RESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Federal budget takes aim
at unemployed workers

by Gerry Stoney

j the federal government’s latest budget
pec _i May have gone a ways to satisfying
some of the international bond markets
but what it really reveals is just the tip
of the iceberg as far as the wholesale
restructuring of Canada is concerned. It
is once again a budget which takes aims
1 at those in society that can less afford it
- the unemployed.

As if the series of cuts to the Unemployment In-
surance system that the Tories began in the late
1980's weren’t enough, the Liberal government
continues with the same policies of the Mulroney
government.

In Finance Minister Paul Martin’s budget an-
nounced on February 27, the UI system falls victim
again. Along with overall federal spending reduc-
tions of 11% which include huge cuts in transfer
payments to the provinces, that will have devastat-
ing effects on already overloaded provincial wel-
fare rolls, the Liberals are going to cut more people
off of UIC and transfer them onto welfare rolls.

Rather than offering Canadians some concrete
measures to create jobs, the Chretien government
is taking a hard-hearted, American style approach
of booting people off of social assistance when

they most need it.

Today, according to government statistics, there

are over 1.4 million Canadians unemployed. At the
same time, according to statistics, in November of

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last year there were
843,000 Canadians
collecting UIC. That is
a thirteen year low,
despite almost the
nearly record number
of unemployed Cana-
dians.

Over half a million
Canadians have either
been driven onto wel-
fare or have been
eliminated from so-
cial assistance alto-
gether. And now the
Liberal government
wants to make it
worse.

They want to cut
the duration of bene-
fits even more and
make it even harder
yet to for working

So the Liberals are cut-
ting duration of benefits
instead of increasing
them.

A recent survey by the
United Nations says that
while Canada’s Gross Do-
mestic Product growth
rate led the world last
year, our country had one
of the worse unemploy-
ment rates and has the
worst projections for em-
ployment creation into
the 21st century. From
1974 Canada experienced
one of the highest growth
rates of any industrial-
ized country while at the
same time its citizens suf-
fered from one of the
highest unemployment
rates.

people to qualify for
UIC. The Liberals are also out to punish seasonal
workers for being unemployed.

At the same time the unemployment insurance
system is entirely funded by employers and work-
ers. It is the second largest source of revenue for
the federal government, second only to personal
income tax. The government itself says that the UI
fund will have a surplus of $6 billion by the end of
next year. Yet workers have no say and are being
treated in a contemptuous fashion.

The government collects more from workers
and employers than it does it corporate income
tax! Yet it wants to treat workers meaner yet.

Workers depend on UI more that they ever did
before. In Canada there has been good economic
growth since the recession but there has been in-
sufficient job creation. Today the average UI claim
lasts about 24.2 weeks versus 16.8 weeks in 1990.

No small wonder then
that Prime Minister Jean Chretien was conspicu-
ously absent from the United Nations Summit for
Social Development, a global congress on poverty,
unemployment, relations between rich and poor
societies. The Congress, held in Copenhagen earli-
er this month called for governments to “protect
basic social programs and expenditures, in partic-
ular those affecting the weakest and most vulnera-
ble segments of society from across-the-board
budget reductions.”

In the new Liberal budget over $7 billion dollars
of social spending, in transfer payments to the
provinces, is to be eliminated over a two year peri-
od. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It appears that Prime Minister Chretien would
rather globe trot to third world countries to sign
“free trade” agreements rather than attend an im-
portant meeting to discuss serious issues.

More jobs needed
from less timber

by Kim Pollock

n the early 1980s, there was a serious reces-
|_| sion. In response, B.C.’s Social Credit govern-
| | ment came up with a policy of “sympathetic
ied management”. Essentially, it meant “let forest
| | companies do whatever they say they need to
LJ do to survive.”

Soon, there was a serious clamour from
throughout the province. Environmental groups
gained-ground rapidly. Sometimes, these folks
were right out to lunch. Sometimes, however, they
were right.

After all, it wasn’t just “enviro crazies” who
were concerned. It was many people, not least
among them IWA-CANADA.

For over 50 years our union has called for what
early leaders like Harold Pritchett called “conserva-
tion” and we now call “sustainable development”.

In the late eighties, we made our concerns clear
in our Forest Policy. Adpted by our 1989 national
convention, it begins: “IWA-Canada commits itself
to the establishment and maintenance of fully sus-
tainable forestry.”

In support of this goal, the policy urges: mainte-
nance of the integrity of the natural environment;
preservation of ecological diversity; provision of
decent livelihoods for Canadians.

Forest practices concerns raised include: small-
er cutblocks; less and better road building; strin-
gent monitoring of forest practices and
enforcement of regulations; protection for domes-
tic watersheds; ecosystems, not profits, should de-
termine rotation ages.

Partly, as a result of the public’s concerns about.
forestry, the New Democrats defeated the Socreds
in the 1991 provincial election, just as it looked
like public confidence in the forest industry was
sunk and our international reputation tarnished
for good

Since then, there have been sweeping changes
in the rules governing timber harvesting. The gov-
ernment’s new Forest Practices Code includes
many provisions - including many we suggest in
our Forest Policy.

As well, the government has undertaken a mas-
sive Timber Supply Review, aimed at sustainable
harvest levels. This has often resulted in lower cut
levels.

Another of Mike Harcourt’s initiatives is the Pro-
tected Area Strategy, whose goal is to protect bio-
cwereily by putting 12 percent of the province into
parks.

The government also
set up the Commission
on Resources and Envi-
ronment, which has giv-
en citizens a chance to
try to work out “valley-
by-valley” fights between.
environmental activists,
the forest industry and
forest workers.

Finally, the govern-
ment created Forest Re-
newal B.C., a Crown
corporation fueled by
higher stumpage rev-
enues made possible in part because the lock-up
of American timber to protect the northern spot-
ted owl, has driven up timber prices.

Forest Renewal’s job is to spur forest invest-
ment. Last year it accumulated over $1.4 billion
from higher stumpage rates.

There's a Chinese curse: may you get what you
always wanted. The Harcourt government's poli-
cies have created great uncertainty, slowed the
timber harvest planning and approval process, tak-
en timber lands out of production; they even

came concerned about what was happening in the
woods. Today, they’re getting concerned about
what's happening in manufacturing.

Specifically, they're noticing that we get a lot
fewer jobs per cubic metre harvested now than we
did ten or twenty years ago, especially in the effi-
cient mills in which work a high proportion of our
members.

Now, that’s a normal part of our economy, with
its built-in tendencies for capital to replace labour
and units to beome bigger, especially when there
is upward pressure on wages — which we've been
happy to provide and when we sell into competi-
tive markets.

But the people own the resource and they don’t
see it that way. They want to see more payoff in
jobs, communities, opportunities for their kids.

This means that in the coming decade, the in-
dustry must create jobs, especially in a new, ex-
panding and diversified wood-products industry. It
must also provide training a changing labour force
and research and development.

This means investments, which will come mostly
from industry. In some instances, companies will
see profitable opportunities and quickly exploit
new technologies or markets. But often, industry

threaten to close mills
and layoff shifts. We
haven’t always agreed
with AAC decisions; we
haven’t liked much
about CORE.

In short, the current
government’s policies

It will take carrots and
sticks to make companies
‘do what is best for the

would simply pocket its
excess profits. It will
take carrots and sticks
to make companies do
what's best for the
province, not the their
own profits.

And that’s where

have cost jobs and will Province instead of their government comes in.
reduce the amount o: ,~ The industry will grum-
timber we harvest. Just own profits ble, ional raise hell

how much less remains
unknown: for our part,

- just as with the Forest
Practices Code and oth-

IWA-CANADA has been pushing to ensure that the
government doesn’t go completely overboard. We
want the new rules to protect the forests, not go
after the enviro’s “flavour of the week”, which
changes weekly causing trouble for many forest
workers and their communities.

But there’s also no question that at the end of
the day there will still be lots to harvest. Why?
Simply, no government, regardless of political
stripe, can afford otherwise.

The forest industry accounts for $9.5 billion in
exports from B.C. annually, over half the total; and
the forest industry contributed $1.6 billion in gov-
ernment revenues in 1993, while in 1994 stumpage
alone was $1.4 billion.

The industry contributes almost 20 percent of
the province’s gross domestic product and almost
the same portion of employment.

In short, forestry is our bread and butter and
will continue to be. Governments can’t afford to
shut it down and neither can industry.

But neither is it going to remain the same. We're

in for more change. In the eighties, the public be-

er recent initiatives. They’ve fussed, partly be-
cause some government ideas are loopy, but partly
because they've had a good thing going and want
to keep it. Profits have never been higher.

Which reminds me of a proverb: the howling of
the righteous sounds just like the howling of the
damned. The only way to know who’s pulling your
leg is to check for yourself.

But one thing is sure: to make the industry “do

what's best,” you need a-government that’s not in
the companies’ hip pocket.
__ We've seen how the Socreds reacted when the
industry started to howl in the early eighties. They
gave us “sympathetic management”. Well, today’s
Liberals and Reformers are yesterday's Socreds.

If they wouldn’t insist that the industry should
get its forest practices house in order then, why

should they be expected to insist that industry
should get its job-creation house in order now?

Kim Pollock is the Director of IWA-CANADA’s
Environment and Land-Use Department.

#/.UMBERWORKE