EDITORIAL

Time to pitch in for
fightback in Ontario

Jorking people all over Canada
should keep their eyes on what is
currently taking place in Ontario.
The labour movement has joined
with coalition groups and other citi-
zens to protest the slash and burn
attacks of the Mike Harris govern-
ment.

Last month marked the largest ever anti-government
protest in Ontario history (see story page one) when
over 135,000 people gathered in Hamilton. The province
has never seen anything like it.

Still it appears that the ultra right-wing Conservative
government does not get the message clear enough. It is
intent on destroying the province's social programs
while revoking the rights of free collective bargaining. It
does not consult with the people of Ontario. It dictates
to them.

But Harris’ mean-spirited attacks on the poor, the
underprivileged, the jobless, the elderly, the disabled,
the young and minorities are going to backfire. More
and more ordinary working people are beginning to re-
alize that the Conservative government favours the
privileged classes. It wants to pay for its vowed tax cut
by cutting programs for those in need while giving bene-
fits to those who least need them.

The Conservative government wants to gut collective
agreements and throw workers out on the street with
no protection. It has already eliminated anti-scab pro-
tection for workers and introduced employer interfer-
ence into union organizing drives. It has also plans to
eliminate 13,000 of 67,000 public sector jobs in the
province. The Ontario Public Sector Employees Union
is on strike in order to stop that.

Harris is hammering the OPSEU as a symbolic ges-
ture to all workers in Ontario that their job security
means nothing with his government.

Harris is the ideological mate of Alberta Premier
Ralph Klein. Their philosophy is to transfer wealth to
the upper classes while eliminating social benefits for
the middle and lower classes.

Following the Harris and Klein leads is B.C. Liberal
leader Gordon Campbell who vows to do the same thing
in British Columbia if elected.

Should Campbell be elected, his “Liberal” government
vows to cut $3 billion from the provincial budget, which
is, on a per capita basis, a larger cut that Harris’. He also
plans to gut the Labour Code and contract out jobs by
embarking on a privitization program.

Campbell wants to do away with anti-scab laws, in-
troduce employer interference during union organizing
drives and do away with fair wage policies on public
works projects.

That is why it is so important that working people in
Ontario beat back the efforts of the Harris government
What happens in Ontario will mean a world of differ-
ence for what could happen in British Columbia.

The labour movement in B.C. is just as united in its
fight against a potential Campbell government as the
Ontario Federation of Labour is united in its fight
against the Harris goverment.

At this point in time Ontario is the country’s most im-
portant testing ground for anti-worker and anti-social
government policies. That government has become an
extremist one.

The Harris government must be stopped and workers
from all sectors of the trade union movement should
pitch in to help out. Now is the time to rally support to
the workers and citizens of Ontario.

LUIMBERWORKER

Official publication of 1.W.A. CANADA

MAN 5 GERRY STONEY . . President
Nor Edi es a NEIL MENARD . . Ist Vice-President
FRED MIRON . . 2nd Vice-President
WARREN ULLEY . . 3rd Vice-President
5th Floor, HARVEY ARCAND . . 4th Vice-President
1285 W. Pender Street TERRY SMITH . . Secretary-Treasurer

Vancouver, B.C.
V6E 4B2

BROADWAY <##% PRINTERS LTD.

MIKE HARRIS' PAYROLL REDUCTIONS

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MOVE AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

Canadian - U.S. trade relations grow steadily worse
in areas of lumber, foreign trade and food production

Trade agreements or no
trade agreements, relations
between the world’s two
largest trading partners are
getting worse. All you have to
do is look at the softwood
lumber disputes, international
trade with Cuba and the cur-
rent dispute over Canadian
tariffs protecting its dairy and
poultry industries.

To avoid yet another coun-
tervailing duty against soft-
wood lumber exports to the
United States, Canadian
provinces are agreeing to lim-
it lumber exports south of the
line. In 1996 Canadian lumber
exports amount to about 36%
of the American market.

Even though the U.S. has
lost its last three trade battles
against Canadian lumber, the
Clinton Administration is
leading yet another fight to
punish our mills.

As a result of voluntary re-
ductions in Canadian lumber
exports, its looks like the
Americans are offering a five
year period of peace. U.S. ne-
gotiators are pushing Canada
to reduce its share of the $18
billion American market by a
full 6% to 30% of the total mar-
ket this year.

Whether or not there is a
North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) or
whether or not there are dis-
pute settling mechanisms
does not matter to the United
States. It is a presidential
election year south of the line
and incumbent President Bill
Clinton and the Republican
controlled Congress and Sen-
ate are in a fighting mood.

Unemployment has in-
creased in the forest industry
in the United States and
politicians are looking for a
scapegoat. And their favourite
scapegoat has been Canada.

The fact is that Americans
need Canadian lumber. Not
only is our lumber of better
quality but Canadian mills are
much more competitive than
their U.S. counterparts. The
technological advances in our
mills is years ahead of the
competition.

In addition a Canadian dol-
lar, which is 72 cents to the

U.S. buck, makes all of our
exports naturally more com-
petitive. Add the fact that in
every timber producing re-
gion of the United States
there is a significant downfall
in timber supplies, the need
for Canadian lumber is more
clear.

The U.S, Coalition is threat-
ening to use the US. legal sys-
tem again to stifle our ex-
ports. Even if there is a five
year agreement to limit the
flow of Canadian lumber, the
Coalition is already saying it
is poised to take action in the
future until Canadian
provinces adopt a no-holds
barred approach of open bid-
ding for timber licenses.

As the lumber dispute fes-
ters, the U.S. and Canada are
becoming embroiled over the
issue of trade with Cuba. In
early March the Congress and
Senate both passed legislation
that will take action against
companies from Canada and
other countries that trade
with Cuba.

The infamous Helms-Bur-
ton bill (see editorial page in
June, 1995 Lumberworker)
will allow U.S. companies and
Cuban Americans to take ac-
tion against assets of foreign
companies if those foreign
companies have business
dealings in Cuban properties
that have been nationalized
since 1959.

Although this legislation
looked as if was dying on the
table, it came back to like af-
ter the February shootdown
of two anti-Castro planes in
the Straight of Florida.

What it will mean is that
more than two dozen Canadi-
an companies may have their
directors, employees and fam-
ily members banned from go-
ing into the United States be-
cause of trade with another
nation.

This extra-territorial appli-
cation of U.S. law is not going
down well with Canada, the
European Union, Caribbean
and Latin American countries.

Canada has called such
moves a violation of the NAF-
TA which supposedly guaran-
tees freedom of movement of

North American business peo-
ple.

The U.S. says that it can
take such action against
Canada and other countries
because it is in the interests
of its own national security.

Saying that Cuba is a threat.
to the security interests of the
United. States is like saying a
butterfly is a threat to an ele-
phant. The Americans posi-
tion is an absurd violation of
international law which is be-
ing condemned around the
world.

Canada says it will take the
case to the NAFTA and will
join the rest of the world in
taking the case to the World
Trade Organization (WTO) to
beat back the extraterritorial
application of U.S. law.

Looking at the dairy and
poultry industry, the U.S. is
Jaunching an attack at Cana-
da’s last remaining tariffs
which protect over 36,000
jobs from the onslaught of a
huge inflow of cheap U.S. im-
ports.

In January of last year the
last meeting of the agricultur-
al commission of the General
Agreement on Trade and Tar-
iffs (mow the WTO) ruled that
Canada had to stop its import
restrictions in favour of tar-
iffs.

The “U.S. Coalition for Fair
Trade with Canada,” which
represents 165 milk, cheese
and poultry producers is dri-
ving to get rid of the tariff and
estimates that it could gain a
$1 billion share of Canada’s
dairy product market and
$300 million in poultry prod-
ucts in the first year alone.

John Core, President of the
Dairy Farmers of Canada,
says: “The effects of the
American scheme on Cana-
da’s economy would be dev-
astating, in terms of unem-
ployment, the destruction of
much of our domestic food
production sector and our
ability to set agricultural poli-
cy.”

Stay tuned for more of the
same.

LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1996/5

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