney exits in
defence of his record.

The most enduring legacy that he will leave to Cana-
dians is the FTA and NAFTA. In the same week as Mul-
roney announced that he would be stepping down, the
Tories introduced legislation to enact the NAFTA.

Under the FTA we have witnessed hundreds of busi-
nesses move to the United States and under a NAFTA
we will see the further collapse of Canada’s manufactur-
ing base. For this we not only have Mulroney to blame
but the whole federal cabinet and party as well.

Just because Mulroney will be out of the picture
doesn’t mean anything. The bedrock of conservative
Tory values has not shifted one bit and will live on for
years to come.

Whomever Mulroney’s successor will be, whether it
‘be Kim Campbell, Michael Wilson, Barbara McDougall,
Perrin Beatty, Jean Charest, Benoit Bouchard or Bern-
hard Valcourt, we can be assured that the Tory agenda

will not change. A face lift will not change the party's
fundamentally destructive policies.

Those disastrous policies have been taken under one
fundamental premise: that government must allow capi-
tal unrestricted powers in relation to competitiveness
and the economy.

The guts of Canada’s economy were dismantled dur-
ing the past FTA years where a high dollar and high
interest rates ensured plant closures, job losses, and
transfers of capital to the U.S. When plants closed down
whether they be sawmills, furniture plants or auto parts
and assembly plants, they closed down for good.

Mulroney's laissez-faire drive to competitiveness has
been a complete failure. Deregulating the economy and
cutting workers off payrolls will not make our economy
more competitive in the long-run.

How effective a nation will be in a global economy is
determined by how well its people are cared for in all
aspects. It will be determined by the distribution of
income among its people by their level of training and
technical skills.

The Conservative government has failed Canadian
workers. The middle class is disappearing as there are
more millionaires than ever. There is now more than at
any time since the Depression, more opulence and more
poverty.

Now the same politicians and corporate backers who
approved of all of the things that are so objectionable to
working people, plan to put a new face on the Conserv-
ative party.

IWA-CANADA members and working people across
Canada will not be fooled by a face lift.

* LUMBERUORHER

Official publication of WA-CANADA

GERRY STONEY. . President
NorMAN GARCIA NEIL MENARD. Ist Vice-President
Editor FRED MIRON. .2nd Vice-President
Seen WARREN ULLBY.. 3rd Vice-President
Taae tere ieee rest HARVEY ARCAND. 4th Vice-President
Ta gy ‘TERRY SMITH, . Secretary-Treasurer
VGE 4B2

BROADWAY °2 PRINTERS LTD.

THE GST... NOW 7HAT WAS
A HUMDINGER

Boy, YOU SHOULDA SEEN
THEIR FACES

BUT THE BEST, THE VERY

BEST WAS FREE TRADE

YESSIRREE! WE REALLY

PULLED THE WOOL OVER THEIR,

EYES WITH
THAT

GEORGE AND BRIAN REMINISCE.

(NGRID RICE FOR THE LUMBERWORKER

Real visions of a new economic order
appear as great days of reckoning near

The discussion and rhetoric
around the proposed North
American Free Trade Agree-
ments (NAFTA) is becoming

more serious and more chill-
ing as the great days of reck-

oning come. Canada’s federal
government is the first one to
introduce legislation and
wants to get debate out of the
way before the Tories have
their leadership convention
this coming summer.

First of all, consider the
government of Quebec, which
has embraced both the FTA
and now NAFTA. In early Feb-
ruary during a speech at the
Canadian Club in Montreal
the province’s delegate gener-
al in New York, Reed Scowen
said the following: “We (Que-
bec) have become one of 60
American states.” He also
questioned whether or not
Canada should continue to
have an independent mone-
tary policy. Reed said logic of
a single market “seems clear-
ly to point to a single curren-
cy or something equivalent.”

Scowen also said Quebec,
to ensure free trade, must
ensure that the benefits and
costs of its education systems,
health care and tax systems
and worker’s compensation
system are “competitive with
those of North Carolina.”

Recently U.S. economic
guru Lester Thurlow ap-
peared in Toronto where he
said that he has not talked to
any major corporation that is
not planning to make major
movements to Mexico.

In January, Mr. Thurlow
said “...1 was talking to a
Toronto firm (anonymous)
that said they have a plant in
Mexico where they pay $1.05
an hour and they get exactly
the same productivity as they
do in their plant in Toronto
that pays $14 an hour. Now
how long are you going to
keep the Toronto plant
open?”

In early February a Wash-

ington based think tank called
the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies said that
the NAFTA has drawn Canada
“more deeply into the Ameri-
can orbit than it bargained
for” and that “Canada’s for-
eign economic policy is being
forced on it.”

In a bitterly ironic state-
ment on December 17th,
Brian Mulroney signed the
federal governments intent to
pass the NAFTA and said:
“The NAFTA, by bolstering
our economic prospects, can
strengthen our capacity as
Canadians to chart our own
course and to continue work-
ing for the generous and
uniquely Canadian society we
cherish.”

When former U.S. president
George Bush signed the
NAFTA on the same Decem-
ber day of last year he sug-
gested that all of North and
South America will become
“subject to one law and the
torch of liberty.”

“Because of what we’re
doing here today,” said Bush,
“T believe the time will soon
come when trade is free from
Alaska to Argentina...Free
Trade throughout the Americ-
as is an idea whose time has
come.” :

Bush catapulted himself to
a new height of hypocrisy
when he said, “We have com-
mitted ourselves to a better
future for our children and for
generations yet unborn.”

He made no mention of the
use of child labour in Mexican
sweat shops and the Mexico
maquiladora trade zone nor
the issue of Mexican children
born with abnormalities due
to toxic exposure of pregnant
mothers.

In late January, Mexican
opposition Senator Munoz
Ledo appeared in Ottawa
before a House of Commons
in Ottawa and told Canadian
politicians that “a new slavery

will be created from NAFTA.”
He also said that labour in
Canada will be blackmailed
by corporations who will dic-
tate new. conditions or go to
other countries to operate.

“NAFTA abolishes the role
of parliaments and states and
gives their power to large cor-
porations and a handful of
officials,” said Mr. Ledo.

Mr. Ledo knows that the
Mexican government of Sali-
nas de Gortari is violently
putting down opposition to
NAFTA. With its 60 year grip
on power, Salina’s PRI gov-
ernment has the distinction of
having over 16,000 human
rights violations reported
against it. It has a notoriously
violent record against civil
and political opposition
which is fighting the NAFTA.

Since 1989 Canada has
given refuge to 58 Mexicans
who have sought political asy-
lum, since they faced persecu-
tion by the Salinas govern-
ment. Human rights groups
such as Amnesty Internation-
al and Human Rights Watch
say torture and murder
occurs on a regular basis with
impunity to those committing
the crimes.

Why does Canada want to
pursue a formalized, struc-
turalized trade agreement
with a government which,
according to human rights
groups, sanctions beatings,
torture, murders and disap-
pearances?

“These (abuses) may come
as a shock to most Canadi-
ans,” said Roger Clark of
Amnesty International. “But it
is reality. The evidence is
irrefutable.”

So too said the Inter-church
Committee on Human Rights
in Latin America, which told a
House of Commons Commit-
tee in February that, in Mexi-
co, human rights violation are
“systemic, epidemic, perma-
nent and structural.”

LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1993/5