EDITORIAL Endangering the north Speaking in Yellowknife, NWT, on March 22, Defence Minister Perrin Beatty said he “‘is pleased to make this announcement in keeping with the spirit of the Federal Action Force on Arctic Initiatives and the Government of the Northwest Territories Action Force on Economic Development.” Action Force on Arctic Initiatives! Action Force on Economic Develop- ment! Beatty’s listeners may have been excused for expecting him to unveil some breathtaking arctic economic development plan, some nation-building project to open up Canada’s north. Perhaps Beatty flew up there from Ottawa with his government’s strategy (and the resources) to address decades-old grievances, to settle land claims and recalculate real priorities for those who live in northern Canada and for the entire country. Action Force! Arctic Initiatives! Economic Development! These are strong, visionary concepts. - _ But what Beatty announced was both pitiful and shameful. Pitiful because all he offered in terms of “economic development and initiatives ” is that, with American guidance, his department has selected five northern airfields to be used as “forward operating locations” in NORAD’s modernization scheme. Bravo. Now arctic residents can rest comfortably, knowing that Inuvik, Yel- lowknife, Rankin Inlet, Igaluit and Kuujjuag will henceforth become first-line targets, sacrificed in the first seconds to Reagan’s dream of a first strike over the pole against the USSR. The news was shameful because it is clear Beatty, reflecting Tory policy, let the U.S. military dictate. He even said in his speech the locations were “jointly selected by Canada and the U.S.” and that the Americans will pay half of the “improvement costs.” The figure on this thirty pieces of silver wasn’t given. U.S. military planners have always regarded Canada as dispensable in their nuclear strategy. They view northern Canada as the battlefield over which missiles and nuclear-carrying bombers would engage, thus lessening the blow against the Good Old USA. These latest steps, so eagerly announced by Perrin Beatty, and couched in lies _ about economic development, are simply the further tightening of the U.S. military noose around Canada’s neck. Our sovereignty, independence and security were further endangered. With this announcement, Canada became just that much compromised and threa- tened. ‘HEAR NO EVIL SEE NO EVIL _ LcHRMAN FF 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 1Z5 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 f anybody has been watching the per- formance of the parliamentary commit- tee that has been studying the changes to the Patent Act covering prescription drugs, they could only be struck by how vehement the Tory members are in ram- ming the changes through over the opposi- tion of other parties and the majority of Canadians. In fact, they’re not just out- spoken in calling for the changes to be enacted, they verge on the operatic. For example, Bill Kempling, the Tory MP © from Burlington, refers to the generic drug manufacturers as “parasites” and comes close to bursting an already perilously stretched collar when he is talking about opponents of the government’s changes. If that reaction seemed somehow out of proportion to the issue, it didn’t after we heard the comments made by Larry Wark, a representative of the Canadian Auto- workers Union, when he was speaking to a conference in Halifax earlier this month. According to Wark, the removal of the 1969 changes to the Patent Act — which gave Canadian generic drug manufactur- ers the right to produce cheaper, generic copies of drugs developed by the big mul- tinationals by paying a licence fee — was the Number 3 item on U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s agenda when he came to Quebec City for the Shamrock Summit in March, 1985. “After that meeting, great pressure came to bear from American political leaders,” Wark noted. “At the end of 1986, U.S. vice-president George Bush was making comments to the effect that the Canadian government was not living up to its commitments. “U.S. chief trade negotiator Clayton Yeutter came out and made some heavy- handed comments. Then he sent Cana- dian Ambassador to the U.S. Alan Gottlieb home with the message: the U.S. found the Patent Act as offensive as the National Energy Program.” As a result, said Wark, the Tory government has become the “only government since 1969 which has finally knuckled under.” And judging by the Tory members on the committee, the government is not only eager to do the U.S. bidding, but will also trample on the rights of Canadians in the process. * * * lsewhere in this issue, readers will have seen the reports on the Socred budget which, despite all the populist double- speak that has come to typify the Vander Zalm government, hammers working people, seniors and the sick while relieving business of yet more of the tax burden. In framing that budget, Finance Minis- ter Mel Couvelier was perpetuating a pol- icy that has been the hallmark of Socred and Tory governments. And, according to figures supplied to us by Vancouver East NDP MLA Glen Clark, that shift in tax burden from corporate to personal taxes has been particularly dramatic over the last several years. In 1979, notes Clark, 39 cents out of every dollar received by the government came from personal taxes. But by 1985, that figure had gone up to 49 cents. People and Issues Significantly, during that same period, corporate taxes fell from 8.5 cents out of every dollar to a mere six cents. * * * Eres: editor Sean Griffin is one of three panelists who will be discussing the corporate media and the alternative at a forum sponsored by the Centre for Socialist Education scheduled for April 1. Entitled “The Role of the Corporate Media: What is the Alternative?” the forum will also be featuring Geoff Meggs, editor of the Fisherman, and Ron Johnson, editor of On The Level. It’s at 7:30 p.m.at the Maritime Labor Centre, 111 Victoria Drive, Vancouver. * * *. he’s earned the colleagues — and probably not a few of her opponents — during her long his- tory in the field of public education. And last week, her fellow members of the Brit- ish Columbia Teachers Federation decided to recognize those years with the federa- tion’s highest award. Dr. Pauline Weinstein — her friends call her Polly — became a recipient of the BCTF’s G.A. Ferguson Award at the fed- eration’s annual convention. The award is given for outstanding achievements in education. According to the members of respect of her- the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers Association and the Vancouver Secondary School Teachers Association, who recom- mended her for the award, Polly’s years of teaching in Vancouver’s secondary schools and teaching math curriculum and methodology at the University of B.C.’s - Faculty of Education more than qualified her. And, lest it be forgotten, her six years on the Vancouver School Board, during which she as chairman was fired along with the other trustees for daring to stand up to the provincial government’s education cut- backs, also won her respect and admira- tion within and without the education community. Maureen MacDonald, presi- dent of VESTA, reports that with the award Polly received a scrapbook contain- ing letters of praise from her colleagues. * * * aking part in a dog sled race from The Pas to Churchill, Man., isn’t some- thing that is a part of most of our readers’ backgrounds. That incident was, however, a feature of what must have been an inter- esting life for longtime Tribune reader and supporter, Arthur Gahan. Other than that intriguing piece of information, we know relatively little of the history of the Victoria area reader, who; sadly, died last month at the age of 81. Arthur was born in the United States and, orphaned at an early age, was adopted by a Manitoba family. He was a veteran of the 1935 On-to-Ottawa Trek and served in the Canadian Merchant Marine during World War II. In later life, Arthur was a fisherman and a delegate to the Victoria Labor Council. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 25, 1987 —