ws

Canada

Fr

Free trade and

By MIKE DOESBERG

TORONTO — While opponents of the
Mulroney-Reagan trade agreement have
worked hard to publicize the adverse effects
of Americanizing our economy, our laws
and Our social institutions, the military
impact of the deal has until recently received
only secondary attention.

The Metro Toronto Labour Council’s
peace and disarmament committee did its
Part in broadening this focus in a paper
Presented to the April membership meeting.
Delegates unanimously endorsed “Free
trade and Canada’s military build-up,”
identifying the inevitable role free trade will
have in Promoting Canada’s militarization.

The paper showed how the Mulroney-
Reagan trade deal will work hand-in-glove
with the Tory government’s recent Defence
White Paper, which “seeks to make military
production central to the technological
advancement and economic growth of
Canadian industry.”

Free trade will insure that this occurs, the
Paper asserted, because the deal’s language

restricts the traditional role of the Cana-
dian government by designating non-
military development monies ‘unfair sub-
sidies’ to trade.

“On the other hand,” the peace commit-
tee noted, “government funding for military
Purposes is encouraged. Government sub-
sidies for defence contracts, arms produc-
uion, or anything deemed necessary to
national security are specifically exempted
in the agreement.

“Thus it would be perfectly acceptable to
subsidize Litton to move to Nova Scotia to
produce weapons components, but not the
Sydney Steel Corporation to diversify the
civilian economy of the Atlantic region,”
the paper stated.

Currently, Sysco is one of only three

plants in North America that produces
railway track. Because of government prior-
itiés to support the military industry while
neglecting the civilian economy, Sysco sits
largely idle, despite a crying need for its
products.
; “But military spending is not job-
intensive,” the report noted. “In Canada,
one billion dollars worth of consumer
spending would create an average of 39,000
jobs. A similar amount spent on military
goods and services would result in only
22,000 jobs.

“As such, the planned $54 million dollars
of military procurement over the next 15
years which is called for in the White Paper

will actually result in a net loss of 918,000
jobs.”

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‘The result of putting federal money into
arms manufacturing Is an escalating
federal deficit, uncompetitive civilian

industries, a squeeze on social services

and a lower standard of living for
working people.’

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Nor is money spent on military research
and development likely to result in benefits
to civilian production, the report charged.
“Militarization concentrates R and D
resources into building only better arms and
missiles. Technological advancement for
the civilian sector and job creation will best
be achieved by investing R and D money
directly into the civilian sector ....”

With so many negative consequences of
the free trade agreement, the motivation of
the Mulroney government on behalf of
most of the business community in hastily
pushing through its implementation is also
pin-pointed.

“A recent study released through the
U.S. Freedom of Information Act to the
citizens group ‘Common Cause’ revealed
that rates of profit available in Canada and
the U.S. to defence contractors had dramat-
ically increased from the years of the Carter
administration until now,” the paper
charged.

“During Carter’s presidency military
contractors received rates twice as high as
those earnable by selling manufactured
products made with the similarly priced
labour, material costs and production tech-
niques. This profit rate has now risen to 3.3
times as high.”

Speaking on the paper, peace committee
member Jerry Corcoran, a delegate from
the United Food and Commercial Workers,
condemned the use of what he called ‘“‘mil-
itary Keynesianism” — the practice of dol-
ing out unconscionably huge sums of public
money to arms manufacturers.

The result, he said, “is an escalating fed-
eral deficit, uncompetitive civilian indus-
tries, a squeeze upon social services and a
lower standard of living for working peo-
ple.”

Corcoran quoted American writer Gore
Vidal, who characterised the state subsidy
of the military-industrial complex and the
simultaneous impoverishment of the work-
ing class as “socialism for the rich and free
enterprise for the poor.”

In order to increase public awareness of
the military implications of the free trade
agreement, the labour council committed
itself to ‘‘send a strong appeal for the fight
against free trade, to include a greatly
heightened focus on the militarization
aspect of the trade deal to the CLC, OFL,
NDP, heads of unions, and also to the Coa-
lition Against Free Trade and the Pro-
Canada Network, calling on them to
disseminate this request to all their member
groups.”

Penticton the first over the top

May Day was a day for demon-
strations and workers’ celebrations
all over the world — and it was also
a day for Tribune supporters to cele-
brate while they helped push us
towards our drive target of $82,000.
We’re happy to report that readers
and supporters from Vernon, Kam-
loops and Penticton gave a boost to
the drive by hosting a celebration
banquet in Penticton that added over
$700 to the drive total.

It also put the Penticton Club well
over its target of $450 which gave the
event an added note of celebration
for Penticton Tribune co-ordinator
Laurie Honkala (at right, with Trib-
une manager Mike Proniuk).

But the club says it won’t be stop-

ping there — and that’s the kind of
spirit we need this year to put the
drive over the top by June 25. To
date we’ve raised $28,000, leaving us
$54,000 to raise in just a little less
than two months. And the govern-
ment’s action in banning our annual
contest has made it a bit more diffi-
cult to do.

Check out the list of Tribune
events on page 11 and plan to be
part of them for the next several
weeks. And if you haven’t made a
donation yet, please try and get it in.

Eo Beenie Bagi Bey tition

JRuMBUINE

We’re counting on you to make
June 25 the kind of victory that the
Socred government wanted to pre-
vent.

, Se.
Umarch, rally stresses unity