Major issues including grain transportation, biotechnology, farm income and international trade will highlight the agenda as UGG holds its 93rd Annual Members' Meeting, November 3-4, 1999 at the Lombard Hotel in Winnipeg. The meeting will bring together about 175 farmer delegates from across Western Canada.
ACTION AGAINST RACISM
A unique set of community, business and broadcast partners are coming together today to launch the Unite Against Racism campaign, the largest and most diverse anti-racism campaign of its kind in Canadian history. ``We want to engage Canadians in a national dialogue about racism,'' says the Honourable Lincoln Alexander, chair of the Foundation and a former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. ``We want Canadians to fight racism wherever it rears its ugly head - in schools , in hockey rinks, in workplaces, and on the street.''
The launch of the ``See people for who they really are. Unite Against Racism.'' campaign will be held in Toronto on: November 4, 1999 at 1:30 p.m. in the Atrium of the CBC Broadcast Centre 250 Front Street West Toronto
Negotiations aimed at creating the largest
free trade area in the world has wrapped up the first
of two days of meetings in Toronto Wednesday. trade
ministers from 34 countries are trying to work out a
new free trade agreement for the Americas.
``We're tired of being excluded'' said Bob White
of the Canadian Labour Congress during the opening day of the parallel trade
forum, Our Americas: Towards a People's Vision of the Hemisphere.
``It's been too long that we've watched trade ministers, finance
ministers and other leaders meet on trade agreements while labour, human
rights and civil society is always left on the outside''.
Scheduled to parallel the 5th Free Trade of the
Americas Ministers Meeting, ``Our Americas: Toward a Peoples' Vision of the
Hemisphere'' will bring together hundreds of prominent community, labour and
human rights activists from Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Colombia,
Peru, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Venezuela, Ecuador and other countries.
As trade ministers convene to negotiate a hemispheric version of NAFTA,
``Our Americas'' participants will meet to propose a model based on improving
respect for human rights, labour standards and democratic participation. The
``Our Americas'' conference provides government with the opportunity to prove
that meaningful consultation is a viable and necessary component of any
successful multilateral trade agreement.
The rights of workers and environmental protections
should be part of any new free-trade agreement, an international coalition of
labour and community activists urged Tuesday.
The coalition issued the challenge to trade ministers from 34 countries who
are meeting in Toronto this week to discuss setting up an expanded
free-trade zone stretching from the Arctic to Argentina by 2005.
"Shouldn't we have the right to refuse to import products made with child
labour?" said Sheila Katz of the Canadian Labour Congress.
"We don't have that right under the North American Free Trade
Agreement," she said. "That's considered a barrier to trade."
Trade ministers of the Western hemisphere hope to take a step closer to the creation of a giant
Americas free trade zone when they meet this week in Toronto, unveiling a pact to simplify customs procedures from north to
south in the hemisphere.
International envoys who will meet in Canada this
week to negotiate free trade in the Americas received a ghastly welcome
Sunday as protesters staged a Halloween rally against the initiative.
"We're here to try and scare away the evil trade demons about to enter our
city," organizer Helen Kennedy told about 200 demonstrators, some
dressed up as skeletons and goblins for an event billed as Trick or Treaties?
"We're here today to expose the (Free Trade Area of the Americas) as a
corporate trick that is being played on the people of the Americas," said
Kennedy, chairwoman of the Metro Network for Social Justice, an ad hoc
coalition.
Several Latin American leaders of the trade union
movement were detained for hours at Toronto's Pearson Airport late Wednesday
evening as they arrived in Canada to attend the Labour Forum of the Americas,
a meeting sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress to discuss workers and
human rights.
Sweatshops, Free Trade and the Americas Public Forum
Tuesday, November 2, 1999
7:30 p.m -- City Room, Metro Hall
55 John Street, Toronto
Public Event -- FREE
A mock fashion show will kick off a public
forum on SWEATSHOPS, FREE TRADE AND THE AMERICAS, aimed at highlighting
the plight of women workers in the free trade zones of Central America and
Mexico who produce much of the clothing Canadians purchase.
Ottawa unsettled as WTO strikes
down Auto Pact
CLC On International Trade Agreements A Study Prepared by Sheila Katz & Chris Rosene for the Canadian
Labour Congress (CLC) and Human Resources development Canada
April, 1999 Ottawa, Ontario
NAFTA TRADE CORRIDOR CONFERENCE
FREE TRADE IN THE AMERICAS MEETING IN TORONTO---LABOUR HOLDS COUNTER CONFERENCE
1.Background
2.Calender of Events
3.Policy Papers
Ten years after Canada negotiated a free trade deal with the United States, and
five years after Mexico was brought into the fold, the next stage is taking shape
in Toronto this week.
"I believe the road we are following towards a Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas is the right road," Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said in a speech
opening the Americas Business Forum on Monday.
CLC, Council of Canadians, Sierra Club and others hold press conference in Ottawa Today, Wed. October 20.
Canadian organizations opposed to the
launching of a new round of global trade talks plan to kick off their
campaign today in Ottawa.
The Council of Canadians and the Canadian Labour Congress will
be among 40 Canadian non-government agencies that want to stall
the new talks to be launched late next month in Seattle by the World
Trade Organization.
Earlier, the Canadian groups joined about 1,100 organizations in 87
countries that signed a declaration calling for the postponement of
talks because of concerns they may undermine national sovereignty.
Half of the problem trucks were American; the
other half were from Quebec. The common
factor was they tended to be run by
independent operators.
he federal and
provincial governments are being urged to
spend much more on improving Canada's
roads and railways or risk losing trade,
investment -- and jobs.
Canada's mayors and business people are
discussing the issue at a trade corridors
conference in Niagara Falls this week.
A national safety group said today that Canadian
regulators and the Canadian trucking industry are proposing to downgrade
trucking safety rules in Canada far below those that prevail in the United
States, our major trading partner.
Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways (CRASH) was responding to
participation this morning at a NAFTA trade conference in Niagara Falls by
Canadian Transport Minister David Collenette and the chief Canadian trucking
industry lobbyist, David Bradley.
NO TO WTO
In the hotbed of Canada's populist right, the Alberta Taxpayers Federation is responding favourably to Finance Minister Paul Martin's speech Tuesday on the federal surplus. Reaction is similar in other parts of the country. But with numbers so rosy, it's hard to complain. Martin projects Ottawa will have a $95 billion surplus in five years, and said he plans to introduce a multi-year tax reduction plan in the next budget.
The Toronto Board of Trade applauds the Federal Government's plans to reduce employment insurance premiums and looks forward to implementation of the Minister's promise to reduce personal income tax. ``The Toronto Board of Trade has been urging Ottawa to reduce Canada's debt and cut taxes for a number of years,'' says Elyse Allan, President and CEO of The Toronto Board of Trade. ``Today's economic statement tells all Canadians the Government has the fiscal flexibility to improve our quality of life and strengthen the economy.''
NEWSWORLD
COVERAGE:
LIVE: Coverage of
Martin's speech,
Tuesday 3 pm ET
"Unless Ontario and the federal government agree
on a joint strategic plan and funding mechanism to upgrade the province's
highways and border crossings, Ontario-US trade, which accounts for about 40%
of the provincial gross domestic product (GDP), will be slowly strangled,"
says David Bradley, president of the Ontario Trucking Association.
Bradley will be speaking this morning to Canadian and US business and
government leaders at the Trade Corridors Conference in Niagara Falls. Other
speakers at the conference include federal transport minister, David
Collenette.
A shipment of medical supplies destined for Cuba successfully crossed the border from New York State into Quebec, say organizers. "It went really well," Jacques Boivin, spokesman for the Quebec-Cuba friendship caravan, said Saturday.
The draft version of a new United Church book of service has sparked protest from conservatives in Canada's largest Protestant denomination, who complain it reflects radical feminist ideology and a gay and lesbian agenda.
A government-funded citizens' committee formed to propose clean-up solutions for the Sydney tar ponds has become so mired in internal conflicts that some members say it should be scrapped. The Joint Action Group, known as JAG, was formed three years ago to address one of Canada's worst toxic sites after Ottawa spent $55-million on an aborted clean-up effort. The group is made up of mostly community volunteers, with representatives from the three levels of government. Lately, much of its time has been consumed by complaints to an ethics committee about members' behaviour.
Canada, often the boy scout on the world scene, undoubtedly thought it was doing the right thing when it offered in 1996 to burn weapons-grade plutonium, fallout from superpower disarmament agreements. But the good deed from the heart of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is turning into a glowing hot potato. Environmentalists say it will provide countries that have bought nuclear power plants from Canada with a blueprint with which to tap their own plutonium supplies to build nuclear weapons.
The draft version of a new United Church book of service has sparked protest from conservatives in Canada's largest Protestant denomination, who complain it reflects radical feminist ideology and a gay and lesbian agenda.
Animal-rights extremists have launched a campaign frighteningly similar to one operated out of Vancouver a few years ago. University researchers across North America who use animals in their research have been warned to watch for booby-trapped packages in the mail. In the past two months, people in the fur business, mostly in Newfoundland, have received envelopes containing razor blades. Police in Vancouver who investigate terrorist groups say the campaign has "striking similarities" to one run out of Vancouver, allegedly by two men now facing criminal charges.The "Justice Department" has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist actions in B.C. Former Bear Watch members David Barbarash and Daren Thurston, both of Vancouver, are to go on trial next June in B.C. Supreme Court for allegedly mailing razor blades to hunting guides, furriers and others in the fur trade from late 1995 to '97
Canada and International News on the campaign against the privatization of Water.
Nearly half of Ontario's Grade 3 and 6 students are turning in test results that fall below provincial standards, but stakeholders - parents, teachers and government - can't agree on what that means.
If you're determined, as the government of Premier Mike Harris seems to be, to make teachers the scapegoat for what's wrong in education today, you're not about to give them credit for anything that's right. The latest round involves co-operative education for secondary school students. To listen to the government, you'd think it invented the concept. You'd think teachers have to be told one of the most important tasks they face is helping students become self-motivated, problem-solving, independent learners with workplace experience.
``Ontario's elementary teachers should be congratulated for their commitment to the improvement of student achievement,'' says Phyllis Benedict, President of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO). ``While the first year of the grade six assessment serves as a baseline for future results, the grade three assessments clearly demonstrate that teachers have used earlier results to improve student learning. This has happened in spite of the EQAO's findings that 39% of Grade 3 and 64% of Grade 6 classrooms had over 25 students.''
The Alberta government will push through controversial private hospitals legislation next spring no matter the outcry because people are suffering, Premier Ralph Klein said Saturday. "The time has come," Klein told reporters at the party's annual policy convention. "The situation is quite critical relative to the waiting lists that we're experiencing. We've got to find new ways to deliver services." Klein said the province will look at contracting out work for specific surgeries like hip replacements, noting that health authorities are already contracting out day surgeries and long-term care.
A delegation of Saskatchewan and Manitoba farm groups and politicians, led by premiers Roy Romanow and Gary Doer, was blindsided in its attempt to secure federal farm aid. The group was asking for $1.3 billion by the end of December. But during a meeting Thursday with prime minister Jean Chretien the two premiers were told the government has new farm income projections that show the crisis won't be as severe as predicted earlier this year. However, federal officials wouldn't provide the numbers to the provinces. "I found the day at best confusing and at worst upsetting," Romanow told the delegation.
The miserly federal response to Western Canada's farm crisis is all about politics, says NDP agriculture critic Dick Proctor. "(There are) not a lot of votes for them (the ruling federal Liberals) in areas where it seems to be hitting worst," he said, adding, "I don't even like saying this out loud." If the Grits have to provide extra support, they're going to do it in areas where they can get a "return on investment" -- and that is Ontario and Quebec, he said.
Farmers who fear an assault against the Canadian Wheat Board's marketing powers are looking to Ralph Goodale for help. They are hoping the minister responsible for the wheat board will be on their side when the federal cabinet begins debating proposals put forward by Arthur Kroeger. Those proposals include ending the board's role in grain transportation, a move that the board and its supporters say would make it impossible for the agency to market grain effectively. "Certainly we would see him as an ally," said Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, which opposes the idea of taking the board completely out of grain transportation.
The Alberta Grain Commission (AGC) strongly believes that the Kroeger recommendations for changes to Canada's grain handling and transportation system are a win for farmers and urges government and industry to move on with implementing the recommendations.
The federal government, under attack from almost all sides in the debate, has signaled that it is rethinking its proposals to legislate new food safety and inspection rules. What was supposed to be a non-controversial bill has emerged from the legislative oven as a political hot potato that has two ministers on the defensive over allegations the bill would diminish the credibility of the food safety system. Health and environmental critics, supported by some opposition MPs, are campaigning to have the bill killed.
A survey of grain companies and canola crushers shows there are no plans to offer premiums or discounts for canola based on whether the seed is genetically modified or not. But Monsanto, which sponsored the survey, and the Canola Council of Canada note the market and regulatory environment are in flux and what was true at the time of the survey could change in the future.
Small business owners and managers have the highest job-satisfaction rate in the country, says a new survey done for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Scotiabank. The Goldfarb Consultants survey, released Friday, found 92 per cent of small business owners and self-employed people were happy in their work, followed by employees of small firms (fewer than 50 people). Lowest on the workplace satisfaction scale were public sector employees, at 70 per cent. The numbers tell a story that's been lost in big business' shouting about brain drain and productivity, CFIB Alberta director Brad Wright said. "Big business keeps harping about brain drain. These numbers are proof that quality in your work life, quality of management, attitude of the owner transmitted to the staff mean more than a one-dimensional pay package," Wright said.
A campaign against the war and the practice of slavery in Sudan is gathering force among Sudanese exiles and their supporters in Canada and the United States. Increasingly, it is focusing on Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc., Canada's largest independent oil producer, which has a 25-per-cent stake in a rich Sudanese oil project. Talisman says it is introducing "North American ideas, standards and values" to a poor northeastern African land. Ms. Ajang says that's rubbish. She says the oil project helps to perpetuate the domination of Christians like herself and other southern Sudanese by Muslims from the north. She wants Talisman to get out. "I would like Canada to be the best friend of the south," she said. "If Talisman would leave immediately, the [Sudanese] government would try to investigate, will find out the reason and will know why the Canadians left." In Ottawa and in Washington, they are listening to people like Ms. Ajang.
Victoria Ajang appeared before a U.S. congressional subcommittee in May to tell the story of her ordeal in Sudan. Here is an excerpt from her written submission as it appears on the American Anti-Slavery Group's Web site.
Petro-Canada joined four other major oil companies Friday, putting For Sale signs on huge chunks of western Canadian oil properties.
THE BANK of Montreal's announced plans to eliminate 1,400 jobs is the latest signal from Canadian banks that they are in the midst of downsizing their payrolls. Altogether, it seems likely that the major banks will eliminate at least 12,500 positions over the next year, and probably even more, with many of those job losses in Toronto.
WORKFARE: THE ATTACK ON THE POOR
In her watershed report on homelessness, Anne Golden made it clear that the city needs more affordable housing. But her report said the city must also protect the affordable housing it already has. Clearly, Toronto's desperate shortage of cheap housing will get worse if apartment units are converted into condominiums or torn down. The city once had the power to restrict such demolitions and conversions. The provincial government stripped the city of this right when it passed the Tenant Protection Act in 1998.
Is the veil worn by Muslim women a symbol of gender oppression, or merely a piece of cloth? That question dominated a conference on Arab women at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal yesterday, as the hijab's defenders and detractors engaged in an impassioned exchange. Speakers at Unveiling our Minds: Challenges to Identity and Female Consciousness Among Arab Women in North America addressed the culture clash arising from the import of Arab traditions to Western societies, particularly those traditions affecting women.
Montreal is no longer Canada's largest or most prosperous city, but it has been without a doubt this century's most interesting city. In sports, politics, business and the arts, it is where many of the country's greatest heroes and leaders have come to the fore and, for better or for worse, where many of the country's defining moments have occurred. On these pages are an excerpt and a few pictures from Montreal's Century, a book of essays and more than 250 historic photographs that reviews some of the events and people who shaped the city. The excerpt is from a chapter written by Hubert Bauch.
The recent death of a student, who collapsed at an all-night rave in an abandoned factory in Toronto, might change how thousands of young people spend Saturday nights in Canada's most populous province. It was Ontario's third rave-related fatality in three months. It's suspected a drug overdose killed the university student who was just short of his 21st birthday.
In October of 1998, Stockholm played host to the world's largest gathering of world music artists, labels, presenters, journalists and enthusiasts: WOMEX '98. CBC Radio's Global Village was there covering the event � for CBC listeners in Canada and for Radio Canada International listeners around the world. They also developed the most comprehensive World Wide Web coverage that WOMEX had ever seen. In October 1999, WOMEX returns to its roots in the city that has reinvented itself � Berlin. WOMEX has reinvented itself too. Bigger and better than ever, WOMEX '99 will offer a world of music to delegates from all around the world all under one roof with a special emphasis on the music of Brazil. Forums and fun, showcases and schmoozing, debate and da-beats. Once again, Global Village will be there with the kind of innovative coverage that earned their WOMEX '98 show a Deutsche Welle Award for excellence in World Music Broadcasting. Global Village's special radio broadcast from Berlin on the Saturday night of the conference will take CBC and RCI listeners right to all the excitement of the biggest story in the world of music this season � and, starting October 25th and building throughout the conference, the Global Village WOMEX '99 website will take listeners, delegates and web-surfers places that radio can't go � with audio, video, graphics and information on new artists, the new WOMEX and the New Berlin. oin us in our regular timeslots on CBC Radio One and Radio Canada International on Saturday October 30th and from October 25th for the duration of the conference on the World Wide Web from the CBC Radio website at www.cbc.ca � just click where it says GLOBAL VILLAGE for your passport to Berlin, Germany and WOMEX '99.
The sale of the Vancouver Grizzlies franchise of the National Basketball Association hit a snag Friday in an dispute over whether the team can be moved to St. Louis and how quickly. A vote scheduled for Friday by NBA team owners on the Grizzlies' sale to billionaire Bill Laurie, whose wife is an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune, was postponed at the request of the team's current owner John McCaw.
Click here for NDP NEWS From a Left Opposition Perspective
Mr. Axworthy said he has long admired the canny, pragmatic brand of neoliberal politics practised by Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow, who was first elected in 1968. "The Premier is very much a Blair-ite and myself as well," he said, referring to the combination of neoliberal economic and social democratic policy espoused by the British Labour Party under Prime Minister Tony Blair. This platform, embraced by most of Europe's 15 socialist governments (only two of which were elected with more than 35 per cent of the popular vote), emphasizes increased competition and individual initiative: the joining of state, market and civil society. Government must steer the boat, not row it, Mr. Blair has said, describing this "Third Way."
After more than a month and much ballot counting, Manitoba's top court has determined a political rookie will represent a west Winnipeg riding. New Democrat Jim Rondeau was declared the official winner in the riding of Assinboia by 4,347 votes to 4,344 over Conservative incumbent Linda McIntosh.
COMMENTARY
Comment by Judy Rebick
The United Alternative is dead. Long live bigotry and intolerance, Preston Manning seemed to be saying in his very long response to the Throne Speech. The real Preston Manning finally stood up. I half expected him to put his glasses back on midway through the extraordinary presentation. Manning demonstrated what the Progressive Conservative leadership has always known. Underneath that civil reserve lies a good old-fashioned Alberta redneck.
Page design � Copyright 1998 Eugene W. Plawiuk.
Contents are � Copyright the individual authors, or original sources that have been linked.
