EDITORIAL

Olympics for youth,
not for hucksters

For 16 days Canadians will host the world’s finest athletes as the 15th
Olympic Winter Games get underway. The spotlight is on Calgary.
Sports fanatics and people who generally don’t get too worked up about
athletics alike will undoubtedly spend extra hours in front of television
screens watching the very best perform and compete.

The Olympic Games are undoubtedly the class act of world athletics.
And in addition to being spectacular theatre, the Games provide an
irreplaceable opportunity for East to meet West; for different systems and
styles in sport to be compared and to compete in an atmosphere of
friendship.

In this context, let’s wish Canada’s athletes every possible success in
their chance of a lifetime. ; .

” So with the glitz and hype level turned up to maximum, with the cash
registers ringing merrily and sports announcers coming at us from all
corners, there will likely be no escape.

But there are a few things we might try to remember amidst the din:

Let’s try to remember that the Olympic Games are a celebration of the
youth of our world — not the preserve of advertisers, hucksters and
commercial hangers-on.

Let’s remember the Olympics are not universally accessible — the
poor nations of this world are not represented as yet.

And let’s never forget for a moment that the demand for justice by the
Lubicon people has yet to be met.

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EDITOR
Sean Griffin

ASSISTANT EDITOR
Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk

GRAPHICS
Angela Kenyon

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s the deadline for implementation of

the free trade pact signed by Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S, Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan draws closer, opposi-
tion on the part of labour, community
groups and Canadian nationalists has
grown. But one voice seldom heard

from — perhaps not surprisingly ~ has ~

been the business community.

Much of Canada’s capital is either
already in the grip of foreign multination-
als, or is resource-extraction based and
believes it will profit from a tariff-free
border. But Canada’s manufacturing sec-
tor, which has its voice primarily in Onta-
rio’s mid-road Liberal government, has
been making itself heard lately, and in the
following case, it’s close to home for the
Tribune. A

We're referring to a brief presented to
the House Standing Committee on Exter-
nal Affairs and International Trade from
the Canadian Printing Industries Associa-
tion (reprinted in the trade journal, Second
Impression.) In it the association warned
that the free trade deal, without built-in
protection for Canada’s printing industry,

will result in “direct employment losses —

throughout every community in Canada,
and indirect losses to employment in
related industries.”

. The association agrees with its employ-
ees, who stated their views in a brief from
the Canadian Federation of Printing Trades
Unions, that the free trade pact will cut
Canadian jobs in the industry. The
employers’ group also notes that due to
protective legislation in Canada, many
more printing shops north of the border
are unionized. Under free trade, the U.S.
competition, with less labour costs due to
anti-union “right to work” laws in many
states, will be more competitive, the asso-
ciation argues.

The printers note-that several pieces of
legislation protect Canada’s printing
trades — and the book and periodical
industry to which these are naturally
linked — from absorption by the larger
companies in the United States. Among
those laws is Bill C-58, passed in 1977,
which removed tax deductions for costs
from Canadian firms which advertised in

People and Issues

ead sie aeons a on ae Si in as tae as Re a RS REDS NSS ARS SARC UE A

foreign magazines. The association credits
the bill — which along with reduced mail-
ing rates for Canadian periodicals is being
watered down by Mulroney’s government
— with developing “a viable Canadian
periodical publishing industry. that would
have been impossible otherwise.”

The brief points out that printing is an
industry which, despite strong tariffs pro-
tecting it, still suffers from an imbalance of
trade with the United States. In 1985, it

notes, Canada exported $133 million —
worth of printing to the U.S., while that.

country sent a value of $277 million to
Canada.

The printers’ association also states that
the industry, unlike its U.S. counterpart, is
more regionalized, reflecting “the geogra-
phic and linguistic realities of this coun-

try.” That means higher costs for .

Canadian printing firms but a more
diverse regional industrial base for
Canada — one threatened by unbridled
competition from giant U.S, companies,

Big business is usually strident in its
praise for the alleged benefits of a free
trade deal. The printing trades warning
points out that attempts to drown the voi-
ces of dissent within business’ own ranks
may be at its peril, as free trade certainly is
for the rest of Canada.

* * *

or many of us, the progressive battles
we experience take place in one
country — the one we were born in, In the
case of Lil Margolese, however, the eight
decades of her life — six of them with her
husband, Ben — spanned the interna-
tional border between the United States
and Canada. Sadly, a life of struggle came
to an end on Feb. 2.
Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1909, Lil met
and married Ben in New York City, where
they were to have three of their four child-

ren. The family moved to California dur-
ing World War II where, working for the
war effort, they embarked on the path of
social commitment that was to occupy
them for the rest of their life together.

Lil and Ben joined the American Jewish
Congress, which was working at the time
on behalf of Jewish refugees fleeing
Hitler’s Germany. In the immediate post-
war period they were involved, along with
the National Association for the Advance-
ment of Coloured People (NAACP), in
fighting Jim Crow racism at the Santa
Monica Sears and Roebuck store. (After a
lengthy battle, including a year-long picket
of the store, the company reversed its anti-
black hiring policy and other stores in the
area soon followed suit.)

In 1953 the family came to Canada,
becoming in involved in the progressive
Jewish community — including the Peretz
school and the journal, Canadian Jewish
Outlook — and the peace movement.
They were also deeply involved in civic
politics, becoming founding members of
the Committee of Progressive Electors, to
which they devoted much of their energies.

In recent years Lil contracted cancer,
from which she never fully recovered, She
was in hospital when she and Ben cele-
brated their 60th anniversary Jan. 14.

Ben gratefully acknowledges the “‘over-
whelming response” from friends in the
progressive movement who turned out for
Lil’s funeral.

‘oe
e were saddened last week to hear of
the passing of long-time Tribune
reader and supporter, Jim Swanson, a
Trail businessman with roots in the B.C.
labour movement.

Born in Edmonton in 1907, Jim worked
as a stonemason with his father during the
1920s before opening a business in Vermil-
ion, Alta., which he operated until 1938.

__ in the way of profits.

Following that he moved to British
Columbia and worked for Cominco at
Coppermine and Snake River in the late
Forties. He moved to Trail in 1949.

Jim is remembered by his friends as a
trade union supporter and one who
worked in his own way for a more pro-
gressive society. A memorial service was
held in the Steelworkers Hall in Trail.

*x* *

t wouldn’t be too much of an exaggera-

tion to say that having someone from
the Fraser Institute involved in planning ~
your city would be a bit like inviting a bull
to help rearrange a china shop. Particu-
larly when one recalls what one Walter
Block, an economist and author with the
very right wing think tank, had to say
about matters relating to planning —
housing, heritage preservation and rent
controls — to Vancouver city council a
few years ago.

Ald. Bruce Eriksen of the Committee of
Progressive Electors remembers. He
recalls that Block, in appearances before
council earlier in the decade, opposed an
anti-demolition bylaw designed to protect
existing low-rent housing for tenants, and
was equally strident in expressing the insti-
tute’s opposition to rent controls, which,
in time, were abolished by the Social
Credit government.

Now Eriksen reports that the Fraser
Institute’s assistant director, Sally Pipes, has
been appointed to council’s Citizens Plan- |
ning Commission, While an advisory ©
group, it does have considerable influence
on the city departments responsible for
recommending to council which building
— high rise office tower or needed social
housing — should go where. The com-

mission has a strong role to play in making

Vancouver a liveable, or unlivable, city.
We trust that Mayor Gordon Campbell,
who recommended Pipes to the commis-
sion, will recall this. We think the china
shop needs more considerate arranging
than that offered by the Fraser Institute, —
which routinely advocates charging
through anything — rent controls, labour
legislation or human rights — that stands

4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 17, 1988