}
‘

McLaughlin gives pointed
message to delegates

For the past four years, since the retirement of
former federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent, national
party leader Audrey McLaughlin has been a fixture
at IWA-CANADA national conventions. This year
she gave her final appearance as she will be step-
ping down as the party's leader at the next leader-
ship convention.

McLaughlin gave a very clear speech informing
the delegates that “federal politics today is domi-
nated by a Liberal government that is faithfully im-
plementing the Tory agenda.”

She said that like the Tories, the Liberals have
made patronage appointments to the Senate. Like
the Tories, the Liberals are running a $40 billion
annual deficit, and, like the Tories the Liberals are
giving lots of breaks to their wealthy friends
through family trusts and other loopholes.

The speaker said that the Liberals have also al-
lowed 63,577 profitable corporations to not pay
even one cent of taxes. Finance Minister Paul Mar-
tin’s own company, Canadian Steamship Lines,
made profits of $20 million in 1990 and paid no
tax. Said McLaughlin: “We have a finance minister
who is the original corporate tax loophole special-
ist first-hand.”

There are about $70 billion stored away in tax-
free family trusts, said McLaughlin.

“While you're worrying about whether your kids
are going to get an education or there will be a job
down the line for your child, the children of the
rich and the wealthy are protected, as they were
by the Conservative government before them and
now by the Liberals.”

McLaughlin then took a shot at the top corpo-
rate salaries in the country and the total lack of
taxes paid by big corporations.

Opening address

Continued from previous page

The report said that at the federal level, the Lib-
erals are conducting themselves along the same
path that the two-term Mulroney government did.
It said “Notions of full employment and progres-
sive change in our national economy have little or
no priority with this government.”

The report also warned that the Ontario NDP
government is at risk of losing the next election as
“right wing parties jockey to blame the (Bob) Rae
government for everything that has gone wrong in
that province.” y

The officers told the assembly the following:
“While the trade union movement and the Ontario
government have had some major disagreeements
over the last four years, the prospect of a shift
back to a more right wing approach to governing
in that province should be a great concern for del-
egates at this convention.”

The report also warned delegates that unless
working people put support behind the NDP in
B.C. and Saskatchewan then they may be faced
with Alberta-type governments. ‘

“If there was any doubt in people’s minds as to
what a full blown assault on social programs looks
like, We need to look no further than Alberta
where the Klein government has begun to disman-
tle the main supports of that system... Massive re-
ductions in provincial support for education,
health care, income assistance and workers’ rights
are part of that attack.”

In defense of the country’s social programs, the
speaker said the Liberals are blaming the deficit
on social programs whereas the blame should go
to the costs of persistent unemployment, high in-
terest rates, combined with tax loopholes for the
wealthy.

“If we're going to talk about the social security
system and reforming that, we also have to talk
about reforming the tax system and implementing
a plan for job security,” said McLaughlin.

The NDP leader panned the Liberals for defend-
ing increases in prescription drug costs with new
drug patent legislation for the multinational drug
companies with their support of NAFTA legisla-
tion.

She then said that the official opposition in Ot-
tawa are all Tory-types.

“Well, what about the opposition in Parliament?
We've got Liberal Tories, Tory Tories, Reform To-
ries, and one group that who thinks that the an-
swer to all this is to break up the country.” ~

“Certainly I want to say to you that trade union-
ists have no friend in the Reform Party. Preston

° Outgoing Federal NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin challenged unionists in her last IWA address.

Manning and I don’t agree on a lot of issues but
certainly not on labour....He doesn’t support anti-
scab legislation, he wants to see the abolition of
the minimum wage, and was reported as saying
that the strike was an obsolete tool. The Reform
Party is the most anti-union party in the House of
Commons. However, I do acknowledge that many
trade unionists voted for the Reform Party in the
last election. And one of the real challenges for us
as New Democrats is to learn why this happened,
and to really look to how we can bring about a real
alternative agenda....”

In her parting speech she said the union move-
ment faces many challenges.

“The union movement, I think, has the challenge
to show its members and the public why unioniza-
tion is important in the 21st Century,” said
McLaughlin. “The union movement is going to
have to decide, as a movement, whether it will be
the victims of change or the leaders of change.”

She said that unions have a great challenge to
reach out to the unemployed and to develop work-
places that create more jobs.

Election year sees four national
officers re-elected by acclamation

¢ Fred Miron

e Warren Ulley

It was an election year in the union and at the
convention nominations were heard for the posi-
tions of National Officers. With the exception of
the positions of President and First Vice-President,
officers of the National Union were elected by ac-
clamation.

Referendum ballots were sent out to all local
unions in the IWA following the convention to
elect the President and First Vice-President (see
election results story page three).

Incumbent President Gerry Stoney was nomi-
nated by Local 1-3567 President Dave Tones. Also
running for the presidency was Local 1-71 member
Kevin Cameron, who was nominated by Local 1-71
convention delegate Dave Mullett.

Incumbent First Vice-President Neil Menard was
nominated by Saskatchewan Local 1-184 President
Dennis Bonville. Also nominated for the position
was Larry Hanrahan of Local 1-424, whose name
was put forward by Local 1-424 delegate Doug
Mooring.

Fred Miron was re-elected to the position of Na-
tional Second Vice-President after being nominat-
ed by Thunder Bay Ontario Local 2696 President
Wilf McIntyre. Brother Miron continues to work
out of the union’s national office in Weston, On-

e Harvey Arcand ° Terry Smith

tario. This will be his third term as an officer of
IWA-CANADA.

Next up for nomination were the positions of
National Third and Fourth Vice-Presidents. Incum-
bents Warren Ulley and Harvey Arcand were re-
elected to those respective positions by
acclamation.

Brother Ulley, who has served as a National Of-
ficer since he was appointed in April of 1992, was
nominated by Local 1-71 President Darrel Wong.
Brother Arcand, who has served as Fourth Vice-
President since May of 1992, was nominated by
Williams Lake, B.C. Local 1-425 President Brian
Symmes.

Brother Terry Smith was re-elected to the posi-
tion of National Financial Secretary for the fourth
consecutive term, after being nominated by Local
1-3567 President Dave Tones.

On the same day Brother Irving Baetz, Financial
Secretary of Local 1-500 in Hanover Ontario, was
elected as a 6 year trustee after being nominated
by Local 1-500 President Bruce Weber.

The nominations were conducted by Brother
Bob Blanchard, retired former First Vice-President
of IWA-CANADA.

SS I

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1994/9

ie