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The Brussels Post, 1979-03-07, Page 2WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 1979 ONTAitio Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario By McLean Bros. Publishers Limited Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each. , a 111111A94.1111190 1972 4Brussels Post Brussels skaters on top Congratualations, Brussels Figure Skating Club. You made it to the top. It takes a lot of hard work, time and skill to get to that point and you made it even though you had to beat out bigger clubs. That kind of skill and dedication is what puts a small village like Brussels on the map. Credit should be given to the figure skaters, their parents and the people who helped to organize that competition last Sunday including the ladies who prepared food all day long and anyone else who helped out It's nice to know that there are still people out there who care that Brussels might be known as the home of a world figure skating champion. And with the Optimists now in the midst of their annual Atom Hockey Tournament there's also a chance for Brussels to turn out some famous hockey players. Brussels, your time in the sun is coming. A winter view Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston If cheaper is always better, we're in trouble In recent years there has been a new kind of program turning up on television, the kind of show that asks the retorical question: "Can we afford to . . ?" You can substitute many different things in that blank spot. Often that blank has been filled with this or that farm product which the television people wondered if we could really afford to produce here in Canada. Last week there was a program on the garment industry in which the question was asked. By asking the question the television people like to pretend they're being very objective about the whole. thing even though they stack the odds in such a way that the only answer for most television viewers is no, we can't afford to. The dairy industry is one of the areas that is often dealt with in this way. Supposedly objective writers take a look at the fact that the Canadian government subsidized the Canadian dairy industry, then look at the fact that imports are often cheaper then the Canadian produced dairy p , )ducts and come to the easy assumption ail I say we'd be better to import rather t! an produce ourselves. What these "experts" ignore are many, many other side effects. Why, for instance, are the prices of imports so cheap? Sometimes it's because governments in other parts of the world are subsidizing their industry more than ours. There is also a practice called "dumping" in which a country may sell its surplusses abroad at less than the cost of production. But aside from these factors there arc so many inter nal facts loft out of the equation. If, for instance, the Canadian government adopted the policy that we would produce nothing in Canada that we could import cheapetAfrom somewhere, else in . the world, what would be left to produce here? For one thing,conditions, either from the point of view of climate or labour costs are more favourable somewhere else in the world than here in Canada. For another, if it ever became known that we were willing to let our own industry die in favour of cheaper imports, foreign manufacturers ..nd foreign governments would do their 'Jest to undercut Canadian industry. Just as a new supermarket in town may undercut its prices in order to drive out its smaller competitors, foreign producers would drop their prices, only to raise them again once they had wiped out the Canadian capacity to produce. That in fact is what has been happening in Canada in recent years ,Many people believe that Canada is moving from being one of the most industrialized nations in the world following the Second World War to being a reich third world country. We are returning to being suppliers of raw materials for the rest of the world to manufacture and sell back to us at higher prices. There are many today who claim that free trade is the answer to the world's problems. Free trade might be helpful if it were fair trade, but just what is fair about trading in today's world? Take for instance C.B.C's look at the garment industry. While it held up a couple of heros, the program made out that most of the Canadian garment manufacturers were small and inefficient and too lazy to do anything about it, They are able to stay this way because the Canadian government limits the number of cheaper imported garments that come into the country, the program said. The Canadian consumer, the program stated, is paying for the inef- ficiency of the Canadian Manufacturer; If the border was opened wide, the cost of clothing would drop drastically. Yet if the government in Canada is propping the garment industry up, it is also a cause of their problem. The program pointed out that the average wage in Canadian garment industry is $5.00 per hour. The average wage in places like Hong Kong and other far eastern places is a few cents an hour. We wouldn't allow Canadian employers to pay the kind of wages or provide the kind of working conditions the workers must endure in those far eastern factories but somehow we expect our people to produce as "ef- ficiently". There's a moral question here too. If it's horrible to provide such conditions and wages here, how can we morally take advantage of those people halfway around the world just so we can have cheaper clothing? The answer, for Canadian manufactur- ers, if they follow the lead of the "hems" of the program, the Canadian manufactur- ers who are successful and competitive is to farm out to the poor countries the labour-intensive aspects such as shirts while we produce the less labour-intensive clothing such as slacks, in highly- automized, large facilities. The success figure in this story war building huge factories that looked like aircraft hangers all throughout North America. It may produce cheaper clothing, but what will it mean for workers working row on row on acres of floor. It may be more efficient in terms of the price of the clothing than a small factory involving a couple of dozen workers, but is it efficient in terms Of providing a humane working experience for the people who make the clothing. If cost is our only measure of judging we're in trouble. For the sake of cheaper prices we've already reduced our air to smog, our rivers to cesspools, crowded people into apartment buildings like chickens in cages; in short taken the humanity out of many aspects of life. If Canada gets to the point that we care more about cheap prices than we do about providing a decent way of life for workers, in providing jobs for farmers and textile workers and other "inefficient" workers, in keeping clean air and water and other aspects of our environment, then I don't want to live here anymore. 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