EDITOR

Battle building over
Klein’s health reform

ill the beginning of the new millen-
nium result in another step to
weaken Medicare in Canada? That’s
an important questions that Canadi-
ans will have to grapple with if
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is suc-
cessful in introducing for-profit hos-
= pitals in Alberta.

At stake is the very foundation of the nation’s health
care system. Next Spring Klein will introduce legislation
to give the province's regional health authorities the right
to approve the building of private health care facilities
that are to be funded by taxpayer dollars.

_ Although Klein says that Alberta will not permit a two-
tiered, American-style health care system, critics say
that’s exactly what will happen.

The Conservatives say that surgical procedures, like hip
replacement, may better be delivered by what they say
would be more cost-effective and efficient facilities.

Without presenting a single shred of evidence that pri-
vate health care facilities would be either less costly or
pe aedt, Klein is pushing legislation that failed twice in

In a letter to federal health care minister Allan Rock,
Alberta’s minister Halvar Jonson gave no evidence that
private hospitals will be cheaper or eliminate waiting
lists. Presenting such arguments are not issues for the
Klein government.

Rock wrote Jonson and told him to wait until at least
June of 2000 when a joint federal/provincial study on the
effectiveness of public versus private health care in sev-
eral province is complete.

Jonson responded by saying that “I know that you can
always delay stuff in terms of having several years of
study. So let’s get on with it.”

That “stuff” is Medicare — a national treasure that
Canadians will not easily give up.

A recently-published study in the prestigious Journal of
American Medical Association, says that in the United
States, for-profit health care is dramatically worse for

ublic health than non-profit health care. There are poor
follow-up procedures, a lack of preventative medicine and

inferior care given for those suffering serious illnesses.

Wiein thinks that private hospital corporations can bet-
ter supply bricks aaul mortar for new facilities at the same
time that existing hospitals have thousands of vacant
beds and idle equipment, all victims of Klein’s vicious cuts
to the health care system delivered in the 1990’s. Today
Alberta rates among the lowest in health care dollars
spent per citizen. >

Does anyone really believe that a for-profit hospital sec-
tor won’t grow as they are awarded contracts given to
them by regional health authorities which are appointed
and fired by the Klein government?

Does anybody believe that the public health care system
won't have its doctors wooed away and reduced by a for-
profit system?

Does anybody believe that for-profit hospitals won’t
offer additional services for straight cash? If they fix a hip
and offer to work on a knee for a few hundred bucks cash,
will an underfunded public health care system still be rel-
evant to those than can afford for-profit care?

Does anybody believe that multi-billion dollar U.S. hos-
pies corporations — the ones that so easily sank U.S.

esident Bill Clinton’s campaign for universal health
care, won't be filling the land with lobbyists to get into
those for-profit facilities to dramatically undercut
Canada’s health care system while using the North Amer-
jean Free Trade Agreement to request “national treat-
ment?”

Will the federal Liberals not permit, as Mr. Rock says,
the parallel development of a pavate health care system
in any Canadian province “either directly or by stealth?”

The Alberta Federation of Labour, including the I.W.A.
are. taking up the fight. They are mobilizing a campaign
which will increase in the months ahead to put heat on
both federal and provincial politicians to preserve the
health care system.

As they have before, I.W.A. Local 1-207 members at the
rank and file level will be joining the battle.

LUMBER WORKER

Official publication of the
Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada
DAVE HAGGARD . . President

Tepes GARITA NEIL MENARD . 1st Vice-President
a HARVEY ARCAND .. . 2nd Vice-President

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5th Floor, NORM RIVARD . . 4th Vice-President

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Vancouver, B.C. TERRY SMITH . . Secretary-Treasurer

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Vict

ER WORKER.

(NGRID RICE FOR THE Liat

ry over WTO is premature

as representatives push ahead

No one can deny the effect
the organized protests and
the disorganized riots had on
the recent Seattle summit of
the World Trade organiza-
tion. But the cries of victory
from those who intended to
derail the rapid pace of global
integration are premature.

“It is a victory for democ-
racy, it’s a victory for trans-
parency. We feel this is the
launch of a new democracy
for a new millennium,” said
Canada’s best-know WTO
opponent, Maude Barlow,
chairperson of the Council of
Canadians.

Yes, there was chaos and
confusion and the WTO could
not hold its opening cere-
monies on time and yes there
was no communiqué at the
end of the week. But business
is business and life goes on.

WTO spokesman Keith
Rockwell told reporters that,
after the holidays, there will
more consultations with
WTO groups. And_ Mr.
Supachai Panitchpakdi of
Singapore, who will take
over as WTO Director-Gen-
eral in 2001, said that the
WTO will reconvene in three
or four months.

Although trade union
members and their support-
ers may feel warm and fuzzy
over Bill Clinton’s remarks
to trade ministers about the
necessity of including core
labour standards in all WTO
trade rules, listen carefully
to U.S. trade delegate Jim
Clawson: “The protesters
were successful in stopping
the negotiations. The ironic
thing is that now they
they've stopped them, there
may never be a clause includ-
ing labour rights or environ-
mental concerns.”

The five major WTO nego-
tiation groups studying agri-
culture, market access, the
implementation of rules,
environmental rules and
institutional reform, will
likely go on their merry way
somewhere, some day soon
without any WTO declara-
tion on labour.

Inside the WTO process,

Canadian Trade Minister
Pierre Pettigrew said he was
“begged” by U.S. trade min-
ister Charlene Barshefsky to
chair the working group on
implementation of trade
rules. And then, as one news-
paper put it, Canada was
“horrified” when the U.S.
went on its own, completely
outside the WTO in Seattle to
try a cut a bilateral deal with
the European Union (repre-
senting 15 European
nations) over the issue of
agricultural subsidies.
Canada and the other 118
WTO affiliate nations were
left out in the cold.

EU Trade Commissioner
Pascal Lamy called the WTO
a “medieval process” and
called for a conference to
improve how the whole
process operates. Whether
that was meant medieval
because of the riots or
because of poor organization
was not clear.

Scrambling to save face
and get a declaration
together, Barshefsky called a
last minute closed-door
meeting of representatives of
the 30 richest countries and
left 105 nations outside.

The Organization of
African Unity, an association
of nations from that conti-
nent made a statement:
“There is no transparency in
the proceedings and African
countries are being margin-
alized and excluded on issues
of vital importance.”

In the WTO process, 100 of
the 135 nations are consid-
ered developing nations and
they are given little, if any,
say about anything.

One thing that nations like
Mexico, and Malaysia don’t
want to see is anything that
looks like core labour stan-
dards. Their economies are
dependent upon transna-
tional investors, mainly from
the 35 rich countries that
treat their nations as cheap
labour colonies.

Besides saying nothing
against cheap labour
colonies, Canada did manage
to achieve a few things.

It put Canada’s social pro-
grams in jeopardy by failing
to safeguard public services
like health care, social ser-
vices and education, from the
WTO agenda. The feds say
that all services will be open
for bidding except for those
that are exempt because they
are related to “policy objec-
tives.” The U.S. will likely
drive a truck through that
one if Alberta Premier Ralph
Klein gets his private hospi-
tals or Ontario’s Mike Harris
gets his private universities
built.

Elsewhere Pettigrew and
his co-horts went overboard
in seeking a WTO working
group on biotechnology to
write rules combating laws
against genetically modified
foods. The onus to prove that
genetically modified foods
are a health risk will be put
on the country that wants to
keep them out. Canada,
along with the U.S. and
Brazil are the Big Three
went it comes to DNA-
enhanced grub.

And if you can’t trust Bill
Clinton, who can you trust.

“I want to say to the people
of Europe and all around the
world; I would never know-
ingly permit a single pound
of American food product to
leave this country if I had a
shred of evidence that it was
unsafe in any manner, and
neither would any farmer,”
exclaimed Clinton. :

O.K. Bill, you wouldn’t
“knowingly” permit it.

Canada needs interna-
tional trade. Without it we’d
be a poor nation. And as the
Canadian government is our
democratically elected repre-
sentative to a world trade
body, the labour movement
and other interest groups
have to keep the govern-
ment’s feet to the fire. They
can’t continue to go to trade
meetings with only the cor-
porations by their side.

We should celebrate for a
while before the battle
resumes.

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1999/5