Editorial The issue is funding The waiting game that the Social Credit government is playing in the health care dispute is becoming more cynical by the day. Premier Bill Vander Zalm’s claim that intervention by the govern- ment would be inappropriate, that “‘you have to allow the system” to work is even more cynical. It’s a claim that is belied by virtually every clause in the government’s Industrial Relations Act, the Socreds’ Bill 19 which is interventionist to the core — with the deck stacked in favour of employers. But the issue isn’t government intervention, in any event. The issue is government funding — or, more to the point, government underfund- ing of health care. That’s the issue which Vander Zalm has refused to discuss. But it is at the heart of the dispute. The facts haven’t changed, but apparently the Socreds need to have them repeated: according to Statistics Canada, B.C. pays only $326.30 per patient per day in the province’s hospitals — that’s 20 per cent below the national average and ahead only of Quebec as the lowest funding in the country. In Manitoba, by comparison, the figure is $528.49. A study by the government’s own health ministry showed a shortage of 2,000 nurses — a shortage created by the funding crisis which has resulted in poor wages and conditions for nurses and other health care workers. But rather than address that crisis through the budget, the govern- ment stands back, waiting, even hoping, for a change in public opinion as health care delivery slows — to provide the opportunity to step in, and perhaps order an arbitrated settlement. And Health Labour Rela- tions Association plays its part, maintaining the clamour over essential services while filling the pages of the newspapers with advertisements which manipulate figures — and skirt the central issue. It’s time the government went back to the budget and began address- ing the underfunding crisis in this province’s health care system. And its first move should be to make more money available at the health care bargaining table. er fea) vas B DAIS TRIBUNE EDITOR Sean Griffin ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dan Keeton BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS Angela Kenyon Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C.,W~/5K 1Z5 Phone: (604) 251-1186 Fax: (604) 251-4232 Subscription rate: Canada: @ $20 one year @ $35 two years @ Foreign $32 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 he world is indeed becoming a smaller place, as several visitors from the Ukraine found last week: Ukrainian concert performers Oleg Martsinkovsky, Taisa Povaliy and Olex- ander Ivchenko as well as Society Ukraina representative Mykola Halka have been in this province for the”past two weeks as part of the annual Folkfest celebrations. They've been performing at a number of collected hundreds of ‘stich cards, sent to her by people from around the world. eye Tee | Isewhere in this issue we have a book events, including the official City of Vancouver-sponsored Folkfest opening, held June 16. One of their performances was for a packed audience attending the Ivana Kupala celebrations — a_ traditional Ukrainian summer festival — at the Association of United Ukrainian Canadi- ans hall June 17. And one of the songs they sang was “Hutzul Ksenya,” a con- temporary folk song written by the late Ukrainian composer Roman Savitsky, whose name is probably as familiar to Ukrainians as Murray McLaughlin’s is to Canadians. What they didn’t know, as they intro- duced the song, was that among those in the audience was the composer’s widow, Lyubov Savistsky, who just happened to be in the city visiting a relative who is now’ resident in Vancouver. For her and the performers alike it was an emotional moment. In an interesting aside, when she returns to the Ukraine, Lyubov Savitsky will be taking back with her dozens of different post cards and greeting cards with pictures of red poppies, a tradition inspired by one of her husband’s most famous songs, “Red Poppies.” Over the years, she has review which quotes several Canadian authors as saying the Conservative government in Ottawa has no concept of culture beyond its role as a commodity. That is, Canada’s identity can be bought and sold like any other good. Or undermined, we might add after“ reading an item in the recent issue of Mast- head, the monthly publication of the Can- adian Periodical Publishers Association. It notes that Ottawa, after pledging not to, introduced the first of a series of cut- backs to the postal subsidy program for magazines, newspapers and books in the April budget. The cut is $45 million of the $220-million annual subsidy, with $10 mil- lion lopped off in 1989-90, followed by a heftier $35 million in 1990-91. It is unclear which types of periodicals will be affected the most. But chances are: the larger magazines like Macleans, and business journals, will be the least hurt while cultural publications suffer the heav- iest losses. One thing is clear, the Mast- head article observes: the cutback in the postal subsidy exceeds the annual profit margin of the entire Canadian magazine industry. The Tories threatened to enact such a cutback some time ago, and in response, People and Issues the CPPA mounted a campaign utilizing a study it had commissioned, called Sever- ing Vital Links. It reported that the profit margin for magazines is only two per cent overall. Because of that campaign, then communications minister Flora MacDo- nald promised that the government would make no cuts to postal rate subsidies for at least five years, and make rate adjustments o allow for increased publishing costs. Without , postal subsidies, . many of “Canada’s. 5,000 magazines, from, 3,400 publishers, would be unable to survive ‘and would be swamped by periodicals from south of the border. But then, selling out Canadian interests is what this free trade budget is all about. * * * little more than one year ago, Vancouver Sun reporter and News- paper Guild member Kim Bolan, collect- ing donations to give to trade unions in El Salvador, found that the well of generosity on the part of her co-workers ran deep. We noted in this column on March 9 last year that Kim collected more than $2,400 in 24 hours in the Sun newsroom. That money allowed the purchase of a new video camera and about 30 blank tapes which Kim took down to El Salvador to help in the documentation of the struggle for liberation and the atrocities committed by death squads. Now we're happy to report that the video camera has been put to good use. Salvadoran trade unionists have produced a video, For a Life with Dignity, in which several union leaders are interviewed, along with a supportive U.S. trade unio- nist. The other news is that Kim is heading to El Salvador again, along with other members of the Newspaper Guild. They'll be attending a special International Sister Union Conference for Peace and Solidarity in San Salvador, the nation’s capital, in late July. Sponsored by several Salvado- ran unions and centrals, including the National Federation of Salvadoran Workers ;(RFENASTRAS) and the National Union of ‘Salvadoran Workers (UNTS), it will bring together unionists from Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia, several Latin Ameri- can countries and El Salvador. A key aim is to strengthen and develop sister union relations between Salvadoran unions and those abroad. (The Vancouver-New West- minster Newspaper Guild, for example, is paired with the journalists union in El Salvador.) So far, the journalists’ group has raised $1,700 to donate to Salvadoran unions on this trip. But they’d like to surpass last year’s figure and give more aid ‘to their cash-strapped sisters and’ brothers in the tiny’ Central American nation that has a disproportionate share of the world’s pain and suffering. At the Tribune, we know something about being short of money ourselves. So we’ve agreed to take any donations on behalf of the project and do-our bit to build a free; democratic El Salvador. 4 Pacific Tribune, June 26, 1989