Canada

_ GST threatens to impose a tax | NFU urges

on knowledge, warns coalition

If the Goods and Services Tax goes ahead
as planned in 1991 the cost of reading in
Canada will go up by seven per cent. The
federal tax on books, magazines and news-
papers will mark a precedent in the history
of Canada since the printed word — except
in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces where
newsstand sales of magazinesare taxed —
has been tax free since Confederation.

tion.

For the Don’t Tax Reading Coalition the
seven per cent federal tax on all books,
magazines and newspapers will not only
make reading materials less accessible to
many Canadians — it will also fundamen-
tally change the nature of Canadian pub-
lishing.

The Don’t Tax Reading Coalition com-
prises the major established publishing and
distributing organizations in the country,
including the Association of Canadian Pub-
lishers, the Canadian Booksellers Associa-
tion, the Canadian Daily Newspaper
Publishers Association and the Canadian
Library Association. The Coalition is
charging that the federal tax will profoundly
affect literacy, education and culture in
Canada — affecting not only the private
sale of books, newspapers and magazines
but also the public education system, uni-
versities and libraries.

In a brief presented to the Standing
Committee on Finance last September, the
Coalition presented a brief outlining its rea-
sons for opposing the tax and giving a brief
and concise run-down on the likely impact
the tax will have on Canadian publishing
and on the public as a whole.

In essence, the brief argued, to tax read-

ing is to tax knowledge. There have been
numerous studies which have shown that
the book and magazine industries in Can-
ada operate on minimal profit margins —
indeed many magazine and book publishers
currently run at a loss before grants — with
the margin between survival and bank-
ruptcy smallest among the literary, regionally-
based and alternative publishing companies.

Under the new tax the survival of many
regional and alternative publishing houses
will be doubtful.

“We anticipate that some small publish-
ers won’t make it,” Virginia Field Smith,
co-ordinator of the Don’t Tax Reading
Coalition told the Tribune. “And those that
do will have to reduce their efforts overall.

“The largest cost*in the. production of a
book is the preliminary stage. You can’t
save on the cost of manuscript develop-
ment, editors and payments to writers and

Canadians

By CHRIS FRAZER
TORONTO — Two dozen young people
gathered outside the South Korean consu-
late here Jan. 11, to protest the arrest and
trial of two South Koreans who visited the
North of their divided country.

Twenty-two year old university student
Im Su Kyong and Father Moon Kyu Hun,
a Catholic priest, face a minimum of 10
years in prison for violating South Korea’s
national security act which bans unofficial
visits to North Korea.

The pair were arrested last August when
Im returned from the World Festival of
Youth and Students (WFYS). She was
accompanied by Father Moon to secure her
safe passage across the demilitarized zone.

Im was the only South Korean youth to
successfully defy her government’s ban on
attending the festival hosted by North
Korea.

8 e Pacific Tribune, January 29, 1990

The Tories plan to break with that tradi-

Paul Ogresko

artists, that kind of thing. Each book is
expensive at this stage so what you are going
to end up doing of course is deciding to
publish fewer titles.

“Tt will have a cultural affect, that’s for
sure. More decisions will be based on antic-
ipated sales. Publishers will just have to dare
less than before.”

A 1987 study by Woods Gordon Man-
agement Consultants noted that books and
magazines were very susceptible to loss of
sales due to price increases — in general a
10 per cent increase in price will result in a
10 per cent decline in sales. The new tax, the
coalition argues, will inevitably result in
people thinking twice about purchasing a
book. There will be a decline in book and
magazine sales that will shake an already
fragile industry with the ensuing fall in both
publishing and employment in the industry.

“Books are especially sensitive to changes
in the economy,” Field Smith said. “Sales
fall rapidly when the economy turns down
and rise slowly when the economy turns up.
When you have an industry that has never
been taxed before and suddenly you have a
large increase in price, which seven per cent
would be on every title in a bookstore, it is
going to have a big effect.”

Currently 75 per cent of all books sold in
Canada are imported from another coun-
try, primarily the United States, while 60 per
cent of magazines originate in the U.S. The
costs, according to the coalition, of enforc-
‘ing a tax on subscriptions and books mailed
from the U.S. will be prohibitive and unen-
forceable in addition to the fact that Ameri-
can publishers will not have to deal with the
across-the-board seven per cent rise in their
own production and distribution costs. Asa
result, domestically-produced books, along
with imported books sold through Cana-
dian distribution arrangements, will be at a
price disadvantage.

U.S. publications will enjoy a seven per
cent advantage over their Canadian
competitors — further inhibiting the abil-
ity of indigenous Canadian publishers to
compete with their much larger American
counterparts.

Along with the financial consequences of
the GST, the Don’t Tax Reading Coalition
is also questioning the broader social impli-
cations of taxing reading materials. They
argue that the encouragement and promo-
tion of reading and literacy for people of all

BACKGROUNDER

ages and from all sectors of society is part of
any progressive government’s responsibility
and is a characteristic of any modern
society.

A case in point will be newspaper taxa-
tion. For newspapers, the brief states, the
GST presents a vision in which there is the
potential for news and opinion in print
being held for ransom. A taxed press, as
history has shown, is a press vulnerable to
interference or coercion by the existing :
powers-that-be.

And there is also the issue of access. A
seven per cent increase is not significant to
someone with lots of money but fora family
struggling to get by in tough times, for a
single mother wanting to buy books for her
children, for a student trying to get text
books on a student loan — the seven per ,
cent increase becomes significant and a
potential barrier to purchasing a much-
needed book or other publication.

As well, the Canadian Library Associa-
tion has expressed its concern that as the
ability of many Canadians to buy books
and magazines lessens, there will be addi-
tional strain on the resources of libraries
who are already operating under tight
budgets and will, without additional
government funding, find the increased
demand overwhelming.

Field Smith hopes the coalition can build
up enough public opposition to the reading
tax that Ottawa will be obligated to
respond. A poll carried out last July for the
coalition by the Environics Research Group
showed that 83 per cent of Canadians
polled disagreed with the taxation of books
while 66 per cent opposed a tax on maga-
zines.

The same poll showed that 67 per cent of
Canadians had read a book in the last six
weeks while 61 per cent buy or subscribe to
magazines on a regular basis.

Hoping to capitalize on that majority
sentiment the Don’t Tax Reading Coalition
is in the midst of a postcard campaign in
which close to four million cards have been
distributed to bookstores and _ libraries
across the country expressing opposition to
the proposed reading tax.

“The response of the public to the issue
has been very positive once they have been
made aware of the issue.”’ Field Smith con-
cluded. “I haven’t yet seen that translated
into sensitivity on the part of the Tories.”

rally for jailed Koreans

The pair are being unjustly jailed and
should be released, said Reverend Sang
Chul Lee, United Church of Canada mod-
erator. Lee called attention to the South
Korean government’s record of human
rights abuses.

“Their action had nothing to do with
supporting the politics of North Korea,”
said Reverend Lee. “They were expressing
the desire of all Koreans for peaceful reuni-
fication of their country.”

Reverend Lee thanked the Canadian
Youth Festival Society (CFYS) for organiz-
ing the rally and praised the group for hav-
ing attended the 13th WFYS in Pyongyang,
North Korea.

Father Bernard Lee, pastor for St. Sosa
Lee parish in Etobicoke, is personally
acquainted with Father Moon and Im. In
appealing for the release of the pair, he
urged struggle against human rights abuses

in all countries and condemned Canada’s
treatment of Native people.

The CFYS is organizing similar actions
in other Canadian cities, said Jennifer Mor-
row, spokesperson for the CFYS.

“Im Su Kyong and I have a lot in com-
mon,” said Morrow. “We are both 20 years
old and we both attended the festival, but
there the similarity ends: I’m free and she is
in prison.”

Morrow said the 70 Canadians who
attended the WFYS were inspired by the
need for solidarity, and that’s why the
CFYS was formed. The campaign to free
Im and Moon is part of a world-wide effort
that includes Amnesty International.

The CFYS is circulating a petition
demanding the release of Im and Moon, as

well as an appeal for action from the Cana-_.

dian government. The group met three
times with South Korean diplomats before
the rally.

grassroots
organizing

“Challenging the New Market Econ
omy” proved an appropriate theme for
the National Farmers Union 20th annual
convention, held in Regina Jan. 11 to 14.
Newly re-elected NFU president Wayne
Easter summed up the views of delegates
in his closing remarks.

“The sad history of countries where
the market sets the rules for all human
endeavour proves that these societies
always end up with great discrepancies 10
wealth, with a few at the top and the
multitude at the bottom. EI

“People rose up against that injustice
in the past. |

“The economy now being espoused
by the current government will leave
people and resources enslaved to a pow
erful economic elite. We shouldn’t allow
corporations so much control that we

have to resort to a physical revolt in this

country. P|

“There are democratic and peaceful
means to accomplish change, but I
means taking political action at the
grassroots level.”

Earlier in the convention, Council of
Canadians president Maude Barlow
brought a similar message. She warned
that family farmers stand to lose more.
than any other group under the Free.
Trade Agreement.

“Family farmers were promised time
and again before the election that theif

Kimball

fears of negative consequences from the
FTA were unfounded,” Barlow noted.
“But in the end, rural communities have.
been hung out to dry. |
“The message underlying the corpo--
rate agenda is clear: if farmers cannot
adjust to the anti-human climate of
international trade as defined by the
Cargills of this world, they will lose their
farms to the companies who can.”
Opposition to the federal govern-
ment’s free trade-inspired agricultural
policy was expressed repeatedly. As one
resolution put it, the NFU “rejects the
market-driven approach of the green
paper on agriculture,” demanding the
adoption instead of the principles in the’
NFU’s new “Alternate Vision of Agri-
culture.”
Other key resolutions included oppo--
sition to the GST, plant breeder’s rights, -

and other federal policies; support fom

the environmental movement’s demand —
for an independent review of the Rafferty
Dam project; and calls for deficiency —

payments to farmers facing a devastating —

financial crisis in 1990.

Many delegates noted that the extent
of that crisis is stimulating more political
action by farmers across the country. In
cases where NFU members have taken
initiatives to spark that fightback, new
members have been won for the organi-
zation, giving hope that it may be possi-
ble to expand the NFU beyond its
current 7,500 members.

In executive elections, Nattie Wiebe
won a second term as women’s vice-
president; Jean Leahy of B.C. became
the first woman to win the office of NFU
vice-president; and Cory Ollikka won a
second term as youth president.

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