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8 THE RURAL VOICE
A NEW YEAR'S
RESOLUTION
The free -trade election is over and
the bad guys won.
In his victory speech, reaching
down — way down — for his most
dulcet of tones, Mulroney told us that
now is the time for healing after the
divisive free -trade election
Tell that to Gillette Canada Ltd.,
Prime Minister "Muldoon" (as one
U.S. senator mistakenly called
Mulroney).
Less than 48 hours after
Muldoon's appeal for healing,
Gillette's American mother company
announced that Canadian operations
at Toronto and Montreal would be
dumped in a world-wide "reorganiza-
tion aimed at increasing productivity
and strengthening its competitive
position."
The 590 Canadian workers
sacrificed to Gillette's "reorganiza-
tion" of course, felt more salt in their
wounds than healing Mulroney style.
Workers have families, so multiply
590 by about three.
Closer to home, the Campbell
Soup Company says it actually intends
to raise investment in Canada in 1989.
However, supply -managed farm
families who feed Campbell plants at
St. Marys, Listowel, and Chatham
should be wary of the implicit threat
in the words of senior vice-president
R. W. Hiller:
"It's difficult for me to see how
(the processing industry and
marketing boards) could co -exist with
free trade."
But it isn't just Gillette workers
and marketing board farmers supply-
ing Campbell's Soup who should
doubt Brian's time -for -healing sermon
from the mount.
While it took Gillette fewer
than 48 hours to dump its Canadian
operations, it took U.S. president-elect
George Bush in Houston maybe an
hour longer to talk free trade, this
time with Mexican president Carlos
Salinas de Gortarim.
It's part of the Reagan grand plan
for a free -trade continent which would
engulf Mexico as well as Canada.
Of course, Fleck Manufacturing at
Huron Park couldn't wait for the
Canadian decision on November 21.
It pulled up stakes and headed for
Mexico where the sun always shines
and, not coincidentally, labour is dirt
cheap.
What the heck! A job lost here, an
industry moves there ... them's the
breaks, right? Some Canadians will
just have to "adjust," right? After all,
this free -trade stuff is the purest form
of commerce, good for all, right?
Right. But only if you're a gov-
ernment bureaucrat with an indexed
pension, a university economics purist
professor with tenure, or somebody •
who could care less about displaced
fellow Canadians.
For the rest of us, free trade is
wrong, or it bloody well should be.
Because New Year's resolutions
involve righting wrongs, my first
resolution is to ignore Muldoon's
"healing" appeal. We gave the man a
mandate on free trade, and we blew it.
Now isn't the time to heal. It's the
time for vigilance.0
Gord Wainman has been an urban -
based agriculture reporter for 13 years.
ATTENTION
RURAL PEOPLE UNDER 16
Enter your art, writing, and
poetry about farm life in the
Rural Voice Competition.
Send to: The Rural Voice, Box
37, Goderich, Ontario, N7A 3Y5
Deadline February 7, 1989