D> maphonins STM,

_ Country being absorb-

Conference of the

_ Work hammered out

_BRITISH COLUMBIA

Sale threat to gas rates, services

Continued from page 1

© All but two of the forest ministry’s tree
nurseries;

© The sales and marketing divisions of
the Queen’s Printer;

© Riverview Hospital, slated to go toa

non-profit operator.
_ Vander Zalm also sketched in the out-
lines of the second phase, citing liquor stores
With less than 10 employees and govern-
ment warehouses, distribution centres and
Store operations as the next targets for pri-
Vatization.

He called the program “privatization
With a purpose — to create economic
development.”

But within hours of his speech, one of the
Companies lining up to take over B.C.
Hydro’s gas division showed up the Socred
Plan for what it is — a program to hand
Over public enterprises to corporate inter-
€sts for profit.

Inland Natural Gas, which held its
annual general meeting just two hours after

ander Zalm’s speech, announced at the
Meeting that it would be in the running for
the gas division when it is privatized, which
IS expected to be some time next March. The
Company claimed that the timing was coin-
cidental but had earlier issued press releases
advising that reporters would have time
after the speech to come to the AGM, which
hormally would not be a newsworthy event.
_ The Financial Post noted Oct. 19 that the
likely front-runners for the gas operations
Would be Inland and Peter Toigo, the multi-
Millionaire owner of the White Spot and
Kentucky Fried Chicken chains. Toigo, a
Close confidante of Vander Zalm’s, is on the
Premier’s special privatization advisory
Committee.

Other companies which might seek to
grab the gas division are Utilicorp, the
Kansas-based company which took over
Kootenay Power and Light, and Inter-City
Gas in Winnipeg which will soon be giving
up its Winnipeg gas distribution operations
to a new Manitoba Crown corporation.

To sweeten his company’s bid, Inland
president Bob Kadlec claimed that consu-
mers might get lower prices if Inland
became the owner.

But recent experience with deregulation
indicates. that while industrial users might
get a break, residential consumers will inev- ,
itably pay more under private ownership.
Worse, they’ll pay more for electricity as a
result of splitting off the profitable gas div-
ision from B.C. Hydro and will almost cer-
tainly lose the free services now provided by
B.C. Hydro. :

The gas division last year made $26 mil-
lion profit which, together with the revenue
from power exports, enables B.C. Hydro to
operate in the black. Without the subsidy
from the gas division, electricity rates would
inevitably rise.

In addition, the gas division avoids con-
siderable administrative overhead costs by
its connection to Hydro — costs which
would be have to be borne by gas consu-
mers if the division were privatized and a
separate entity created. Similarly, the pri-
vate owners would no longer be entitled to
the income tax exemption which B.C.
Hydro gets as a public utility — and the
added tax burden would be passed on to
consumers.

Coincidentally, the provincial govern-
ment has launched a review of natural gas
royalties, prompted by company com-

plaints that prices are too low. The results

promise to reduce natural gas revenues to
the province at the same time that the public
sector gas distribution division is being sold
off to the private sector.

So far, no one has put a name in to take
over B.C. Hydro’s rail division — which
made a profit of $2 million last year — but
Burlington Northern has been seen as a
possibility. The U.S. company is closely
integrated with B.C. Hydro’s rail division
and currently uses the Crown corporation’s
rail lines.

In his announcement, Vander Zalm
sought to put a gloss of “employee owner-
ship” over the privatization of such
government services as highways main-
tenance — services which currently pro-
vide vital jobs in many B.C. communities.

The B.C. Government Employees Union
has warned that thousands of jobs could be
affected, with many public sector workers
laid off and many others stripped of their
union agreements. “And the only people
who stand to gain will be friends of Premier

Network mobilizes against free

By BRUCE YORKE
The people of
Canada are mobiliz-
Mg to save our

€d by the United
States through the
So-called “free trade”
deal.

Last weekend in
Ottawa a two-day

YORKE

‘short-term program of action and laid the
asis for an extended battle against the
“mbryonic agreement. The conference fol-
Owed the national convention of the Coun-
“il of Canadians headed by Edmonton
Publisher Mel Hurtig.
The composition of the Pro-Canada

0-Canada_ Net-

Network includes all the major people’s
_ Stganizations in the country. It was origi-

Nally formed on the initiative of the Council

_ °f Canadians in opposition to the Ottawa

Visit last spring by U.S. President Ronald
€agan. :

(The Pro-Canada Network’s most active
Member is the Canadian Labour Congress
and its affiliates, followed closely by the
~Ouncil of Canadians. Playing an increas-
'Ngly important role are the following
National organizations: the Alliance of

Nadian Cinema,Radio and Television

Ttists, the Assembly of First Nations,
GATT-FLY (National Inter-Church Coali-

©n for Economic Justice), the National

Action Committee on the Status of

Omen, the Coalition Quebecois D’Oppo-

‘ition au Libre-Echange, the Canadian
achers Federation, the Toronto Coali-
©n Against Free Trade, the National
armers Union, the National Anti-Poverty

Organization and One-Voice (the Canadian

Seniors Network).

The immediate program of the network

includes the following:

© A massive educational and publicity
campaign to expose. the real nature of the
Mulroney-Reagan “free trade” deal. The
recent two-page advertisement inserted by
the Canadian Auto Workers in all major
Canadian newspapers is a beginning. Also
in the works is a comprehensive alternative
economic program for Canada, stressing
the home market, the development of
“nation-building” projects and trade with
all the world, including the socialist coun-
tries.

@ Regional conferences of local Pro-
Canada Network member groups aim to
equip the leaders of these organizations
with the details of the sellout and to mobil-
ize local opposition. To facilitate this the.
network, through Ottawa academic and
author Donald Cameron, will provide par-
ticipating organizations copies of the
agreement as soon as it is released along
with an explanatory critique.

Through an “imaginative method” net-
work members plan to present the Gover-
nor General at his Ottawa residence Noy.
12 the thousands upon thousands of signa-
tures already collected on the petition
demanding that the deal not proceed prior
to the holding of a national election.

© Concerted pressure on the provincial
premiers to get them to reject the sellout.
The U.S. government has stipulate the
agreement of all the provinces because they
control natural resources, prior to the sign-
ing of an agreement. Already the premiers
of Ontario, Manitoba and Prince Edward
Island have stated their opposition. The
remaining three Maritime premiers have
serious reservations and can be persuaded
to oppose the deal. :

A big opportunity to pressure the provin-
cial premiers will be on the occasion of the
next First Ministers Conference in Toronto
Nov. 26-27. The Toronto Coalition Against
Free Trade has undertaken to organize pro-

tests for the occasion, and a giant rally is a
possibility.

The two-day working meeting of the Pro-
-Canada Network followed the important
national convention of the Council of Can-
adians. At this convention NDP leader Ed
Broadbent delivered a ringing speech cal-
ling for the defence of the country’s sover-
eignty and an election. He backed thaf with
a pledge that his party as government would
abrogate any free trade deal the Conserva-
tives might sign.

Liberal Party free trade critic and former
cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy also con-
demned the deal, but could not commit his
party to the election call and the abrogation
pledge. Since then Liberal leader John
Turner has moved closer to an anti-free
trade position, telling reporters Oct. 25 his
government would “not be bound” by a
free trade agreement signed by the present
government.

Many important left-liberals attended the
Council of Canadians convention, includ-
ing former key civil servants. They provided
many details exposing the so-called “free
trade” deal as an attempt to bring all of
Canada within the orbit of the massive pro-
tectionist structure of the U.S. economy.

George Ignatief, who negotiated the last
free-trade arrangement for Canada under
the United Nations-General Agreement on
Trades and Tariffs auspices, gave a stirring
Speech to the convention on the Saturday
before Monday’s stock market crash.

Ignatief warned the delegates that it was
€conomic suicide to tie Canada’s economy
to the Americans’, which he noted is in steep
decline. He detailed the U.S.’ sharp drop in
the world’s trading picture and its emer-
gence as the world’s biggest debtor nation in
the past five years, and called for a radical
reorientation of Canada’s trading pattern,
urging preference for the European Com-
mon Market and the Pacific Rim — noting
in particular the socialist markets in China

Vander Zalm who will make whirlwind
profits,” said BCGEU president John

Shields.

Although he clearly hopes his privatiza-
tion program will have the same steamroller
force that Prime minister Margaret
Thatcher’s had in Britain, Vander Zalm will
face additional difficulties that could but-
tress public opposition to the right wing

program.
In the first place, the stock market slide

has thrown doubt on all new share offer-

ings, having stalled privatization plans in
Japan, France and even Britain. Hundreds
of new share sales, drawn up amidst a rising
stock market, have now simply evaporated
as a result of the stock market plunge last
week.

In addition, selling off the gas and rail
divisions of B.C. Hydro would require
approval by the B.C. Utilities Commission
which, under the Utilities Commission Act,
must be satisfied that those served by the
utility will not be detrimentally affected.

trade deal

and the USSR. Ignatief said that many new
Opportunities were opening up to expand
trade with the USSR, particularly in light of
the new laws under perestroika.

The Council of Canadians convention
concluded with what was for most of its 300
delegates a first step — a demonstration.

On Saturday night they marched to the
Cenotaph near Parliament Hill with pla-
cards demanding that the Mulroney deal be
scrapped and an election held.

It is clear that the biggest battle in Cana-
dian political history is beginning to unfold.
Powerful corporate transnational forces
and their political representatives want to
absorb us into the declining American
empire. But the people of Canada are rally-
ing, and the weekend events in Ottawa are
the beginnings of a people’s coalition that
can block the various pro-U.S. deals, and
assure that our country’s independence,
successfully defended many times in our
history, will once again triumph.

Vancouver resident and Sormer alderman
Bruce Yorke attended the Council of Canadi-
ans and Pro-Canada Network conferences in
Ottawa last week.

Rally Nov. 18

Council of Canadians chairman
Mel Hurtig and Nancy Riche, execu-
tive vice-president of the Canadian
Labour Congress, will be the fea-
tured speakers in a rally against free
trade Nov. 18 sponsored by the
CLC, the B.C. Federation of
Labour and the Vancouver and
New Westminister labour councils.

The rally is set for 7:30 p.m. in the
John Oliver High School audito-
rium at 4Ist and Fraser in Van-

couver.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 28, 1987 ¢ 3

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