Canada

“Underlying high interest rates is the
threat of high inflation,” said Finance
Minister Michael Wilson in explanation of
the thinking behind his second “free
trade” budget. Although he stressed “that
this budget contains no new tax increase,”
the truth is something else. There’ll be new
provincial taxes to compensate for federal
cuts, plus the Goods and Service Tax,
which kicks in January 1991.

There are two aspects of the new budget
that I would like to deal with — wage
restraint and higher unemployment, and
the so-called elimination of grants to big
business.

In his speech, Wilson said: “‘Responsi-
ble price and wage behavior will speed the
process of getting inflation.down.” He
noted that federal government wage
increases have been below the rate of infla-
tion since 1984. He reaffirmed his
government’s commitment to wage res-
traint and stated: “I’ve asked my provin-

cial colleagues to join me in that
commitment.”

They won’t be alone in joining him. The

Business Council on National Issues has
once again added its voice to policy
“debate,” endorsing the anti-inflation core
of the budget and calling on all sectors to
“join forces” in holding labour costs
down. For the council, this means, among
other things, that labour shouldn’t address
GST-caused drops in purchasing power
by going after extra gains at the bargaining
table.

For his part, the finance minister also
said: “Growth will be slow, but, employ-
ment is expected to grow, (though) not as
quickly as the labour force.” Translated,
that means unemployment will rise. This

Wilson gives the signal for wage curbs

John MacLennan

budget’s premise, and it’s the one pushed
by the BCNI too, is that corporations and
working people are in the same boat, and
we’ve got to make sacrifices for our child-
ren. But what’s really the case?

Workers’ incomes have been falling
behind the cost of living since 1975. We
experienced two rounds of wage controls
under Trudeau’s Liberals. At the same
time profits have increased dramatically
over the same period.

Wage increases below the inflation rate
are subject to controls in many different
ways. Any government restraint, backed
by legislation or not, is invoked by all
employers, public and private sector. How
many times have members of bargaining
committees heard: “We'd like to give you
more, but we don’t want to get into trou-
ble with the government.”

At the same-time, when Wilson asks the
provincial governments to join him in
wage restraint, the big stick is that he has
cut millions of dollars in transfer pay-
ments. This is then passed from the pro-
vincial to the already cash-starved munici-
pal arena. It practically ensures wage
restraint.

The private sector takes all this as an
example to follow. The pattern is clear.

LABOUR

IN ACTION

This is coupled with the proposed dras-
tic cuts in unemployment insurance,
which help ensure that workers take the
first available job that comes along, min-
imum wage or not.

Another part of the equal sacrifice game
is played up in Wilson’s line that “grants
will be eliminated and assistance will be
repayable on more rigorous terms.”
Sounds impressive, until you take a good
look at it.

Big business has been campaigning on
this since last November. The Canadian
Chamber of Commerce and other busi-
ness pre-budget briefs have stressed it. It
has been echoed in the editorial pages of
the big business bible, the Financial Post.

The new corporate concern over subsi-
dies is in fact a smokescreen to the bigger
issues of tax writeoffs and low corporate
tax rates that are a much bigger annual
boon to capital. The subsidies which go to
corporations as direct grants appear on
government books as spending. The
money the corporations don’t pay because
of writeoffs and low tax rates doesn’t
appear on the books as a cost to govern-
ment. It just stays in the pockets of the
corporations.

According to the Chamber of Com-

merce’s own calculations, these grants
amounted to $2 billion. So when the
smoke and mirrors act is cleared up it is
this $2 billion that the corporations are
prepared to call their generous contribu-
tion to the fight against the deficit.

The struggle against this budget is part
of the fight against the free trade agree-
ment and the neo-conservative agenda.
This calls for leadership at all levels of the
trade union leadership.

It also places special responsibility on
the leadership of the CLC to lead this
struggle.

MICHAEL WILSON ... “smoke and
mirrors”’ over corporate grant cuts.

Tories cutting Natives’ communication links

‘By PAUL OGRESKO

The federal budget cuts will be more than
disastrous for aboriginal people; they will be
suicidal for the federal government if it goes
ahead with them, Georges Erasmus,
National Chief of the Assembly of First
Nations warned last week.

The AFN leader said the Mulroney
government can expect a response from
Native people such as it has never seen
before if it goes ahead with its budget cuts.
Of the $23 million being slashed from the
Secretary of State program, a full 44 per
cent will be borne by aboriginal people, for
a total of $10 million in cuts.

“What the federal government is doing is
terminating 100 per cent funding to Native
organizations across the country that have
been involved in very peaceful processes of
sitting down and negotiating with the
government,” Erasmus told the Tribune.
“They seem to be telling us that if you sit
down and try to operate honestly with the

government then you are going to get

nowhere.

“The federal government is acting like
tin-pot dictators in third world countries
who get rid of oppositional things, like the
press, because they don’t want any coverage
of the way they are treating the people - — so
bang, there goes all the Native press.”

Eliminated in the budget is the $3.4-

~ million: Native Communications Program

which-funded 15 Native newspapers across
the country, including such award-winning
publications as the Ontario-based Wawatay

_ News and the Northwest Territories’ Native

Press as well as a $2-million cut to Native
radio and television stations. The future of
the Native press as a whole in Canada is in
doubt following the budget and the cuts
could not come at a worse time according to
two of the leading Native editors in the

- country.

‘They seem to be telling us that if you sit down and try
SDR aIte oer stants GovTrinone Ueey yous

going to get nowhere.’

Megan Williams is editor of the Wawatay
News, a bi-weekly newspaper with close to
10,000 readers, many of them in remote
northern Ontario communities. For those
northern communities the Wawatay News
is often their only source of information not
only on world and Canadian events but also
on issues affecting Native people — a sub-

ject that usually doesn’t get covered in the

mainstream press.

The Wawatay News serves an important
function in promoting aboriginal lan-
guages, since much of its coverage is in
syllabic Oji-Cree language — reaching
those who do not speak or read English, as
well as promoting a knowledge of their first
language to a new generation.

“This budget will mean cuts in our staff
as well as cuts in our much-needed transla-
tion,” Williams explained. ‘“‘The reason the
paper was developed in the first place was to
provide the Oji-Cree translations for the
people who speak the language up north —
now that will have to be curtailed because of
the cost of translations.”

Forty-four Native communities are
served by Wawatay News’ 11 person staff,
Of those, 25 are totally isolated, accessible
only by plane.

But more than being the sole source of
news, the paper’s role in preserving and
enriching aboriginal language is crucial,

— George Erasmus

Williams said. He noted that only two
books have ever been published in Oji-
Cree — the Bible and the phone book.

“There is nothing else that people who
read syllabic can refer to,” she said. ““We are
keeping the written language alive.”

Lee Selleck is editor of Native Press, pub-
lished every two weeks out of Yellowknife.
It is distributed to the Dene and Metis peo-
ple of the north and has a circulation of
5,000 and a readership three times that
number, Native Press has a paid staff of
eight and covers such important issues to
the north as the Dene and Metis land claims
negotiations and the possible creation of
Denedeh — the Dene nation. Its future is
now in jeopardy.

“The way things stand right now it
means, at the minimum, drastic layoffs and
the end of what has been 20 years of
improved papers, improved information
services, and improved self-sufficiency,”
Selleck said.

“Our survival is a big question mark.”

As with Wawatay News, Native Press is
part of a larger communications society that
includes television broadcasting and radio
services. The television and radio services
are facing a 33 per cent cut immediately and
a six-month “grace” period to find alternate
means of funding to stay alive. For the print
media the cuts are immediate and total.

“Native Press is the only paper that

reaches isolated communities.” Selleck
explained, “‘On top of that our paper is used
in schools for education and literacy pur-
poses. We’ve started a Dene language fea-
ture that the kids are starting to learn.

“Anda lot of non-Native people read the
paper and for many it is there only contact
with the Native community. It puts this land
in its proper historical and cultural context.

“Td like to think these cuts are not made
with malice and censorship but now I am
not so sure,” Selleck concluded.

For Native people there is a taste of bitter
irony in the cuts, falling less than a week
after Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn
unveiled Canada’s 1990 $100 gold coin
which “heralded the Canadian Govern-
ment’s strong commitment to promoting
literacy.” On one side of the coin was the
Queen, on the other an Inuit mother and
child writing in Inuktitut.

“IT just don’t understand how the
government thinks it’s going to get ahead
on these cuts,” Erasmus said. ““When you
look at the fact that Native journalists are
earning less than $19,000 a year — the fed-
eral government is getting a good deal for its
money.

“Instead, now you have at least 180 jour-
nalists going on unemployment or welfare,
not even counting the cuts in radio or televi-
sion. And, on top of that, 28 Native organi-
zations are getting their funding cut
completely and we haven’t even been able
to total yet the number of jobs lost there. It
really is incredible.”

On July | the Assembly of First Nations
will see its $562,000 core funding eliminated
as part of the $10-million Native cuts that
will take effect on that day. On the same
day, the Mulroney government will spend a
sum of $15 million on balloons, fireworks
and a big parade as part of Ottawa’s Can-
ada Day celebrations.

Pacific Tribune, March 12, 1990 e 7