4)
i
;
fy
i

amas

r

British Columbia

Canadians and our whole medicare
system are being ripped off by the hand-
ful of giant multinational pharmaceutical
corporations that control the production
of prescription drugs on a world scale. In
1988 the top 10 of these corporations had
a stranglehold on 28.5 per cent of the
global market. To own one of these cor-
porations is like owning 2 mint — their
average rate of profit is 45 cents on every
dollar’s worth of successful drugs they
produce and sell. It’s even more
profitable than the armaments industry.

The number of multinational phar-
maceutical corporations is getting fewer
all the time as they gobble each other up.
In 1989, no fewer than six large mergers
or buy-outs took place. These included
the merger of Bristol Myers and Squibb
Corporation (a $12-billion deal); the
merger of SmithKline Beckman of
Philadelphia and the Beechman Group
PLC (a $7.7-billion deal). And Con-
naught of Toronto was sold for $942
million to Institute Merieux International

SA of France, which is owned by the
giant Script Pharmaceutical of Britain.

In Canada we have 130 drug com-
panies; 85 per cent of them are sub-
Sidiaries of foreign corporations.

Producing and selling drugs is big
business in Canada. Of the $52 billion
spent on health care in Canada in 1988,
some 11 per cent was for drugs.

But in Canada the international phar-
maceutical giants have been getting
some competition from Canadian
generic drug manufacturers. (A generic
drug is a less expensive substitute for a
brand name drug — something like the
no-name cheaper items you can pick up
in the big food stores. The quality,
though, is strictly governed by law and is
not less than the brand-name drugs).

Section 41~4 of the Patent Act passed
by Parliament in 1969 permitted
Canadian companies to manufacture and
sell generic versions of new drugs
provided they paid a royalty of four per
cent to the company which originally
developed and manufactured the drug.

That saved Canadians some $200 mil-
lion a yearand gave us some of the lowest
prescription prices in the world. Here is

Govt’s shameful role
in high drug prices

- think of the profits that must have been

one example. An anti-depressant drug,
Valium, which was selling in the United
States for $345.93, was sold in Canada as
a generic drug under the name Diazepam
for $2.31. As a result, the company with
the patent, Hoffman-Laroche, was com-
pelled to reduce its Canadian price for
Valium to $80.

If a generic drug manufacturer in
Canada with its limited market could
make a profit on a sale price of $2.31,

made in the huge American market at a
price 149 times higher.

These are extreme cases, but it is still
true that generic drugs are lower by 20 to
90 per cent than their “brand name”
equivalents.

As a result of this legislation, the
generic drug industry in Canada
prospered and all Canadians benefitted.

The international drug cartel spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars spread-
ing misinformation about generic drugs
and lobbying Ottawa to have this law
repealed. Canadians were told that
thousands would die from unsafe generic
drugs. The Reagan administration in-
formed Ottawa that it considered the
legislation offensive. The big foreign
pharmaceuticals tried to bleed the
Canadian generic drug industry to death ©
with lawsuits, one after the other.

Doctors were also pressured not to
prescribe generic drugs under the slogan
“Save a life tomorrow, write ’no
substitution’ today.” The foreign phar-
maceutical giants threatened to close
down their Canadian plants, and some »
did.

Things changed after Brian Mulroney
took office in 1984. President Reagan
demanded the repeal of the Canadian
legislation at the Shamrock Summit in
Quebec City on March 17, 1985. After
the free trade deal was signed, Mulroney
capitulated.

In December, 1988 the Conservative
majority rammed Bill C-22 through Par-
liament. Under its provisions, Canadian
generic drug companies now haveto wait
seven to 10 years before they can create
substitutes.

What this means is that we are once
again at the mercy of the pharmaceutical
giants’ profiteering for that period of
time. By price fixing arrangements
among themselves they can keep the
price at a level that has absolutely noth-
ing to do with cost.

We shoulder the additional cost— the
profits are shipped out of the country.

When will we get a government that
puts Canada and Canadians first?

Labour Notes

BCGEU wins Army & Navy

Employees at Army and Navy stores
voted to switch unions Sept. 5, opting for the
B.C. Government Employees Union and en-
ding their association with Rocco Salituro’s
General Workers Union.

“The results of this vote leave no doubt
that workers at the Army and Navy, who
eam as little as $5.25 per hour, have again
overwhelmingly decided that they want the
BCGEU to represent them,” union president
John Shields said in a statement.

The vote supervised by the Industrial
Relations Council was the second time the
store chain’s 250 retail clerks, cashiers and
warehouse workers chose the BCGEU. An
earlier vote had been overturned after the
GWU launched an appeal with the council.

BCGEU spokesperson Sheila Fruman

said the government union became involved
when Army and Navy workers “approached
us and indicated they were interested.”
Asked why, she replied: “We can statt
with wages. They are earning rates barely
above the provincial minimum wage.”

The union won a certification vote March
26 after applying to represent a larger baf-
gaining unit than that represented by the
GWU, the BCGEU statement reported.

When the GWU subsequently won its
appeal, the BCGEU “conducted a raid and
another certification vote was held Aug. 17.
The ballot boxes were sealed when the
GWU appealed.”

Votes were counted Sept. 5 after the IRC"
dismissed the GWU’s appeal, the BCGEU
reported.

Restore funding, HEU urges

The Hospital ‘Employees Union has
called on the royal commission examining
health care funding in B.C. to issue an inter-
im report recommending restoration of full
funding before the final report is issued.

HEU president Bill Macdonald told the
commission in Smithers on Sept. 4: “Prob-
lems due to underfunding exist in every one
of the 237 health care facilities where HEU
members work.

“As the representatives of a third of (the
province’s 100,000) health care providers,
the HEU has watched with growing alarm
the problems which grow out of underfund-
ing of health care by both the governments
of Canada and British Columbia,” Mac-
donald told the commission.

Saying the union would submit the full
range of its concerns to the commission
later, Macdonald used the local example of
the Bulkley Valley District Hospital to il-
lustrate the HEU’s concerns.

He reported the hospital administration

predicts a deficit of $340,000 this year if
beds, operating room time, and services are
not cut.

“This summer, like last summer, the
hospital attempted to close the 16 beds on
the third floor to save money after another
small allocation of funds from the health
ministry. Because of the needs of the area,
the hospital has been unable to close all
those beds,” Macdonald said.

HEU members are bearing the brunt of
the financial shortfall, with several emp-
loyees at Bulkley Valley laid off or facing
early retirement, he said.

Macdonald reminded the commission of
the situation at Burnaby General and Surrey
Memorial hospitals, which the union ex-
posed last month. Two people were forced
to seek emergency care elsewhere after at-
tempting to receive treatment at Burnaby
General, while a group of doctors warned of
the crisis facing care at Surrey Memorial in
a report to the hospital’s administrators.

Workers out at B.C. Rail

Members of the Joint Council of Unions
at BC Rail are knuckling down for a long
strike after setting up pickets at 30 points
around B.C. on Sept. 4.

The unions say the issue of contracting
out is the main one. They want a halt to
expanding the practice whereby the Crown
corporation privately contracts services to
other corporations.

Recently, BC Rail purchased 22 new
locomotives on the basis that all main-
tenance work be performed by General Elec-
tric workers in the United States.

The unions have worked without a col-
lective agreement since June 30.

Talks that included deputy labour mini-

ster Claude Heywood broke down Sept. 2
after the two sides failed to resolve some 150
outstanding issues, according to reports.

Corporation spokespersons have ack-
nowledged they failed to respond to the
unions’ wage proposals, claiming these
amount to a 60-per-cent increase in one year.
The joint council says its members are seek-
ing a 23.5-per-cent hike over one year.

And the unions maintain that contracting-
out, which is costing their members jobs, is
the key sticking point.

BC Rail was served with strike notice
Sept. 1. The joint council received an 87-per-
cent strike mandate last June.

Continued from page 1
happen after the Oka crisis reaches some

conclusion, after the television cameras
have gone and the Surete isno longer under
media scrutiny. That concem is a primary
reason why, in a post-crisis scenario, polic-
ing will continue to be an important issue
and, as Assembly of First Nations leader
Georges Erasmus stated, there is the need,
at the very least, for a buffer zone between
the Mohawk nation and the Surete du Que-
bec. Policing that zone would preferably
be the role for Native peacekeepers.
Meanwhile on Sept. 5, more than 500
Quebeckers marched to the offices of Hy-
dro Quebec, where Bourassa’s Montreal

Tension continues at Oka

offices are also located, in what was the
eighth week of solidarity actions to take
place here. Though it has received scant
coverage in the media, both inside and
outside Quebec, there has been a large and
active solidarity movement for the
Mohawks among Quebeckers.

“This is not a language conflict. This is
not a tourist conflict. This is a political
conflict,” Michele Rouleau, president of
the Quebec Native Women’s Association
told the rally. She introduced volunteers

whom she said risked their lives to bring
food into the beleagured community at
Kanesatake. According to Rouleau they
faced abuse and threats from racists, the
SQ, and the army. But this didn’t stop
volunteers from getting provisions the
night before to the Kanesatake treatment
centre.

“We are working for real peace,” she
told the rally. “Peace without reprisals.”

It was reported at press’ time that the
Mohawk women have asked that a soli-

darity camp be set up at Kanesatake. Sup-
porters from as far away as Omaha,
Washington, and Saskatchewan have al-
ready responded, as has a delegation from
Toronto organized by musician Faith
Nolan.

On Thursday, dozens of organizations
and scores of prominent individuals signed
a full-page advertisement in the national
edition of the Globe and Mail calling on
Mulroney to “act to ensure a peaceful res-
olution of the crisis at Oka,” including a
recall of Parliament and to return to the
bargaining table to negotiate a “just settle-
ment of aboriginal land disputes and the
issue of self-determination.”

2 « Pacific Tribune, September 10, 1990