November 14, 1988
SO

Vol. 51, No. 42

A petition filed by 12 U.S. fish proces-
Sors shows that the Americans “are going
to challenge any landing regulations we
Come up. with to protect our fisheries
Tesource on the West Coast,” the secretary
of the United Fishermen and_ Allied
Workers Union charged this week.

That fact has been confirmed by a
Tepresentative of the government’s own
€xternal affairs department. “And it
Proves what we’ve been saying all
along — that free trade is a threat to our
industry,” Bill Procopation told the Trib-
Une Wednesday.

Documents obtained from the U.S.
Commerce Department and released this
Week by the New Democratic Party

Tevealed that U.S. fish processors filed a
Petition with the department Sept. 30, cal-
ling on the U.S. president to challenge any

New landing regulations on West Coast
\. ose pee

petition.

FISHERMAN PHOTO — GEOFF MEGGS

salmon once the Canada-U.S. free trade
agreement comes into effect.

The petition follows an earlier com-
plaint by U.S. processors to the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
claiming that export regulations which
stipulated that most species of salmon and
herring be processed in Canada before
export were a violation of GATT rules. In
a decision brought down in February, the
GATT council ruled in favour of the U.S.

Despite an outcry from both the com-
panies and fishing industry workers, the
Tory government agreed to comply with
the GATT ruling, a move which threa-
tened thousands of processing jobs on the
West Coast. But Ottawa did agree to set
up an industry working group to devise
new landing regulations which would have
stipulated that fish be landed in Canada
for inspection, grading and gutting, prim-

Mounting a protest in their boats and shoreside,
members of the United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union demonstrated on Vancouver's
waterfront Monday against the new threat
posed to the West Coast fishery by the trade
deal. At left, shoreworkers Kathy Schultz
addresses noon-hour rally flanked by New
Democrats Svend Robinson, Margaret Mitchell
and Tom Beardsley who made public the U.S.

Trade deal poses new
threat to fish

arily for conservation reasons. The new
regulations were to go into effect Jan. 1,
1989.

But now even those regulations —
which have not yet been released — will
apparently be challenged by U.S. fish pro-
cessors.

“The industry working group was still
working on the regulations but it looks
like the U.S. won’t accept them,” said
Procopation. “It doesn’t matter what we
do to protect the industry — the U.S.
companies will retaliate.”

In an interview with Vancouver Sun
reporter Terry Glavin Tuesday, Howard
Wilson, external affairs director-general
for trade policy, confirmed that the U.S.
president would have two avenues open to
him to challenge the new regulations
under the free trade deal.

see TRADE page 8

- Protests
keep heat
on Tories

Organizations opposed to the
Canada-U:S. trade deal-continued to
keep the heat on the Mulroney
government this week as the election
campaign entered its final 10 days.

At Vancouver General Hospital
Monday, nine organizations involved
in health care and social policy,
released a detailed analysis warning
that health care and social programs
will be threatened if the trade deal
goes through.

Also in Vancouver Wednesday,
Citizens Concerned About Free
Trade demonstrated outside the
Hotel Vancouver where trade deal
negotiator Simon Reisman was addres-
sing a $25-a-plate lunch put on by a
number of business groups. Several
demonstrators later attended Reis-
man’s address to challenge him on the
trade deal, finally forcing him to
abandon his speech.

Meanwhile, in Nanaimo Nov. 2,
two activists from the Nanoose Con-
version Campaign were barred from
entering a public meeting for Tory
MP Ted Schellenberg and Brian Mul-
roney and were later arrested and held
by RCMP after being fingered as
“activists” by local Tories.

The statement issued Monday by
the nine social policy groups, which
included the B.C. Nurses Union and
the B.C. Association of Social

see DEAL page 7

CC —E—

CP candidates
urge solid vote

With just over a week left to go before the
Nov. 21 voting day, Communist Party can-
didates across the province moved into the
final stages of the campaign, taking the par-
ty’s message directly to neighbourhood
doorsteps.

And that message to supporters is the
same in the 12 constituencies where the CP
is running: give the party a solid vote to
strengthen its voice in the campaigns that
will follow after the election.

The 12 Communists running in B.C. are
part of the Canada-wide effort by the party
which has fielded 52 candidates in this elec-
tion, from Halifax to Vancouver Island.
And despite the media’s almost exclusive
focus on the three mainstream partiés, the
CP’s campaign — under the slogan “Sur-
vival, Sovereignty and Social Justice” —
has gained national exposure.

Asa result, “‘a lot of people are listening,”
not only because the CP has a comprehen-
sive alternative program on the key eco-
nomic and social issues, but also because the
direction of the election campaign “has

see CP page 3