Taking
the long
view on
Europe’s
changes
— page § —

SY The African|
Communist |

‘
EPNINT
3° NON

PS iOME
MNS SUPPORT F
By ORKERD

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Home care workers in Maple Ridge walk the picket line outside the

at
3c. GCVEFOMEN
EN OV EES UNION

office of their employer, Ridge Meadows Home Support,

in the fifth week of a strike that has escalated to include home care facilities in Clearbrook and Victoria. The members of the
B.C. Government Employees Union are resisting demands from the Continuing Care Employers Association for cutbacks in
benefits and implementation of a two-tiered wage system. But the union holds the provincial government primarily
responsible for squeezing a service that pays home care workers, who provide health and others services to infirm patients
and women with infants in the home and save millions in hospital costs, as little as $5.10 per hour. BCGEU president John
Shields told a rally of 250 at the legislature in Victoria Feb. 20 that the Socreds “are curtailing cost-effective, efficient home
support services even though home support reduces overall health care costs.’” The union, which represents workers at 15
facilities, says it has escalated the strike ‘‘reluctantly’”’ and notes members are providing essential services.

February 26, 1990
50S

Vol. 53, No. 7

Medicare under threat
in Tories’ new budget

By SEAN GRIFFIN

The federal Tory government blasted
away another chunk off the foundation of
long-standing social programs last week as
it introduced a budget which will cut the
transfer payments that fund health care and
education across the country, cut funding
for badly-needed social housing and even
force war veterans to pay 80 per cent more
for their room and board.

Finance Minister Michael Wilson made
it clear once again that he is listening only to
the business lobby as he spared the
corporate sector of any new costs, calling

‘only for the elimination some outright

grants to companies. Corporate tax rates,
reduced in 1987, will not be hiked, and

corporate tax loopholes — which allowed |

118,162 corporations which earned a com-
bined $25 billion in profits in 1987 to escape
any taxes — will remain open.

Similarly, he only capped defence spend-
ing at a five per cent spending increase per
year — despite opinion polls which showed

B.C. budget front, page 2
Anger over Polar 8, page 3

the public overwhelmingly in favour of
major cuts in that area — and announced
that Canada’s national oil company, Petro-
Canada, as well as Telesat Canada would be
privatized. Both companies are money-
makers.

And despite demand from public organi-
zations across the country — including
the trade union movement, farm groups
and small business — the new budget
allows interest rates to stay at their highest
level since the early 1980s, even though the
government’s high interest rate policy is the
primary factor in the deficit.

According to a budget prepared by econ-
omists for the Pro-Canada Network, the six
per cent rise in the interest rate that has
occurred in the last three years has added
$21 billion to government spending for the
1990-91 fiscal year.

Wilson also warned workers that their
real wages would have to decline over the
over the next two years and that wage
increases would have to trail the rate of
inflation as part of the deficit-cutting stra-
tegy.

“The government is today reaffirming its
commitment to wage restraint,” Wilson
said in his budget address to the Commons
Feb. 20. He also noted that the jobless rate
would rise over the next year, indicating

see TORIES page 3