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 ae Te | :