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Some 400 trade unionists took a break from the B.C. Federation of Labour convention to stage a demonstration against
federal government cutbacks to Via Rail’s service Nov. 23. A mass rally on Parliament Hill is planned as the anti-cuts
campaign, which has seen demonstrations in several cities, continues.

Supreme
Court backs
the right
to choice

It was a just conclusion to a painful
episode. On Nov. 16 the Supreme Court
of Canada brought down its reasons for
quashing an injunction prohibiting
Chantal Daigle from having an abor-
tion.

In their unanimous written judgement,
the nine Supreme Court Justices disagreed
with the majority decision of the Quebec
Court of Appeal that the fetus was a human
being under the Quebec Charter of Rights.

In their lengthy statement, which exam-
ined abortion law back to the thir-
teenth century, the justices concurred

see RULING page 2

November 27, 1989
SOF

Vol. 52, No.43
eas

TORONTO — In a_ resounding
demand for stepped-up action against
the Tory government’s economic poli-
cies, the 1,600 delegates to the Ontario
Federation of Labour’s convention
Tuesday called on the federation to
“campaign for a day of protest involv-
ing job action to defeat the Goods and
Services Tax.”

The demand was included in a composite
resolution introduced on the second day of
the week-long convention as part of a com-
prehensive document entitled Free Trade
and the Conservative Agenda.

During debate on the paper Monday, a
number of unionists had called for effective

action by the labour movement against the
Tory government’s tax, prompting a

‘Economic terrorists,’ page 3

motion by a delegate from the Ontario Pub-
lic Service Employees Union to refer the
paper back with instructions to include the

protest action. The GST resolution was

brought back the following day.

“The Conservative government’s pro-
posed nine per cent Goods and Services Tax
is more than just a tax grab,” the resolution
states. “It is the cornerstone of their strategy
to restructure our tax system ....

“On behalf of the working people of this
province, we condemn the Conservatives’
proposed Goods and Services Tax,” it
declares. “Instead of genuine tax reform,
the Tories are imposing a system of taxation
that is even more unfair than the one they
inherited from the Liberals. The proposed
GST will leave workers with no choice but
to seek compensating wage increases. The
GST is unfair, unsound and unworkable. It
should be scrapped.”

see CAMPAIGN page 12

Fighters of the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front continued to
battle government troops in El Salvador
during the past week, the most dramatic
action being the battle around the She-
raton Hotel complex in the affluent
Escalon neighbourhood of the capital,
San Salvador.

The action Nov. 21-22 belied claims
by the ultra-right ARENA government
that its forces were defeating the military
action by the FMLN, dubbed “Febe Eli-
zabeth Lives — Fascists Out.” Febe Eli-
zabeth Velasquez was a trade union
leader murdered in a death squad car
bombing by government- and army-
linked death squads last month.

The FMLN’s representative to Can-
ada, Humberto Avaria, said in an inter-
view from Ottawa that the . military
actions of the past two weeks were
launched because, “ we are looking for
negotiations.

“Thousands of times we’ve asked the

i

government to sit down to negotiations.
We’ve asked them to allow the Interna-
tional Red Cross to evacuate the popula-
tion (caught in the cross fire). The answer
we’ve always had is, “No,”” Avaria said.

The days of fighting were also marked

Protesters demand the Mulroney government take a stand against U.S. interven-
tion in El Salvador during rally at U.S. consulate Nov. 17.

by the shocking death squad murders of

six Jesuit priests who headed the Univer-

sity of Central America, along with their

cook and her daughter; the arrest and

expulsion of foreign aid workers, includ-
see FMLN page 8