Wednesday, May 29, 1985
Newsstand Price 40° : Vol. 48, No. 20

Canada’s bread basket

Relief Camp Strikers have decided to con-
tinue the strike on a National scale in order to
bring before Premier Bennett and the people
of Canada the hopeless outlook for OUR BOYS
of the Forced Labor Relief Camp System.

A Mass Trek to Ottawa by Relief Camp
Strikers leaves via C.P.R. freight, foot of Gore
Avenue at 10 p.m. Monday, June 3rd.

You are asked to assemble at 10 p.m, at the
foot of Gore Avenue to give OUR BOYS a fare-
well send-off in their determined fight for the
right to live as human beings.

For .. . WORK AND WAGES
and AGAINST SLAVE LABOR

e

ALL OUT: FOOT OF GORE AVENUE

“40 P.M. MONDAY, JUNE Sra waving
)

Demand that McGeer, Pattullo and Bennett
keep their hands off Relief Camp Boys on
their trek to Ottawa.

EEEE__||_|=============

a rs
FOR WORK AND WAGES: THE TREK REMEMBERED
Fi June 3, more than 1,000 relief camp strikers clambered aboard CPR freight boxcars to begin the
Bn fod eek to take their demands to the Conservative government. Their audacious action and the continuing
struggle for work and wages are remembered in a special 12-page 50th anniversary supplement. And on page 12, the
delegation of former trekkers and unemployed which will symbolically complete the trek is finding that the current Tory
government is also reluctant to talk to the unemployed.

— page 6

People pay for corporate
breaks in Wilson budget

The federal government’s budget released
May 24 levelled a whammy at lower-income
Canadians and handed further tax breaks
to corporations and the wealthy. And worse
measures are likely in the works.

Despite Finance Minister Michael Wil-
son’s claim that the budget represented a
“break with the past,” the Conservatives’
economic plan continues the tradition Can-
ada’s pro-business governments have upheld
for decades. It reflects the monetarism
behind the B.C. Socreds’ financial planning,
as well as that of the U.S. Reagan adminis-
tration and the Thatcher government in the
United Kingdom.

If Wilson did not move as quickly nor as
far as Bennett in imposing his fiscal policies,
it was no doubt out of fear that doing so
might provoke on a national scale the kind
of response that produced the Solidarity
fightback against the Social Credit govern-
ment.

But the budget is nevertheless the begin-
ning of a step-by-step. process- that will
make corporations richer and middle and
low income Canadians considerably poorer.

Immediately, budget measures will add
an extra tax bite at income tax time, cut

Budget shows lie
behind election vows,
— page 5 —

incomes through a reduction in indexing
and impose sales tax hikes at the grocer’s
and the gas pumps.

There is a five per cent surtax on the
income tax of large corporations beginning
July 1 as well as a special tax on banks
which is effective Jan. 1, 1986 — both of
which were played up by Wilson to back up
his claim that all Canadians are being asked
to sacrifice.

But analysis of the figures over two years
show a dramatically different picture from
that presented by the Tories.

After a moderate rise of only some $85
million in 1985, corporate taxes will drop by
$540 million the following year as a result
of the repeal of the petroleum tax and other
measures introduced by the Tories.

In contrast, personal income taxes will
rise during that same period by a massive
$1.015 billion.

Further corporate tax breaks may be
available in the future as Wilson has pro-
posed cutting the corporate tax rate from 36
to 29 per cent

In British Columbia, labor has slammed
the budget as a further attack on workers’
jobs and living standards.

see UNEMPLOYMENT page 5

CP urges unity to defeat Socreds

— page 3

|
|
|
_j