CANADA

_ Alberta budget slams poor

The Alberta Tory government intensi-
fied their attack against working people
on March 20 with a budget that slashes

government spending and hikes taxes by
almost $1 billion. This will mean an
increase in taxes for each family of
between one and two thousand dollars.

“The March 20 Tory/big business
| budget must be withdrawn,” said David
- Wallis, Alberta
leader of the
Communist Party,
“and replaced with
a people’s budget.
‘The only winners
With this cruel
budget are the
Major corpora-
tions who under
the Tories have
Seen their taxes
drop dramatically.
Working people, on the other hand, have
Seen their income taxes jump from $1.5
billion to $2.15 billion.”

The Tory budget increases the corpo-
Tate tax rate from 11 per cent to 15 per

cent to net an additional $117 million in
the 1987/88 tax year. Over four years,
however, corporate taxes have fallen. In
the 1983/84 tax year they paid $730 mil-
lion, while the budget predicts that cor-
Porate taxes will bring in only $560 mil-
lion this year.

“This also represents a decline in cor-
Porate taxes from 8.4 per cent of provin-
Cial revenues to 6.5 per cent over two
years while the individual taxes go from
15.6 per cent to 24.9 per cent.

“Tn reality,” said Wallis, “after mas-
Sive ‘incentives’ to the oil industry are
taken into account the corporations take
back much more than they pay. Corpo-
rate handouts were supposed to create
jobs and propserity, instead we face

DAVID
WALLIS

Student jobs scheme

The federal \government’s student
Summer employment program, Chal-
lenge °87, has been called an “offensive
Joke” by a national youth group leader.

The program remains at its 1986
Spending level of $180 million, but this
time includes student loan spending and

growing unemployment and increasing
poverty.”

This Tory budget attacks all sections
of the Alberta population except the
large corporations. Taxpayers will see
their provincial taxes rise retroactively, to
Jan. 1, 1987, by between 15 and 20 per
cent. This includes a regressive | per cent
flat tax on all taxable income. The five
cent gasoline tax will take $230 million
out of the economy.

The Tories are undermining Alberta’s
health care system and making plans to
eliminate, for example, the yearly checkup
from services covered while increasing
premiums by 28 per cent. Renters in
Alberta will lose $90 million when the
Tories axe the rent subsidy in 1988. In
addition, individuals will have to pay
millions more as fees and other taxes rise.

The Tories have announced sweeping
changes in welfare regulations that will
cut welfare for 20,000 “short term single
employables” from $290 per month to
$180. For “long-term single employable”
welfare recipients, monthly benefits are
cut from $290 $215. With unemploy-
ment in Edmonton at 12.5 per cent and
increasing, these changes condemn the
unemployed to extreme poverty.

Alberta’s provincial treasurer Dick
Johnston claims that the budget will
keep Alberta an attractive place for cor-
porate investors and that this will result
in the creation of jobs through the diver-
sification of the economy. The reality of
these massive tax increases will be the
opposite, because consumers will have
less to spend.

The corporate agenda for Alberta is
for even more cuts in people’s programs
and living standards. As provincial cuts
work their way through the economy,
municipal governments and school boards
will be forced to lay off workers and hike
property taxes.

programs for training cadets, reserves,
and the RCMP.

Announced in January by federal
Minister of State for Youth, Jean Char-
est, the program allots $127 million to
subsidize minimum wage jobs.

“Some high school dropouts will have

a

The developments around free
trade are bringing federal-provincial
Telations to a head. A number of prov-
inces are trying to set up road blocks
In the way of an automatic agreement
between the U.S. and Canada over
the heads of the provinces.

Quebec Premier Bourassa has al-
Teady indicated he will demand a veto
On any free trade agreement with the
U.S. He wants the federal and provin-
cial governments to accept a rati-
fication formula that would require the
approval of Parliament, Ontario,
Quebec and two provinces each in At-
lantic and Western Canada, represent-
ing 50 per cent of the population of
those regions before ratification would
take place.

tremier Peterson has threatened to

} Make the auto pact the main issue of a
Coming Ontario election, perhaps in
June, if there are no consultations be-

—

Feds-provinces strain |
relations

fore ratification. Other provincial
governments have taken a similar pos-
ition.

The other side of the picture is the
demand by the U.S. government of
guarantees that the provinces will
abide by whatever agreement Cana-
dian negotiator Reisman may reach
with his U.S. counterpart, Murphy.

“These two aspects, the U.S. de-
mand for automatic agreement by the
provinces on any trade deal worked
out, and the demand of the provinces
for consultation and agreement prior
to ratification are road blocks not eas-
ily overcome” commented Commu-
nist party leader William Kashtan.

“Free trade is not only sharpening
federal-provincial relations between
federal and provincial Tories and
is also undermining the electoral base
of the Tories in Atlantic and Western

Canada,” Kashtan said.

Farmers in Alberta who are facing
increasing difficulties, just to survive,
were not spared by the Tory axe. Money

for farm subsidies, such as the Red Meat ©

Stabilization program and the Crow
Benefit Offset has been cut by over 50
per cent. This will force many Alberta
farmers into bankruptcy in the months
ahead.

“This budget is a blueprint for eco-
nomic disaster for Alberta and will
increase unemployment, farm and busi-
ness bankruptcies and poverty,” said
Wallis. ““The Getty government is using
the deficit to justify its attack on union
rights, living standards, social programs,
health care and education.

“If they were serious about the deficit
they would introduce programs to stimu-
late the economy and put Alberta back
to work. The Communist Party,” said
Wallis, “‘calls for a massive and imme-
diate public works program to begin the
process of recovery in Alberta.”’ Linked
to this is a need for public ownership of
the major corporations so that profits
made in Alberta can be used to build job
creating industry.”

Already a coalition of 60 organiza-
tions has been formed in Calgary to fight
the budget. The Edmonton and District
Labor Council, at its last meeting,
decided to invite all organizations
affected by Tory programs to a meeting
to discuss joint action.

“The Tories in Alberta are facing
growing opposition to their policies,”
said Wallis, ‘and just as mass opposition
forced the federal Tories to back off on
plans to de-index pensions, mass united
action can force the Getty administration

to withdraw this disastrous and cruel >

budget, the cuts and layoffs.”

‘offensive

the dubious pleasure of attending Work
Orientation Workshops (WOW) where
they will learn how to wear clothe they
can’t afford, save money they can’t earn,
and how to grovel for employment,”
charges Chris Frazer, head of the Young
Communist League.

The remaining $36 million says Frazer
will be hard-pressed to both adequately
fund student loans and cover operating
costs of Canada Employment Centres
for Students.

“Tt’s unbelievable that Charest could
actually consider training in the cadets
and reserves, and the RCMP, as credible
summer employment.”

Frazer calls the program an exercise to
provide employers with cheap employ-
ment. “At best, the WOW Program will

-slightly improve the ability of more dis-

advantaged youth to compete for the few
jobs that exist. More jobs — not better
competition is the solution.”

The youth leader had equally harsh
words for Charest’s “Innovation” pro-

- ject. This scheme allocated $10 million to

train young people in the setting up of
their own businesses. Co-ordinated by he
YMCA, it is expected to provide about
2,000 jobs disbursed between eight cities
from Glace Bay to Vancouver.

Innovations should be called “Youth
Exploiting Youth,” says Frazer. “It may
be opportunity creation for a handful of
entrepreneurs. But it’s more of the same
for Canada’s 700,000 jobless youth.”

The youth group is demanding the
government take action to freeze tuition
fees, impose a moratorium on student
debt, raise the minimum wage and
launch a public works program to create
jobs.

Across Canada

Morgentaler to promote

Vancouver clinic

VANCOUVER — Dr. Henry Mor-
gentaler and Dr. Nikki Colodny will be
in Vancouver this week to highlight the
campaign to open a free-standing abor-
tion clinic in the city. Speaking at a meet-
ing organized by Concerned Citizens for
Choice on Abortion, the two Toronto
doctors, both of whom face charges for
their work in Toronto's abortion clinic,
are expected to attract a large audience.

The meeting is set for Saturday, April
4at John Oliver School auditorium, 41st
Ave. and Fraser. Doors open at 7:30
p.m. Admission is $5 employed and $2
employed. Advance tickets can be
obtained from Octopus Books East,
1146 Commercial Dr., Ariel Books,
2766 West 4th Ave., Women’s Book-
store, 315 Cambie St. and Peregrine
Books, 2932 W. Broadway.

Permanent
peace cttee
needs support

TORONTO — The fate of Toronto’s
peace committee will be decided at the
April 6 meeting of city council. The
committee, established as part of the
city’s contribution to the International
Year of Peace, has recommended that
it become a permanent standing com-
mittee of city council.

Its co-chair, councillor Jack Layton,
feels the proposal ‘‘is going to face a
rocky road’, and has issued an appeal
for public support. Local councillors
and alderpersons should be written or
phoned, and Layton is calling for a
packed council chambers to pressure
city representatives to support the
motion.

A permanent peace committee
would be responsible for breathing life
into the city’s nuclear weapons-free
status; would establish links with the
network of other cities around the
globe in the pursuit of disarmament
and would rromote festivals and other
public actions to educate the public on
the peace issues.

-Women protest
NATO base

TORONTO — Targeting the nega-
tive consequences of military bases on
local populations, the National Action
Committee on the Status of Women
has called on its 500 member groups to
contact the Departments of External
Affairs and Defence to protest the
planned establishment of a NATO
pilot training centre in Goose Bay,
Labrador. ;

The Canadian government’s invita-
tion to NATO to establish the base was
made over the protests of the local
Native population. NATO member
countries already make thousands of
high-speed, low-level flights over the
area affecting the health and _liveli-
hoods of the Montagnais-Naskapi (In-
nu). The flights generate intolerable
noise levels and threaten the very
survival of the Indians because the
wildlife, which is the mainstay of their
diet, is fleeing the noise.

NAC also points out that the estab-
lishment of training bases in other
parts of the country have brought
other negative consequences including -
increased incidences of rape, illegiti-
mate children and alcoholism.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 1, 1987 e 7