CONVENTION

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National 1st V.P. Neil Menard.

Stay politically active
says Menard in address

National First Vice-President Neil Menard gave
the opening address at this year’s convention, fill-
ing in for union President Gerry Stoney who was
on doctor’s orders to reduce activity following
heart surgery less than a month earlier.

Brother Menard encouraged union members to
hold their heads high and maintain the fight for po-
litical change in Canada. He said that politicians
must listen to working people and that they will
only do so if working people speak out and “that
we live and work not in a vacuum but in a political
world.”

“We log and we saw the public’s timber accord-
ing to laws passed by politicians. We organize and
negotiate and strike when we have to, according

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° National union president Gerry Stoney spoke to delegates and paid tribute to Canada’s universal med-

ical care system.

Union president bounces back to
visit and encourage delegates

Delegates to the IWA’s National Convention,
held in Vancouver between October 24 and 27, got
something extra to think about when union presi-
dent Gerry Stoney took to the podium to give a
brief message on the first day of the proceedings.
Less than a month earlier the union’s national
president went into the hospital for some open
heart surgery.

That surgery followed the completion of major
contract talks with coastal employers in the B.C.
forest industry. Shortly after a tentative agreement
was reached, Brother Stoney went in for open-
heart bypass surgery. Two days later he was up in
his hospital room taking a few steps on his way to
recovery.

Brother Stoney shared his praise for the medical
system that we have in this country and reminded
delegates that it is a system worth fighting for.

He reflected upon an experience that he heard
several years ago when a U.S. delegate at an Inter-
national Woodworkers’ Convention had gone
through heart surgery in his country and that if he
didn’t have his private insurance all in place, the

operation would have costed the union Brother his
house.

Upon his own experience, Stoney said “the neat
thing was is that when I left the hospital seven
days after I had the operation all I had to do was
present them (the hospital) with a Care card and
walk out the door, and it was all paid for. There
wasn’t any more bills, there wasn’t anybody look-
ing to me for anything else. It was provided.”

“We live in a pretty good province,” said Brother
Stoney. “We live in a pretty good country, when
you think about it and compare ourselves to what
goes on in some other areas of this world.”

Brother Stoney was at the convention for a brief
time on the first day and also returned to the con-
vention on its third day to accept a nomination for
national presidency. His doctor told him to take it
easy for a couple of months while recovering.

He encouraged the delegates to take an active
role in all aspects of the convention. He said that
“IWA conventions are the best. They are the ones
that you decide what your union is going to be like
for the next year and how it’s going to operate.”

TEE

to laws. We are taxed fairly or unfairly according
to laws.”

“Interest rates go up or go down depending on
decisions of central bankers appointed by politi-
cians. And our members work or get laid off de-
pending on whether they go up or down. We go to
work on roads built at the instruction of politi-
cians. Our families get decent education and
health services or not, depending on the decisions
of politicians.”

Brother Menard said that forest industry work-
ers have been involved in Canadian politics for
over a century.

“Not because they (workers) wanted to but be-
cause they had to,” said Menard. “The price of
non-involvement is and was far too high. Our
traditional political ally, the NDP, is now strug-
gling to redefine itself in the modern world. I urge
activists to get involved. Otherwise what hap-
pened in the U.S. Democratic party in the 80's
could happen to the NDP here, and working peo-
ple could find themselves with no effective politi-
cal arm.”

Menard acknowledged to delegates from B.C.,
Saskatchewan, and Ontario that NDP governments
do not “bring heavean on earth,” but that the union

still has to work within the party as it is the voice
of working people.

He encouraged union members to join with the
Canadian Labour Congress and the provincial
labour federations in defending Canada’s social
programs against attacks by the federal Liberal
government.

Many of the victims of the government policies,
such as high interest rates, have been woodwork-
ers. Menard said that the federal government's
plans to slash social programs such as Unemploy-
ment Insurance, will only add to workers’ misery
and push more people onto welfare.

“The plain fact is that any decent social pro-
grams cannot carry the load, decade after decade
of 10, 12 percent unemployment. If people get laid
off they have to get UIC. And if their UIC runs out
they have to go on welfare.”

The remedy, said the speaker, is to return to full
employment policies. In the officers’ report to the
convention, delegates were warned that over the
next two years, federal and provincial political
events will critically test Canadian workers, trade
union activists, and social policy advocates.

Continued on next page

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8/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1994