British Columbia

CP opens national Campaign
to block destruction of UI

NANAIMO — B.C. Communist Party
leader Fred Wilson opened the party’s
campaign to stop the destruction of the
unemployment insurance program here
Wednesday, calling on party members and
Supporters to organize grass roots opposi-
tion to the Conservative government’s poli-
cies and to make the defence of UI and
other social programs a community issue.

The party’s central committee launched a
country-wide campaign against the attack
on UI and the Conservative government’s
“free trade agenda” last week in Toronto.

“The Conservatives are bringing a new
and cruel kind of capitalism to Canada,”
said Wilson, “The destruction of the UI
program is a betrayal of 50 years of social
progress. The Communist Party pioneered
in fighting for Ul as a basic social program.
It Js only natural that Communists would
initiate action today to defend those gains.”

Wilson told party members that the
government’s attack on the UI program is

STOP
the attack

vo
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central to its plan to reshape Canada under
free trade. It is the major social program
sacrificed to the free trade economy affect-
ing millions of Canadians, he said. Last year
3.2 million workers depended on UI. The
$3.2 billion in cuts to the UI program are

UI changes could mean
$13,000 cut for worker

With the prospect of an
economic downturn in 1990 and
higher unemployment levels, the
policy changes to the country’s
unemployment insurance
program which are due to take
effect next year will be “like a
kick in the guts” for thousands of
B.C. families, B.C. Communist
Party leader Fred Wilson has
charged.

Wilson this week released an
analysis of the UI policy changes
which will affect the expected
300,000 UI claimants in B.C. next
year.

For about 60,000 of those
workers, the UI policy changes
could mean a loss of income of
between $5,000 and $13,000 next
year.

“These policy changes spell

- welfare for thousands of workers
and their families in B.C. in 1990,
and it spells depression for many
communities that can not afford
to lose that income,” said Wilson.

The UI policy changes,
presently before Parliament, will
make four basic changes.to the
program. First, it will be harder
to get on UI. Second, UI claims
will be shorter.

Third, there are increased
penalties for workers who quit a
job or are fired. And finally, all
workers will pay higher UI
premiums as the government
withdraws all public funding for
the program.

For most of British Columbia’s
UI claimants — in Vancouver,
Lower Fraser Valley, and on
Vancouver Island — the
qualification period has been
extended from 10 to 16 weeks.
The CP analysis points out that
workers with between 10 and 15
weeks of work in 1989 are eligible
for 34 weeks of UI — but these
workers will receive nothing in
1990. The potential loss of
income is $12,954.

For those workers who do get
16 weeks of work, the duration of
their claim has been shortened
from 40 weeks in 1989 to 27

FRED WILSON ... changes spell dis-
aster for workers, communities

weeks in 1990. This would result
in the loss of $4,953 in UI
benefits.

A worker that quits a job or is
fired can lose close to $8,000 in
UI benefits next year. The present
disqualification period of a
maximum of six weeks has been
extended to 12 weeks. And for
workers in this category, the
weekly benefit after the
disqualification period has been
reduced from 60 percent of
insurable earnings to 50 percent.
The combination of the two
penalties could cost $7,772 over a
50-week claim.

Wilson pointed out that the
federal budget, the Social Credit
provincial budget, the Conference
Board, and several investment
firms have all predicted a slowing
of the economy and higher
unemployment in 1990.

“These changes to UI are more
than hardship. They will be
devastating and humiliating for
thousands of working families.
The so called safety net has has
the bottom cut out of it, and
people will be landing on
pavement.

“This is what the
Conservative’s free trade
economy means for working
people.”

also central to the Conservative’s fiscal pol-
icy and represent about half of the spending
cuts in the 1989 federal budget.

Likely the most sinsister aspect of the UI
cuts, Wilson said, is the “retraining scam”
which takes money out of UI benefits for
the unemployed and redirects it for labour
force programs to “adjust” Canadian.

workers into the free trade economy. ©

Almost all of the money will be used in
programs for semi-skilled “entry level”
jobs, and in slush funds for the private sec-
tor, he charged.

The UI cuts have nothing to do with the
federal deficit, the CP leader argued. UI
premiums have in fact been reduced since
1987 and if those premiums remained in
place this year a $4 billion surplus in the UI
fund — far more than the savings extracted
by the cuts in the program would have been
available for new programs, he said.

The Conservative budget reduced the
share of corporate taxation in government
revenues to an all time low of 10.2 per cent.
Wilson said that if corporate Canada paid
its share of national revenue of only a fews
ago, and returned to the 1987 UI premium
levels, that the deficit could be brought
under control at the same time as expanding
social programs.

“The government is attacking UI because
this universal social program doesn’t fit into
the free trade economy. They are levelling
the playing field by reducing our superior
benefits to a level approximating those in
the U.S., and simultaneously forcing more
workers into the low wage, non-union end
of the Canadian economy. The real objec-
tive is to destroy the UI as a universal social
program.”

The CP campaign will include an educa-
tion and information program around the
slogan “stop the attack on U and I” which
has already appeared on a button. Sales of

’ the button, which cost $1, are earmarked to

finance the party’s campaign.

Wilson also called for the formation of
citzen committees in local communities to
take the UI issue and the government's free
trade agenda to the grass roots — into
community groups, churches, service groups
and local unions.

The campaign to stop the UI cuts should
be co-ordinated with the activities of the
Pro-Canada coalitions, where .they exist,
and used to help build coalitions in com-
munities without coalitions, he said.

island labour
slams budget

As the budget train rolled into Ottawa,
some 75 trade unionists and others rallied at
the train station in Courtenay to add their
voice to the call for a repeal of the budget.

They greeted the arrival of the Esquimalt
and Nanaimo dayliner at 12:30 p.m. June
12 in an action organized by the Campbell
River, Courtenay and District Labour
Council.

Among the speakers at the rally was Jane
Larson-Pass of the Courtenay Women’s
Resource Centre.

Ald. Erik Eriksson of Courtenay was on
hand to add city council’s voice to the pro-
test over the federal financial cutbacks that
could see reductions in the E & N dayliner’s
daily run from Victoria to the north island
city.

The decimation of VIA rail services is one
of. the hotly contested features of the
budget. So far no cutbacks have been
announced for the daily run of the two-
coach dayliner, but residents say the runs
should be increased, not cut.

Petitions were circulated gathering names
for a citizens committee to oppose the
budget.

Provincial Notes

Tribal council
Wins injunction

Five Gitksan chiefs won a landmark
ruling in B.C. Court of Appeals June 9,
stopping Westar Timber Ltd. for a
second time from carrying out its plans
to log north of the Babine River — log-
ging that would have compromised an
historic aboriginal land claim.

In a two to one decision, a panel of
Appeals Court judges upheld the
October, 1988 injunction which pre-
vented the logging company from build-
ing a bridge across the Babine and
moving logging crews into virgin forest
which is covered by the Gitksan Wet’su-
wet’en Tribal Council land claim.
Westar, which owns timber rights in the
area, launched its appeal of the injunc-
tion Jan. 30.

In the majority ruling, Justice Brian
Carrothers and William Esson recog-
nized that the Gitksans “have raised a
triable issue as to the existence of rights
which ultimately may be held to prevail
... over the rights asserted by Westar.”

The Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en land claim
is currently before the Supreme Court
and it is expected to be at least two years
before a judgment is rendered. But if the
logging were to proceed before that deci-
sion, the Gitksan chiefs argued, their
rights to the land could be compromised.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Cha-
tles Locke warned that the decision
could “interrupt the established adminis-
trative and legal system” in the province.

Oil spill review
called inadequate

Prominent B.C. citizens continued to
press their demand for a full public
inquiry into the transportation of oil and
dangerous commodities along the west
coast this week, warning that Prime Min-
ister Brian Mulroney’s proposed $3-
million public review of tanker safety
would be inadequate and ineffective.

Under pressure to call an inquiry fol-
lowing two disastrous west coast oil
spills, Mulroney fell considerably short
in his proposed review which will not
have the force of a full inquiry, including
the right to subpoena witnesses and to
provide funding for interveners.

“It won’t be very effective,” said Dr.
Andrew Thompson, the former chair of
the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry and
one of more than 100 prominent citizens
who called a press conference April 11 to
demand that the federal government call
a full public inquiry into “the explora-
tion, production and transportation of
oil and other dangerous substances
along the B.C. coast.”

Although Vancouver lawyer David
Brander-Smith has been appointed as
chair of the review panel, neither the
terms of reference of the review nor the
authority under which it will work have
been announced.

Investigation into
racist group urged

New Democrat MLA Emery Barnes
has called on Attorney-General Bud
Smith to launch an immediate investiga-
tion into the racist activities of the Aryan
Resistance Movement (ARM), one of
the various names used by the far right
wing of the white supremacist group,
Aryan Nations, based in the U.S.

Barnes is calling for the A-G to use the
1981 Civil Rights Protection Act. The
legislation was drafted in response to the
upsurge in activity by the Ku Klux Klan
but was never used.

Pacific Tribune, June 19, 1989 « 3