EDITORIAL

Behind the 9.8 per cent

There’s more than meets the eye in the newly-

released jobless figures. Of course, the prime min-
ister with his minister of finance and employment
minister are trying to use the figures they quote as
a public relations coup for the government. Mul-
roney is crowing because, he says, “only” 9.8 per

cent of the Canadian workforce is unemployed

— officially some 1,347,000.

They point to 129,000 new jobs they say were
created in January (how many are permanent
and full-time?) and call it “tremendous.” Anyone
who has been through the unemployment mill
will be glad for people who have found jobs,
especially if they are real jobs. But the mass per-
manent unemployment of the capitalist system
remains, and what is momentarily “tremendous”
to Mulroney will be a temporary blip unless the
Feb. 26 budget comes up with programs to build

-the Canadian economy.

One program that suggests itself is a large-scale
affordable housing project — not dome stadi-

See ithappen

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s sweeping
proposals for the elimination of all the world’s
nuclear weapons by the year 2000 was given an
important and practical elaboration on Feb. 12.

Soviet arms control expert, Gen. Nikolai
Chervov, told West Berlin’s SFB television sta-
tion that the USSR will, in the event of an agree-
ment with the U.S. to remove all U.S. and Soviet
missiles from Europe, destroy its SS-20 missiles
on the spot. They will not be moved elsewhere,
leaving the worry that they might be used some-
time later.

“They will be destroyed under painstaking and
reliable national and international control,
including inspections on site and on the spot,”
said Chervov.

Once again, it is an offer the U.S. should snap |

up.

ums, or condominiums for the rich folks, or yup-
pie high rises to grab up the park areas and
waterfronts. Government-sponsored affordable
housing is needed by a record number of low and
middle income families and singles. The building,
equipping and servicing would create at the same
time jobs in a wide range of occupations.

Many other steps the government could take to
alleviate mass unemployment have been pointed
out to Ottawa over the years by the labor move-
ment, the Communist Party, the New Demo-
crats, and many other concerned groups. For

. these steps to be taken requires a people’s budget,

not a monopoly budget from Finance Minister
Michael Wilson.

To go back for a moment to the “spectacular”
improvement in the unemployment situation,
one recalls a wry comment that has been around
for years: I’m not unemployed, just seasonally
adjusted. It comes to mind as the jobless rate
reportedly drops from 10 per cent in December to
9.8 per cent in January. In fact, 143,000 fewer
Canadians had jobs in January. »

It’s all done with seasonal adjustment. January
is notoriously bad for employment. So statisti-
cians adjust figures to allow for that abnormality.
If January is less grim than anticipated the
adjustment gives us a plus instead of a minus.

That doesn’t take into account the underem-

ployed, or those forced into part-time work
because no full-time jobs are available. Toward

_ the end of 1985 there were 1.9 million part-time

workers.

Despite. Mulroney’s joy, the jobless rate in
January for those aged 15-24 was 15.9 per cent. In
addition several provinces are far from the 9.8 per
cent Canadian figure — such as Newfoundland
with 20 per cent and British Coumbia with about

15 per cent.

_ When the Tory ecstasy over the new figures has
run its course, Mulroney will find the working
people still battling for real jobs, defended against
the negative activities of U.S. multinationals.

: duic [niet
“But Jimmy was only talking about the school’s poster contest,
planning any violence. His slogan is ‘grow up, don’t blow up:

MacMillan Bloedel, one of North America’s biggest fores'
ducts companies, managed to harvest a $42.9-million aft
profit for the year ended Dec. 31/85. Looks like MacBlo is out
woods, so to speak, after a mere $19.3-million a/t/p a year e

oe

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t’s intriguing that in all their zeal to com-
plete an agreement with the U.S., the
Tory free-traders have studiously avoided
_any reference to a study that was carried
out eight years ago by the Senate Standing

area of trade deficit with the U.S. whi

People and Issues 22m cer sas

glimpse of the reactionary motives that '
Tories and their free trade support?

Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by
Senator George van Roggen, entitled
Canada’s Trade Relations with the United
States.

Perhaps the study hasn’t been entirely
forgotten — Donald Macdonald did,
after all, talk about a “leap of faith” in
urging free trade. Possibly what he had in
mind was leaping blithely over the for-
midable hurdles that the study suggested
would have to be overcome before any
free trade agreement would be anything
but detrimental to Canada.

Interestingly enough, the Senate study,
in its final recommendations, did suggest
that Candaa should seek bilateral free
trade. But that recommendation also
required a leap of faith because the prob-
lems that the study pointed to could only
lead any informed person to the conclu-
sion that free trade would be a disaster.
And the arguments against free trade that
are raised today — and just as quickly
dismissed by Tory adherents as nothing
but left-wing nationalist nonsense — were
then being raised by the likes of Franklin
McCarthy, then president of DuPont
Corporation and Stelco president J.D.
Allan.

One thing the study could not avoid
noticing was a problem that has grown
even worse in recent years: the decline of
manufacturing in Canada and the move-

ment of plants to the U.S. and elsewhere.

Said the study: “Its most disturbing symp-
tom has been the shift of manufacturing
capacity from Canada to the United
States, the result of declining competitive-
ness and reduced tariff protection. This is
a development which, if unchecked, can
only lead to the eventual de-industrial-
ization.”

Strong — and prophetic — words. But
McCarthy of DuPont added more: “Free

’ trade,” he said, “will result in the tendency
to locate activities in the United States —

...and will mean the inevitable slow death
of the company in Canada.”

R.W. Chorlton of Wajax Corporation
stated that any further reduction in the
tariff on machinery would lead to the
eventual closing of many U.S.-owned
machinery plants in Canada.

Even the study itself warned that many
industries would “suffer a sharp decline of
output and employment.” It added: “On
the economic side; the weak competitive
position of the Canadian economy would
result,...in serious dislocation of Cana-
dian secondary manufacturing.” =

Fortunately, despite the report’s

recommendations, the Liberal govern- —

ment of the day rejected the course of free
trade, correctly arguing that it would lead
to economic annexation by the U.S. In
fact, the study quotes then external
affairs minister Mitchell Sharp as arguing
that the process, once begun, would be

irreversible, leading progressively from
free trade through customs union to polit-
ical union.

Unquestionably, the situation for manu-
facturing is far worse in 1986 than it was in
1978 — and decline in plant capacity has
been coupled with problems in agriculture

and the forest industry where dependence -

on a single market through free trade has
created new problems and increasing
unemployment. So why the ‘hell is free
trade back on the agenda?, you ask.

For one thing, there is a Tory govern-
ment in power which, like its Socred coun-
terpart in this province, has long coveted
continental economic integration with the
US.

’ But that 1978 report also hints at a
couple of other réasons that were apparent
even then. One, it noted, was labor costs:

“Bilateral free trade should now be per-.

ceived as a discipline to hold Canadian
wage rates in line.”

The other was that favorite stock phrase
of the Fraser Institute: “international
competitiveness.” According to the Senate
committee and several business leaders
who appeared before it, “Canada needs
the discipline of international competition
to retain competitive industries.”

Couple those reasons with the interests
of the military-industrial establishment

‘which wants to cash in on the Star Wars
_ bonanza (defence production is the one

have in whipping up the stampé
towards free trade. Cutting wages
social programs, rationalizing “uncomp
itive” industries so that takeover 4
greater monopoliziation result, and ©
centrating more on military product!
— those are all on the free trade
agenda.
It should be dumped now even m
emphatically than it was dumped in 19
Cae, eee os.
or years, Sylvia Lowe and her husba
Stan, have been among the most
scientious of the Tribune’s volunteer m4
ers and it would usually take nothing si
of a major calamity to prevent them ©
ing in mailing day. So it was almost ap?
getically that Stan called us up last we
tell us that Sylvia had been rushed to
pital early in the morning Feb. 6 ha’
suffered a stroke.
He assures us now that, although itt
tially caused some paralysis, she |
regained much of the lost functions am!
beginning on the road to recovery.
not sure how long she expects to re

‘hospital but it’s likely to be several da

and in the meantime, she’d appred
receiving visitors. She in Vancouver G
eral’s Heather Pavilion, Ward C-3, RO
309.

All of us at the Tribune join in
her a speedy and full recovery.

4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 19, 1986

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