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Lowering our standards is not the only way to go con Piatkowski's criticism last week of the new Employment Standards Act introduced by the Ontario Tories did not analyze the situation from the standpoint of gmbalizatiom Everyone knows Ontario is losing jobs to Third World countries. And everyone knows that this is because of cheap labor there, By now, most people have heard of the abom- inable conditions in Third World factories known as 'sweatshops" where shoes, clothing, toys. etc. are made for large corporations such as Nike and Disney, to name two. Some Canadian and Us munic- ipal governments, and some US. stage governments have attempted to fsghl against Third World Labour abuses by not buying from such cor- porations, But the corporations in many case, have been able to reverse these restrictive buying practices through the courts. Our own federal government. whatever its political flavour, has taken a prrrgiohalizatirm stance for some years It happened to be the Liberals who were in favour of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Under the MAI, corporations would have been given the right to we municipal and provincial governments with an" sweatshop buying matures for damages The MAI has been set aside for the moment, hut few The federal govern- ment has set the stage on which Ontario must plhy Given this situation, isn't the Harris government just being realistic? You said it CUT TO PREVENT A TAX INCREASE? QU ESTION IF YOU WERE ON CITY COUNCIL WHAT SPENDING WOULD YOU doubt that the concept is alive and well. The federal government has set the stage on which Ontario must play Given this situation. isnt the Harris government just being realis- tic? iherie is a 1orig way tn go before Ontario labor laws allow sweatshops to operate in Ontario. But the The unexpressed (because fully internalized) idea is that Ontario is helpless. Resistance is futile. so the only way in compete is to adapt. Cudos to 0.8. public television for featuring War Amps video n March 14, WNED IN in OBuffalo. the PBS station which reaches our cable out- let, used the new War Amps video A War of Their Own! as part of its annual membership drive, As a Canadian and a member of the War Amps, l was tremendously proud of the fact that a prominent American public broadcasting sta- tion would use aWar Amps video In help out with its membership drive. The host of the drive made some significant comments during the breaks regarding the Irvmenduus contribution of Canadian regiments to the Campaign in Sicily and Italy which happens to be the theme of The War Amps video A War of Their Own'.. This video has been nominat- ed for a number of international awards, WNl-ZI) director of programming Ron Sanlora had this to say about A War of 'lheir Own'., "Of course. the real reason it went so well for us was [he quality of the program, I know from the phone calls that were taken, so many people's lives were touched by what you folks did, All "l would cut the politicians' salaries." "l would cut noth- ing. Everything we have is important. I think everyone can afford lo share the taxes." ) THE CHRONIC” Angela Galen COMMENT Erna (than The Employment Standards Act may. as Scott Piatkowski suggests, spur more urtirmization in Ontario. But perhaps it will do more than that. As long as we have globaliza- tion, there should be a level playing field for transnational corpora- tions. Lowering our standards is not the only way to go. Perhaps the Employment Standards Act will make people think about that. Employment Standards, Act is a start. we had to do was relate to the pro- gram which both of us found easy to do because ofthe quality ofthe story 1elling." I understand this video was used on the Prime specialty channel in Canada around November ll. but there was very little promotion done, Being aware of this, I found it difficult to hear the us. hosts talk so glowingly of what is generally regarded as a little known war - that is the Canadian Campaign which started in Sicily and Italy a year before the famous Normandy inva, sion in lune of IBM. We did give other Canadian net, works (including the CBC) the opportunity lo show this as a free, educational film, without cost, but they did not take up the opportuni- Copies of the two-hour program are available on loan free-of-charge or may be purchased at a cost recov- ery price af$l4 by calling i-800-250- 3030 Albert steinhotr, Waterloo, Wellington branch, the War Amputation: ofaznada "Property taxes. They're just too high. " "l would probably cut the politicians' salaries. There was a time that people would have a full- time job and they did council because they wanted to." David Sandman Mike uhnuum Ted Creese, Waterloo o no one's great surprise -- and to Stockwell Day’s great I relief __ Preston Manning announced his retirement from electoral politics last week. Political colleagues, opptr nents and editorialists alike were almost unanimous in their praise While there is some truth in the adage that the surest way to win praise as a politician is to retire, I have to question whether this unqualified praise is deserved. In my view, there is one "achievement" for which we should remember Preston Manning: the infamous "no Quebec politi- cians" television ad from the 1997 federal election campaign. In case your political memory isn't as long as my own, here's a reminder of its content: the ad questioned whether it made sense to leave constitutional reform in the hands of "Quebec politicians"; it also pictured Quebec-based politicians with red lines drawn across their faces (strongly implying that they should be "eliminated"). Never before had a Canadian political party tried to gain political advantage by playing so openly to regional mistrust and resentment. Manning's defenders would probably suggest that he should not be held personally accountable for a commercial that was conceived by unelected advisers. Does anyone really believe that it would have aired without his approval? Moreover. even in the unlikely event that he hadn't cleared the ad's content (or even its approach) in advance. once it -lBll-It-ir- reached the airwaves he certainly had , tr . . . ‘ the opportunity to pull it. That's what 1 1% (J I l I 1R ‘ Kim Campbell did in 1993 after her MUG, " party aired an ad that appeared to ‘ i make fun of lean Chretien's facial l Mt "' ‘ paralysis (though not before it had 1 ' b": ’ r badly damaged her credibility). < V s MI v l Instead, Manning let the offensive ad ' l 9*“, ‘ _ i continue to air in what Much Music ‘ ' " J: V MI ‘ would call "heavy rotation". l , . h' N ‘ Others may argue, as Manning did at the time, that the ad was neither anti-francophone nor anti-Quebec. To show the weakness of that argument, allow me to make an analogy. What if the New Democratic Party had run an election ad with the following content: "For too long, our government has been run by men. They've made decisions that are good for men, but not for the rest of us. It's time to elect a political party led by a woman (cue the spe- cial graphics stroking out the faces of 'male politicians')." Do you think that, ifit had run such an ad, the NDPjust might have been accused of being anti-male? Of course it would have been. The fact IS that Preston Manning's party crossed the boundaries of acceptability with its ad. No wonder half of Ontario voters and 40 per cent of westerners surveyed in 1997 saw Preston Manning as "a threat to national unity". The final counter argument upon which Manning's eulogisls are likely to draw is that, even if you agree with my point ofview on the Reform ad, it would be wrong to judge him on that inci- dent alone. We must look at his overall record. Fair enough. Consider the following: . Despite all of his grand talk about the need to unite all Conservative voices in a single party Manning failed to do so and has failed to set the stage for anyone else to do so. instead, he has fragmented the right wing vote (while also stealing a number of traditional populist votes from the NDP] and ensured three consecutive Liberal majorities. . After ridiculing the perks ofelected omce, Manning lapped them up as readily as any of the politicians that he had criti- cized. Stornoway is not a bingo hall. and the leader ofthe opprr silion still rides around in a chauffeur-driven limousine, . For a party that claimed to be founded on "the grassroots", Reform and the Alliance got an awful lot of money from the same corporations that fund the Liberals and Tories, Manning didn't hold a bake sale to fund the creation of the party in 1987; he did it with oil money. While he had been ousted as leader by the time that the Alliance held a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser for corporate donors, the event demonstrated just how far from the grassroots the party was. . Although fond of the rhetoric of free votes and power to individual Members of Parliament. Manning cracked the whip just as readily as the Liberals, Anyone who stepped out of line soon found themselves suspended from caucus or without a critic portfolio. Still, Manning was consistently unable to silence the many extremists in his party __ largely because his party's policies were artfully designed to he attractive to those with extreme views, There's no doubt that Preston Manning has earned his rest. But, given the great damage that he did to this country, no one should pretend that Canadian politics will be any poorer for his absence Preston Manning: the retirement