Editorial

Doublespeak, 1990 |

The Doublespeak Commission of the Canadian Council of Teachers of
English gave its 1989 Public Doublespeak Award to Finance Minister Michael
Wilson for his tortuous defence of the Tory refusal to make good on its election
promises. And in winning the prize, Wilson beat out an almost equally convo-
luted comment by External Affairs Minister Joe Clark who was trying to
explain how a Canadian bank could lend millions to South Africa despite a
government ban.

That was last year.

This year, his eye firmly on the 1990 prize, Clark is out of the starting gate
fast. He knows Wilson will be to beat again, bamboozling us on the Goods and
Service Tax scam. He also knows Crosbie will perform verbal contortions
defending free trade, and he has already heard Mulroney tell Atlantic Canada
there’s no crisis there. _

Clark knows he’s in a serious fight.

So he struck his first blow in Parliament Jan. 22, adroitly explaining why
Canada still permits U.S. cruise testing here, despite the dramatic changes in the
international climate.

Responding to sharp questions from the NDP and Liberal defence critics,
Clark “welcomed” the thaw in the cold war, the changes in Eastern Europe and
steps toward disarmament. He loved the initiatives shown by Warsaw Pact

states.

But cruise testing will go on, he insisted.
Why? Because, doublespoke Joe Clark, rearmament is necessary for disar-
mament. A solid NATO front, bristling with doomsday weapons got the world

this far. Why quit now? he reasoned.

Clark strained every muscle to convince us that testing a deadly, new stealth
cruise missile in a simulated attack against the USSR actually helps lessen
tensions and builds confidence between our two countries. According to his
logic, the Soviets must love being threatened with nuclear annihilation, they

respond to it so favourably.

The reality, of course, is that Clark still touts the “peace through strength”
cold war line. Washington still calls the shots. The ‘“‘Soviet threat” mentality
that spawned the Tory defence white paper still prevails.

No amount of Clark doublespeak can hide the fact that a new made-in-
Canada foreign policy was never needed more than now.

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EDITOR

: Sean Griffin
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk
GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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hey’re not exactly treading on uncer-

tain ground — since the government
in Ottawa will do exactly what the busi-
ness community wants anyway — but it is
worth noting that coverage in the business
press has ventured into the field of corpo-
rate tax handouts since the new year
opened.

Cases in point are two pieces that
appeared in the daily Financial Post in the
last week. One was by Post staff writer
Alexander Ross entitled Corporate Wel-
fare, the other a guest commentary on
corporate tax breaks by Carleton Univer-
sity political economy professor Duncan
Cameron.

That the Post should discuss the issue
isn’t too surprising, of course — after all,
it is federal budget time and its readers
aren’t about to line up outside the steps of
Parliament to demand a more equitable
tax deal for all Canadians. And little of
that coverage ever makes it into the pages
of the daily press, which traditionally has
taken a hands-off attitude when it comes
to applying investigative journalism to the
corporate sector.

But that lack of wider coverage is par-
ticularly unfortunate because even what
relatively little data Ross and Cameron
provide underscores what dozens of
unions and people’s organizations have
been saying — that the corporate sector
gets off lightly while working Canadians
are carrying a higher income tax burden as

include the GST.

According to Cameron, who looked at
the most recent tax statistics from 1987,
there were 118,162 corporations, with
combined profits of $25 billion, which
paid nothing whatsoever in corporate
income tax that year.

Similarly, although another 362,828
corporations, which reported combined

well as a load of new taxes, which could

People and Issues

profits of $87.7 billion in 1987, actually did
pay taxes, they paid them at far below the
prescribed rate. Cameron writes: “The
corporate tax rate was supposed to be 36
per cent. Thanks to a leaky system, the
effective rate of taxation of those profits
was 17.7 per cent, about half the posted
Tate. 3

What is worse is that many of the same
corporations which don’t pay their share
of taxes and appear before parliamentary
committees calling for cuts to social spend-
ing are those that go in the back door in
Ottawa asking for corporate handouts —
and get them.

. Ross cites figures from 1988 to show
that major multinational companies such
as Noranda, Johnson & Johnson and Repap
Enterprises were recipients of huge grants
from federal coffers. In the case of mining
and forest products giant Noranda, whose
profit in 1988 was $603 million, the com-
pany received three separate grants for a
total of $23 million. Repap Enterprises,
the pulp and paper conglomerate, received
just slightly less at $22.9 million. Even
Campeau Corporation, which went through
the U.S. and Canada buying up compan-
ies before filing for bankruptcy under a
mountain of debt, got $503,000.

To paraphrase the old adage, when it
comes to business, the government giveth
and the company taketh away.

Cameron points out that if a minimum
tax rate of 20 per cent had been applied to
all corporations — the rate that applies
even in the free enterprise U.S. — it would

have raised an additional $8.2 billion. And
although tax reform is supposed to snag
more corporations in the tax net (while
reducing the corporate rate), a minimum
tax rate of 20 per cent would still bring in
an additional $3 billion, according to fig-
ures provided by the Canadian Labour
Congress.

Cameron suggests, however, that the
rate be restored to 36 per cent and that
more of the loopholes that corporations
use to evade taxes be closed.

“If corporations paid their share of
taxes,” he notes, “we wouldn’t have to
listen to business groups tell us, on behalf
of those that don’t pay taxes, to cut back in
spending for education, health and
income support for the needy.”

* * Eo

he life of one whose list of activities for

the progressive and labour movements
could fill volumes and which spanned sev-
eral decades ended Jan. 26 when Edna
Sheard died following an illness at Bur-
naby General hospital. She was in her 90th
year.

Edna was born in Bracebridge, Ont. in
1900, but spent most of her life in British
Columbia. She worked as a domestic in
her early years, and as an electrician’s and
welder’s helper during World War II. But
following the role of many women of the
day, much of Edna’s work consisted a
kind of extended motherhood — a valu-
able service in itself — to the participants
of various labour, unemployed and solid-
arity activities from the early Thirties on.

Edna was a participant and support
volunteer, providing medical attention to
the wounded, in many of the province’s
key labour battles, including the hunger

march of 1932 and the Battle of Ballantyne ‘

Pier, both savagely attacked by police. She
organized several “Socks for Spain” cir-
cles to support the Canadian volunteers in
the 1937-39 civil war in Spain.

Her surviving daughter, Agnes Jack-
son, recalled her mother’s activities in a
1951 Pacific Tribune tribute: “Marching
on picket lines during the Burn’s strike;
working in the Canadian Labor Defense
League; writing and distributing leaflets;
leading a delegation to the Japanese con-
sulate here to protest the invasion of Man-
churia; organizing activities of the
Women’s Labor League — all these were
just a part of her activities.”

The article also recalled Edna’s cook-
ing, mending and washing duties in sup-
port of the Post Office and Art Gallery
occupations in Vancouver. Edna was still

- active on picket lines in 1966, taking part

in and getting arrested on the line at Len-

-kurt Electric, broken up by the RCMP.

Edna is survived also by son Bill Mar-
tin, seven grandchildren and 15 great-
grandchildren. A private funeral for
family members was planned.

Donations in her memory may be made
to the Communist Party, of which she was
a member for most of her life, and the
Pacific Tribune.

* * *

brief correction to the People and

Issues item about the late peace acti-
vist Stan Morrison in the Jan. 22 issue. He
was not, as we wrote, chair of the B.C.
Peace Council, but of the Canadian Peace
Congress branch in Regina. He was, how-
ever, an active member of the B.C. Peace
Council for many years.

4 Pacific Tribune, February 5, 1990