ust two months ago, on
Jan. 2, 1988, Prime Minis-
ter Brian Mulroney and
U.S. President Ronald
Reagan signed the Can-
ada-U.S. free trade deal. Once enabling
legislation is passed by Parliament, it is to
become effective Jan. 1, 1989.

But during those intervening 10
months, the trade deal will be at the
centre of a national debate in which
every Canadian should be involved.

Canada-US. free trade will re-write
the economic and political map of Can-
ada as we know it. It will alter long
standing patterns in our relationship
with the United States, moving us closer
to integration with the U.S. in trade and
economic priorities — and in political
and social policy.

It was only five years ago, in 1983, that

Prime Minister Mulroney, then a candi-
date for the leadership of the Conserva-
tive Party, warned of the dangers of free
trade with the U.S. It would, he said, lead
inevitably to U.S. companies closing
their plants in Canada and centralizing
their operations in the U.S.

Nothing has changed to indicate that
would no longer be the outcome. But

Mulroney and the Conservative Party

have changed. ; :

Virtually since its formation in 1976,
the Business Council on National Issue
(BCNI), which represents the country’s
top 150 corporations, has been pressing
for freer trade with the U.S. And it is the
council’s program which the government
has been putting forward. It has nothing
to do with benefitting Canadians.

The corporations which make up the
BCNI see the free trade deal as the means
by which they can operate more freely,
without government control and regula-
tion. Under the trade agreement,
government programs to assist some
industries in setting up in poorer regions
or policies designed to develop inde-
pendent Canadian companies — a tra-
dition of Canadian economic develop-
ment for decades — will be considered a
violation of free trade.

Those same corporations will be the
ones to benefit from any “secured access
to the U.S. market.” But it won’t be
because Canadian negotiators won any
protection from U.S. trade laws. As even
International Trade Minister Pat Carney
acknowledged in the House of Com-
mons, the trade deal won’t prevent U.S.
trade penalties such as the 35 per cent
tariff imposed on shakes and shingles.

What the trade deal will mean is that
companies now operating in Canada will
have the opportunity to move their oper-
ations to the U.S. to escape U.S. trade
penalties — as several shingle manufac-
turers have already done. One Ontario
manufacturer, Roel Buck of Auto-
Systems Manufacturing Inc., made it
clear: “I can assure you, if the so-called
free trade deal were to go through, that
my consideration would be to set up
plants in the U.S.”

In fact, the U.S. hasn’t entered the trade,

deal in order to establish an agreement
which was mutually beneficial to the
U.S. and Canada. It wants to reduce its
huge trade deficit by cutting Canadian
exports. It wants direct access to Cana-
dian markets without having to maintain
Canadian branch plants. And it wants to

>
WG,
~

>)

use the agreement to obtain access to
Canadian resources is if they were its
own.

It’s for that reason that scores of lead-
ing Canadian organizations, including
the 2.3 million-member Canadian Labour
Congress, the Council of Canadians, the
National Farmers Union, the United
Church, the Conference of Catholic
Bishops and the National Action Com-
mittee on the Status of women, have
registered their opposition to the free
trade agreement and have called on the
federal government to call an election on
the issue. Three political parties — the
Liberal, Communist and New Demo-
cratic Parties — have also opposed the
deal.

Polls conducted by the Toronto Star
in January and by The Vancouver Sun in

March 16, 1988

March have showed that Canadians are
split on the issue of free trade. But a
substantial majority have stated that
Canada has given up too much in the
deal, that Canada’s sovereignty will be
reduced — and that a federal election
should be called before the deal is
implemented.

Those Canadians should let their voi-
ces be heard clearly in the national
debate. They should tell the federal
government that giving up our sover-
eignty and control over our resources
and allowing another country to have a
say in our national economic policies is
too high a price to pay for an agreement
that will benefit only the corporate sec-
tor.

_ The next 10 months are crucial to the
future of Canada.

No vic
bargains for
consumers

There won’t be any bargains for
consumers under free

trade — but you'll pay more for
energy and sales taxes.

In danger:
06,730 jobs

A B.C. Federation of Labour
study found that 56,730 jobs
would be lost if the trade deal
goes through.

Alarms sounding
at GATT ruling

Some 4,000 jobs in the fishing
industry are threatened by a
GATT ruling — and free trade
could bring worse.

The future for
Canada

But this country can take a
different course from that
pursued by Mulroney, says
Communist Party leader
- William Kashtan.

Canadian cultural institutions
are not as exempt as the free
trade negotiators have claimed.

Women will be
first to lose

Industries which employ large
numbers of women are the most
vulnerable under free trade.

blueprint

Free trade, privatization,
de-regulation: they’re part of a
job-cutting corporate blueprint.

New directions,
policies for B.C.

There’s more to rejecting the
free trade deal than accepting
the status quo.

RA AN AN VAAN SRA