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BUDGET

Unemploy

Continued from page 1
“Tt doesn’t do a thing for job creation,”
Said B.C. Federation of Labor secretary-
treasurer Cliff Andstein.

“If you look at previous federal budgets,
those in B.C. and for that matter, in the

United States, you see governments giving

Concessions to corporations in the hopes
they'll use the money to provide jobs,” he
Said, -
_ “But it doesn’t give jobs to anyone — all
oa is give the private sector more prof-
its.”

“The labor movement will continue to
fight against policies of a government that

es nothing to create employment while

Slving more concessions to corporations,”
Said Frank Kennedy, secretary of the Van-
Couver and District Labor Council.

According to labor historian and analyst
Ben Swankey, the budget shows, “the
government is intent to carrying out what
the corporate sector is demanding.”

Swankey told a group of trade unionists

| ata special meeting last week that the main

aspects of the budget are the tax giveaways
to corporations, the “attack on the living
Standards of working people,” and the glar-

Ing lack of job creation funds.

_The budget is based on the concept,
shared by Tories and rightwing counterpart

_ Parties elsewhere, that unemployment —

which in Canada is at 11 per cent — is
“natural,” said Swankey.

In line with that are Tory plans to axe
30,000 civil service positions by the end of
the decade, plus the fact that the budget
contains no new job-creation proposals. In
fact, it cuts total funding by $78 million.

Meanwhile, military spending is up, with
more than $1 billion added to the defence
department’s budget, making a total of
more than $9 billion, some of it undoubt-
edly earmarked for projects linked to the
Pentagon’s Star Wars plan.

The Wilson plan also cuts several
hundred million dollars from federal fiscal
transfers to the provinces for health and
post-secondary education. In B.C.’s case,
that’s some $200 million. Since the Socreds
have been chanelling money intended for
those fields into general revenues for years
to finance megaprojects, the impact on hos-
pitals, colleges and universities is uncertain,
but it provides a handy excuse for further
provincial cutbacks.

The budget effectively chops three per
cent from old age pensions and the family
allowance. This was done through remov-
ing inflation indexing for the first three per
cent, so if inflation runs at four per cent in
1985, pensions and family allowances will
only rise by one per cent.

Canadians pay an extra two cents per
litre at the gas pump, thanks to the scrap-

FRANK
KENNEDY

CLIFF
ANDSTEIN

ping of the National Energy Plan and its
replacement by tax giveaways — the so-
called ““Western Accord” struck between
the oil conglomerates and Energy Minister
Pat Carney which saw $3.3 billion granted
in tax concessions.

An extra cent was added to the federal
sales tax, and a whole new range of items
became taxable.

The decision to eliminate the registered
home owners savings plan, which allowed
buyers to bank $1,000 yearly tax-deductible,
destroyed for thousands the opportunity to
buy houses in a still-costly market.

Plans are also underway to sell off four
Crown corporations, including Teleglobe,
which earned the government some $5 mil-
lion in profit yearly.

Left intact for the time being is Unem-

ment deemed ‘natural’ by Tories

ployment Insurance, which jobless advo-
cates and labor leaders feared would face
regressive changes.

Other issues are open to question during
the coming months. Under discussion will
be the corporate tax structure, focused on a
paper Wilson released proposing that the
basic corporate tax rate be cut to 29 per cent
from 36 per cent.

Another feature of the budget is the
$500,000 lifetime capital gain tax exemp-
tion. B.C. Communist Party labor commit-
tee chairman Fred Wilson called this “eco-
nomic anarchy” and a “total farce.

“Tt should be understood that only the
small percentage of people who play the
stockmarket or who sell a business or capi-
tal asset can benefit from the exemption.
This is not assistance for small business,”
the CP’s Wilson noted.

He also took issue with the finance minis-
ter’s claim that the country’s $33-billion
deficit was being tackled, noting that the
so-called “tough measures” reduce the pro-
jected deficit by less than $2 billion.

“The ‘tough’ measures have nothing to
do with the deficit. They are just another
redivision of income, taking away from the
poor, the elderly and families and giving to
the corporate sector,” he charged. -

“Tf this budget was to put the Tory stamp
on Canada, it has. It is the stamp of hypoc-
risy and repression.”

The budget handed down by federal
Finance Minister Michael Wilson May 23 is
“criminal” because it hands more in tax
dollars to the corporations and the swollen
military budget while robbing working class
and poor Canadians, the Communist Party
of Canada points out in the following state-
ment. The CP’s central executive committee
puts forward an alternative program, urging
labor and other forces to unite and take up
the fight for jobs and a redistribution of
wealth.

The Wilson budget shows how far the
Mulroney government has gone in reneg-
Ing on its election promises.

It promised jobs, jobs, jobs. Instead, by
Placing deficit cutting as its priority it gua-
Trantees there will be more unemployment.
This is already seen in the decision to lay
off 15,000 civilservants and close down
the heavy water plants in Nova Scotia.

And this at a time when the U.S. econ-
Omy is beginning to show signs of a serious
downturn, and when Canada too is faced
with a likely recession.

Maintain the sacredness of social pro-
grams. Now a new attack has been under-
taken on these programs by proposed
changes in the indexation of pensions and
family allowances.

This is predicated on the assumption
that inflation has been licked. Inflation
however is beginning to rise in the U.S. It
will rise in Canada also despite the efforts
of the government to curb it by bringing
On permanent unemployment.

The government promised to establish
a minimum income tax so as to end a
Situation in which thousands of wealthy
Canadians pay no taxes. Instead, a one-
year surtax is being imposed to show how
“fair” the government is and that the cor-
Porations and banks too are called upon
to “sacrifice.”

Sacrifice what? The corporations showed
a 45 per cent profit increase last year while
banks increased their profits by 15 per

hand have had their living standards
aes by two per cent annually since
ap

The changes in the RRSP contribution
allowances and the $500,000 capital gains
tax exemption are two major examples of

how the budget favors the rich at the
ee ‘. s

The government also promised to .

Cent. The working people on the other .

expense of the poor. It guarantees that the
numbers of wealthy Canadians who pay
no taxes will increase beyond last year’s
7,063, and the number of Canadian cor-
porations which pay no taxes will increase
beyond the current 60 per cent level.

The fact is that in the name of deficit
cutting as a means of job creation the
government through this budget is
transferring income from the the working
people, from the unemployed, from the
poor, from middle class Canadians to the
corporations and the wealthy.

Income tax will go up. The sales tax will
go up. The price of food purchased by the
mass of people will go up, the cost of
cigarettes, beer, even dog and cat food will
go up.

All of this is based on the corporate
position that the more powerful the cor-
porations become and the more wealth is
concentrated in the hands of the few, the

tax burden on the Canadian people. They
will pay for the government having
thrown the National Energy Program
overboard through higher prices on gaso-
line, on home heating and on operating
industry.

Will the Canadian people allow them-
selves to be conned into believing that
leaving it to the corporations — the
banks, the multinationals, with a policy of
privatization and deregulation and absolv-

ing the state from all responsibility for job -

creation — will overcome the crisis and
put the Canadian people back to work?

This, says the government, will create
jobs and good times for the people. This
policy has been pursued in Great Britain
for several years by the Thatcher govern-
ment and has created more unemploy-
ment and hardship for the people.

‘ Likewise this policy has been pursued
for two terms by the Bennett government

‘The budget demonstrates that capitalism is no
longer able to solve the problems facing the

country and the people.”

better for the country. The budget will do
exactly that — take from the poor and
give to the rich. The government has been
giving billions of dollars to the corpora-
tions in the form of special tax arrange-
ments and subsidies. This has helped these
corporations but it has done nothing in the
way of job creation.

In addition to the attack launched on
Canadians in the current budget, Mr. Wil-

son promised ever more greater attacks in _

the future during his budget speech. These
attacks will be in the form of assaults on
unemployment insurance and on the pro-
grams, along with massive cuts in corpora-
tion taxes.

The Wilson budget is the tip of the
iceberg. Failure to mount a massive pro-
test against it will almost surely guarantee
ever more massive attacks on the people in
the future.

The latest giveaway has been the
“Western Accord” — better called the
multinational oil steal — in which over $2
billion was given to the U.S. petroleum
multinational corporations, on the spe-
cious argument that this will create jobs.

The reality is that this sell-out to the
US. multinationals will add an additional

in British Columbia and is bringing disas-
ter to the people of that province.

The budget is a further example of the
bankrupt economic and social policy
being pursued by the Tory government, a
policy which spells additional hardship for
the Canadian people.

It demonstrates the fact that capitalism
is no longer capable of solving the prob-
lems facing the country and the people.

It is time for real change, not the hard
times the Tories are giving Canadians.

Instead of billions of dollars of give-
aways and subsidies to the giant corpora-
tions and billions for arms, new economic
and social policies are needed to expand
the economy, build the country and create
real jobs for young and old alike.

Instead of, as the budget proposes, sel-
ling off profitable Canadian Crown cor-
porations which provide jobs and help
reduce the deficit, a public investment
program should be undertaken to begin
the repatriation of the Canadian economy
under democratic public ownership.

The Communist Party proposes that an
immediate $10-billion investment pro-
gram be undertaken at the federal level to
be spent on:

Budget shows lie behind election vows: CP

e A vast, affordable housing program;

© Rebuilding the deteriorating urban
fabric of Canada.

This would start to put Canada to back
to work when coupled with a program for:

@ Earlier voluntary retirement with
improved pensions;

@ Reduction of hours of work with no
loss in pay;

e A vast training and retraining pro-
gram for youth and other sections.

Instead of investing in the great
monopolies and multinationals, invest in
Canada’s working people. Instead of poli-
cies which perpetuate unemployment and
inequality, redistribute income and wealth
in favor of the working people who in fact
create the wealth in Canada.

To give such reforms a solid economic
basis the power of the transnationals will
have to be ended through the democratic
nationalization of the monopolies and

- transnationals, banks and financial insti-

tutions.

To defeat the budget and win such new
policies it will require great effort.

With its huge majority in the Com-
mons, the Tories feel they can ignore the
opposition of the Liberals and the NDP
inside the house and crush the needs of
working people.

But this parliamentary majority can be
curbed by an even more powerful
majority — that of the Canadian people.
They voted for promises of real change, of
jobs — not for the policies the Tories are
foisting onto the country and the people.

Put simply, the Tory majority in Parli-
ament must be countered by a peoples’
majority outside of Parliament. The work-
ing class, the trade union movement must
be at the centre of such a people’s majority
and help to create it.

The Communist Party of Canada calls
upon the progressive forces in this country
to unite their efforts so as to bring together
such people’s majorities on a local and
provincial level and on an all-Canadian
scale around a common program — defeat
the budget and fight for new economic
and social policies which create jobs, raise
living standards, strengthen the independ-
ence of Canada and makes it a force for
peace. The right to a job, the right to
live — these are the sacred rights for
which Canadians need to unite and fight.

—

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 29, 1985 e 5