BRITISH COLUMBIA

Coalition
will urge
councils
fo oppose
levy hike

Delegations from a_newly-
formed coalition will be heading to
municipal and city councils in the
Lower Mainland this summer
pressing local governments to call
for a rescinder of the transit levy on
B.C. Hydro bills.

The action is one of a series set at
a special press conference the coali-
tion, which includes trade unions
and community groups, held at the
Whalley bus loop July 3.

A 230-per cent increase in the
special transit levy billed through
B.C. Hydro has produced a
groundswell of opposition and
calls for a new way to fund the
region’s staggering public transit
debt.

B.C. Hydro users are now
charged
$5.31 on
each bill to
help pay for
the debt
incurred by
the costly
Skytrain
rapid tran-
sit system.

The coa-
lition and ES Se
the Council JEAN SWANSON
of Senior Citizens Organizations of
B.C. have demanded that the levy
be rescinded, the question of levies
be placed before the public, and
that a greater portion of the transit
bill be paid out of general revenues.

The coalition is also demanding
a revamping of the cost-sharing
formula, which will see the portion
of transit funding raised through
the fare box rise to 42 per cent from
the current 35 per cent.

Jean Swanson of the Solidarity
Coalition, one of the coalition’s
member groups, said the imposi-
tion of the transit levy without pub-
lic input appears to violate sections
of the B.C. Transit Act.

The recent hike in the hydro bill
levy was rubber stamped by the
Greater Vancovuer Transit Com-
mission, a government-appointed
body consisting of six Lower Main-
land municipal mayors and Van-
couver alderman Gordon Camp-
bell.

The commission itself was the
subject of regional controversy
three years ago when the Socred
government replaced the Greater
Vancouver transit committee —
appointed by the directors of the
Greater Vancouver regional dis-
trict board — with the hand-
picked commission.

The mayors who sit on the
commission include Burnaby mayor
Bill Lewarne, Mike Harcourt of
Vancouver, Jack Loucks of North
Vancouver city, Surrey mayor
Don Ross, Richmond’s Gil. Blair,
and Len Traboulay of Port Coqui-
tlam. Each commissioner repres-
ents one other municipality.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 9, 1986

Tories’ new bill on generic drugs)
tells us what free trade is abou!

Free trade means that U.S. corporations
would have unrestricted access to the Can-
adian market. It also means that any laws
we have in Canada which impede this free
access would have to be repealed.

A good example of what free trade means

in practice is the draft of a new drug patents
bill introduced in the House of Commons

by the Mulroney government just before

Parliament adjourned for its two month
summer break.

Until now Canadian manufacturers of
generic drugs could produce drugs similar
to the brand name drugs being manufac-
tured by the big U.S. multinational drug
corporations, if they paid a four-per cent
royalty to the U.S. manufacturers. Cana-
dian manufacturers were producing and
marketing these drugs at half the price
charged by the U.S. manufacturers.

If the new bill introduced in Parliament
passes in September, that will all be
changed. From then on the big U.S. multi-
nationals will be allowed to have a monop-
oly on their brand name drugs for a period
of 10 years. No Canadian manufacturer of
generic drugs will have the right to produce
them during this 10-year period.

Furthermore, the U.S. manufacturers
will be able to charge all the traffic will bear
for these drugs which will be at least twice

what Canadians are now paying. The
results for Canada will be the following:

®@ Canadian manufacturers of generic
drugs will be put out of business;

© Thousands of Canadian jobs will be
lost;

© Prescription drugs will double in price;

@ The extra costs to Canadians will be at -

least $200 million a year. This will go
directly into the coffers of the big U.S. mul-
tinational drug manufacturers;

Harry

Rankin

© The extra costs will place a great finan-
cial strain on our whole medicare program.

President Reagan and the U.S. drug mul-
tinationals have been putting strong pres-
sure on the Canadian government to bring
about this change in our laws. This is how
free trade and free access to the Canadian
market is interpreted by the U.S.

This new bill is a disgrace to Canada. It is
one of the-most cowardly, servile and abject
pieces of legislation introduced by the Mul-

roney government. No wonder Ra
looks at Mulroney as “our mania oan

Tory Trade Minister J ae Kaa
in the House of Commons tha
government was introducing this set :
patents bill because “this party, ualik if oP
parties, respects the right of priv no}
erty.” Had he been more politi ep
he would have said that his Pa) ilk
the right of U.S. corporaHoa = @ to 80 ont
Canadian public, to put Cana’ fue
ies out of business, to take oa
and to demand changes in Cana!
whenever our laws don’t suit the ©’

The Tory government cata
new law will result in the U.S. oh
facturers spending $1.4 billion in
research in the next 10 ae and
3,000 new jobs. That’s just plait
the sugar on the poison pill. It’s)
saving device to excuse the 50a
its shameful sellout of Canadian™
the U.S.

We have two months to tell the Her
government that Canadians won't! of
this kind of sellout. We pay t0° m 40
prescription drugs already an eH tol :
want the US. sticking its nos¢é in het gi
us we must pay more. Would it be os ft
to ask this government to begif inst
Canadian instead of just being 4
for the U.S.?

‘ts \y
ptt

NANAIMO — The vandalizing for
the second time of the campaign office of
the local Communist Party provincial
candidate has underscored a _ recent
upsurge in activities by ultra-rightists in
this Vancouver Island city.

Attackers smashed the windows of the
Commercial Street office of CP candidate
Deborah MacDonald during the June 21-
22 weekend. Previously, the office win-
dows had been found plastered with
stickers bearing the Nazi swastika symbol.

Meanwhile, Garry Bennett, the owner
of the Bounty Hunter, a vessel flying a
swastika flag and docked in Nanaimo
harbor, has been arrested on a cocaine
trafficking charge.

Nanaimo has recently been the target of
a fund-raising campaign in which posters
calling for aid to “freedom fighters” in
Central America have been distributed.
The poster, bearing the heading, “You can
help fight communism in Central Amer-
ica,” urges potential donors to supply cash
or combat equipment for Nicaragua’s
counter-revolutionaries and the armed
forces in El Salvador,

The poster bears a Boulder, Colorado
address for the “El Salvador/Nicaragua
Defense Fund,” and a local address in
nearby Cedar, B.C.

GP office hit for second time

Deborah MacDonald inside vandalized campaign office.

>] FF 2 Ge S|! £2 FF * aaa

- - iin - A. ae 2

—-

Seamen's
union story
set for Sept.
publication

The recently rekindled interest in the
former Canadian Seamen’s Union will get
a new boost this fall with the publication
of Against the Tide: The Story of the Can-
adian Seamen’s Union.

The books, which rolls of the presses
under the auspices of the Toronto-based
Progress books, chronicles the activities of
the left-led maritime union and its demise
at the hands of the U.S.-run Seamen’s
International Union whose president Hal
Banks was brought into Canada by the
federal government and the shipowners.

Born on the Great Lakes in the mid-
30s, the CSU grew to be one of the most
important and powerful unions in Canada

government policies that put Cap ‘st
the emerging Cold War.
years of research by Jim Green,

of the Marineworkers and Boiler

town Eastside Residents Associatio™

. ae 2 - ae. ne ee ae | a — oe ee

during World War II, and ev et
represented seamen from coast t0 wn?

The union’s challenge to the ship ‘poe
nd?

threw down the gauntlet to

entrenched in Canada’s economic 28 cast
itical elite. The CSU’s demand for 4 (es?
dian merchant marine ee g

Oo fa TD =<

the service of American interests

Against the Tide was written ey
a

owe ww Fa =

fot
ne DI

Industrial Union and organizer
Vancouver community group, the