EDITORIAL

Why are we waiting?

Just what could External Affairs Minister Joe Clark be waiting for?

Clark told the Commmons human rights committee March 4 that he
has had cabinet approval to impose further sanctions against South
Africa’s apartheid regime since January but “the time is not ripe” to
impose them.

He reportedly said Canada wants the “timing” to be right, that it wants
to “move cautiously,” that it is “waiting for the outcome of the (May 6,
whites only) election,” that it wants to “explore other avenues.”

Just four days earlier, Clark delivered a
major policy address on South Africa to
the Canadian Council for International
Cooperation. In essence, he reiterated.
Tory government policy of action if neces-
sary, but not necessarily action. The
speech was filled with self-congratulatory
back-patting and was met with hisses and
followed by sharp questioning.

The toll in lives
and misery in the
month Clark has
had authority to
act, and didn't,

can be calculated. But nowhere in his speech did Clark

reveal he had cabinet approval for more
action, but refuses to act.

In October, 1985, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly,
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney warned: “If there are no fundamental
changes in South Africa, we are prepared to invoke total sanctions against
that country and its repressive regime ...”

Well, what happened?

Estimates of how many people have been murdered, jailed and beaten
in South Africa in the 16 months since these brave words were spoken

human misery in the month or more that Clark has had cabinet authority
to tighten the screws, and didn’t, can also be calculated.

This was pointed out to Clark last weekend by anti-apartheid leaders
who urged Canada not to wait while people suffer, but to act
decisively — and quickly.

would probably shock even the most callous Tory. The toll in lives and ,

KLE IIVILIIIL IPD AEA LIS
A ON ne ca

QDLARUN BF

FIRIBUNE

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON
Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK
Graphics — ANGELA KENYON :

Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. V5K 125
Phone (604) 251-1186
ISSN 0030-896X

Subscription Rate: Canada — $16 one year; $10 six months
Foreign — $25 one year;

Second class mail registration number 1560

_ | Labor's punch needed at CLC summit

There will be two significant summit

meetings within the next month: the third _

annual love-in between Brian and Ronnie
April 5 and 6; and a ranking officers’ meet-
ing of all affiliates of the Canadian Labor
Congress on March 12.

There is or should be an important con-
nection between the two.

First, Mulroney’s plans to emulate
Reagan’s right wing agenda have fallen on
rocky ground. The pensioners gave Brian
an example of how scorned seniors react
when the PM tinkers with pensions and
drug patents. Then the peace movement
forced him into a tactical retreat on Star
Wars.

There has been stubborn resistance put
upon the labor, privatization and de-
regulation front, while at the cornerstone
of his platform, free trade, he has been
buffetted both by his U.S. friends and by
growing opposition in Canada.

The prime minister has squandered the
biggest majority in Canadian history to
rate third place in public opinion polls
behind the Liberals and the New Demo-
cratic Party.

But there is no room for complacency.
There are some in the labor movement
who still subscribe to the Tory “self-
destruct” theory. They have not heeded
the example of British Columbia where
the counted-out Socreds rose like the pho-
enix to defeat a complacent labor move-

Labor in action
Ss aa SR ed A Sa aR

George Hewison

ment and its “politicalarm” — more than
once.

They have not heeded former B.C. Fed-
eration of Labor president, Art Kube, who
warned against trying to fight elections at
the last moment and argued for “extra-
parliamentary” struggle by labor as the
key to victory.

The Tories are manoeuvring. Wracked
by scandal after scandal, the Tories are
unleashing their right wing in a diversion-
ary, highly emotional, divisive debate on
capital punishment. The same is true of
the revenge edict aimed at refugees, which
is also directed at labor.

This May, the Tories will introduce so-
called tax reform, immediately after Can-
adians have had their wallets emptied to
satisfy Revenue Canada and the April 30
tax deadline.

In the meantime, the basic Tory agenda
remains intact. Increased militarization of
the Canadian economy is still there, as is

the attack on Canadians’ living standards.
According to the Globe and Mail, the
“fix” is already in on free trade, the Auto-
pact, a host of other industries, and Cana-
da’s culture, not to mention our sov-
ereignty. It’s all on the chopping block.
The recent spate of plant closures from
meat packing to electrical appliances (the

weak industries mentioned in free trade-

discussions) all reek of insider information
on the state of free trade discussions.

Mulroney may be down, but he’s not
out. It’s reminiscent of the classic middle-
weight boxing match between Carmen
Basilio and the champion Sugar Ray
Robinson. Basilio had Robinson at his
mercy, relentlessly pounding him, with the
championship squarely in his sights, when
a punch from the dazed and beleaguered
champ caught the challenger’s jaw, send-
ing Basilio to the canvas and unexpected
defeat.

The stakes are too high for labor and

the people of Canada to be caught by a
knock-out punch from Mulroney. The
Tories with their neo-conservative agenda,
must not be allowed to get ropes.

That’s where the second summit
meeting — the trade union conclave
— comes in. So far, labor’s very fine
alternative to the Tories’ agenda, adopted
at last year’s CLC convention, has not
filtered down to the local unions, much
less to the communities. It has not yet
become the powerful magnet (which it is
capable of becoming), attracting millions
of Canadians away from the Tories, and
forestalling a resurgent Liberal Party.

Is the problem that the community is
rejecting labor? Hardly.

The peace, environmental and solidar-
ity movements intend to express their feel-

ings to Mulroney and Reagan by ~

converging on Ottawa during the mini- ~

summit. But the top leadership of the
labor movement, aside from token repres-
entation at this important rally, is to date,

not taking advantage of this historic

opportunity to express itself.

Meanwhile the plant closures and
layoffs go on. The resulting unemploy-
ment continues to exact a price at the
bargaining table. Free trade, deregulation
and privatization are proceeding. What is
lacking in the trade union movement can

be summed up in one word — mobil- ~

ization!

4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 11, 1987