February 19, 1990

It was Valentine’s Day, so corporate Canada received hearts
and big cheques from a loving Brian Mulroney.

It all happened on the steps of Noranda mining corporation’s
downtown Vancouver office tower during the “Stop the Sweet-

Labour Forum, page 12

heart Deal” demonstration organized by the B.C. Coalition
Against “Free” Trade on Feb. 14.
Actor Craig Berggold, sporting a smokestack top hat and an

zx

y gift at anti-GST rally Wednesday.

excessive theatrical paunch, received giant valentines and card-
board cheques bearing the amounts of corporate deferred taxes
and government grants at the rally to protest the Tory govern-
ment’s proposed Goods and Services Tax.

“We don’t have a deficit because spending is too high. We
have a deficit because Tory and Liberal governments have been
allowing corporations and the rich to pay less and less,” said
speaker Blair Redlin, a researcher for the Canadian Union of
Public Employees.

see CORPORATE page 3

Millions
welcome
Mandela

release

Thousands packed the square and steps
outside Cape Town town hall Feb. 11 to mark
history as African National Congress leader
Nelson Mandela spoke following his release
from 27 years of incarceration by South Afri-
ca’s racist regime. As the setting sun bathed
the speaker and the throng in amber, the
person who became a symbol of liberation
around the world spoke of the tasks ahead in
the fight to erase apartheid. The following is
the full text of his speech.

Amandla! Amandla! i-Afrika, mayi-
buye! (Power! Power! Africa it is ours!)

My friends, comrades and fellow South
Africans, I greet you all in the name of
peace, democracy and freedom for all. I
stand here before you not as a prophet but
as a humble servant of you, the people.

Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have
made it possible for me to be here today. I
therefore place the remaining years of my
life in your hands.

Vancouver celebration, page 2

On this day of my release, I extend my
sincere and warmest gratitude to the mil-
lions of my compatriots and those in every
corner of the globe who have campaigned
tirelessly for my release.

I extend special greetings to the people of
Cape Town, the city which has been my
home for three decades. Your mass marches
and other forms of struggle have served as a
constant source of strength to all political
prisoners.

see WITH FREEDOM page 9

Emergency action urged to counter secret report

Fishermen’s representatives at news conference Feb 9. from left: Geo
Pacific Trollers; Linda Johanson, Northern Trollers, Dawn Strandberg, independ-
ent fishermen; Dunc Shields, UFAWU; Ron Willis, Gulf Trollers.

The president of the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers Union last week
called for an emergency conference of
organizations in the fishing industry as
well as Native and environmental groups
to hammer out an alternative policy to
Vision 2000, a secret Department of
Fisheries strategy to privatize the fisheries
resource. :

“Vision 2000 would mean the destruc-
tion of coastal communities and threaten
the survival of fish stocks,” UFA WU pres-
ident Jack Nichol told reporters at a news
conference Feb. 12. “It is a blueprint for
the privatization of common property
resources like our wild salmon and
C herring.”

Nichol’s call followed a news confer-
ence Feb. 9:in which an ad hoc coalition of
fishermen’s organizations released a leaked
copy of the secret DFO report, calling itan

rge English,

“absolute disaster for fishermen.”
“They're (the DFO) saying, when it
comes right down to it, by the year 2000,
the fishing industry on the British Colum-
bia coast will be owned by the private
sector,” declared prawn fisherman and
UFA WU representative Dunc Shields. He
was joined at the news conference by
Pacific Trollers Association representative
George English, Linda Johansen from the
Northern Trollers Association, independ-
ent fishermen Dawn Strandberg and Ron
Willis from the Gulf Trollers Association.
In a report, formally entitled, Vision
2000: A Vision of the Pacific Fisheries at
the Beginning of the 21st Century, and
dated June, 1989, the DFO emphasizes
that the fisheries resource on the west
coast is under increasing pressure and
proposes drastic cuts in the “killing capac-
see SECRET page 12

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