Northern Lights (July 2005)
News and Views from SA Canada
by Barry Weisleder
Money-starved
Medicare on the Ropes
As
wait times got longer and longer for certain medical procedures, it was only a
matter of time until a legal ruling would declare that human rights are being
violated within Canada’s single-payer, universal health-care system. That’s
just what the Supreme Court decided in June — that if the public system cannot
provide timely treatment, people must have the right to buy private insurance
and private care.
The
super highway to a two-tier health system, one for the rich and a lower
standard for the poor, gained another fast lane thanks to Alberta’s
Conservative Premier Ralph Klein. On July 12, Klein announced that the oil-rich
western province, population 3 million situated between the Rockies and the
prairies, will let people pay for a hip replacement or an upgraded hospital
room, and buy secondary insurance to help cover the costs of podiatry and
chiropractic services beyond what the public system pays for.
The
Supreme Court earlier found that Québec patient George Zeliotis waited too long
for hip replacement surgery, that he should have been able to purchase private
insurance, and that his physician, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, should have been able
to accept such payments.
But
what about those who cannot afford to jump the line and pay for speedier
treatment? Suffer obscurely. The Court didn’t say, but most Canadians know that
medicare has been starved of adequate funding for decades. Three years ago Roy
Romanow’s Royal Commission into the future of medicare called for a major
reinvestment by government.
Politicians
loyal to business interests and the rich have been dragging their feet. Prime
Minister Paul Martin and the provincial premiers talk about putting $41 billion
into the system over a 10-year period. But that wouldn’t replace the money cut
out of health care transfers by Paul Martin, then Finance Minister in the Jean
Chrétien Liberal federal government, in the 1990s.
The
truth is, to save medicare, twice as much money in
half the time is needed. It’s another compelling reason why a government
willing to tax the rich and re-build public services is increasingly a matter
of life or death.
NHL
deal’s a draw, after Owners’ Greed costs a season
Although
the corporate media declared the deal between the National Hockey League and
the NHL Players’ Association that ended the 301-day lockout in mid-July to be an overtime win for the owners, the details reveal more the
makings of a draw.
While
the owners secured a $39 million cap on team salaries, and a 24 per cent
rollback on existing contracts, the players couldn’t have won the following
gains without waging a fight:
·
more
than doubling the minimum salary for league players to $450,000 a year;
·
lowering
the age eligibility for free agency from 31 to 27, which means players will
eventually have four more years of freedom in their careers to play for a team
of their choice;
·
revenue sharing,
something the owners adamantly opposed, which requires the wealthiest NHL teams
to give some of their earnings to small market teams like Calgary, Edmonton and
Ottawa.
Finally,
the urgency of re-launching the NHL has prompted some rule changes that will
more severely punish obstruction and intimidation on the ice, while promoting
speed and finesse.
Unfortunately,
ticket prices are unlikely to drop much (big surprise!). And another money grab
will see the number of teams to make the playoffs absurdly increase from 16 to
20.
The
saddest aspect of this episode, which cost fans and players an entire NHL
season, is that the lockout was caused by the owners’ inability to curb their
own coveting of the best talent on the ice. Player salaries rose exponentially
over the past 25 years because owners out-bid one another for the services of
the best players.
Keep
in mind that it is the stars on the ice who draw the
fans to the arenas and TV screens, not Messrs. money bags. In a conflict
between billionaire owners and millionaire players, there should be no doubt as
to where workers ought to stand. Too bad the players couldn’t form a new
league, and run it along cooperative lines, without the owners. The idea was
mooted, but its proponents found it nearly impossible to create an island of
cooperation in a sea of capitalist greed.
UFCW
pension plan “corrupt” says union reform group
Members
for Democracy (MFD), a reform caucus in the United Food and Commercial Workers’
International Union, is calling for a police
investigation into a major pension plan and the resignation of its trustees
after they invested more than $280 million in questionable ventures, including
deals with a defrocked priest, the Toronto Star reported on July 11.
The
MFD, which fights for greater democracy and accountability in the UFCW, wants
an immediate criminal probe into the Canadian Commercial Workers Industry
Pension Plan, the biggest private-sector, multi-employer fund in the country.
Reacting
to a series of revelations in the Saturday Star, the union caucus said
about 12 management and union trustees of the plan should also resign or be
removed because of internal government findings of sloppy bookkeeping, lack of
investment homework, weak monitoring, potential conflicts of interest and
numerous violations of pension law.
“I
think there is something awfully fishy going on,” MFD web site administrator
Sharyn Sigurdur said in an interview. “The police, including the RCMP, have to
get involved right away and do a thorough investigation.”
The
plan, which manages about $1.2 billion in assets, has more than 240,000
members. Two-thirds of them are active UFCW members employed by companies such
as Food Basics, Zehrs, Loeb and Safeway grocery stores.
The
pension plan pumped almost $170 million — mostly in companies controlled by
Ronald Hubert Kelly, a former priest convicted of indecently assaulting five
boys in Newfoundland in 1979 — into four hotels and resorts and some land in
the Bahamas and Jamaica from 1997 to 2003. Kelly’s companies defaulted on his
Caribbean loans in 2000. The plan also invested $110 million or more in loans,
mortgages and equities in other risky businesses.
Well
known labour movement figure Cliff Evans, the plan’s founder and a retired
national director of the UFCW, has been chairman of the investment committee
for many years. Plan chair Bernard Christophe claims the plan stopped doing
business with Kelly years ago.
But
MFD members will tell you it’s hard to get reliable information in the UFCW
about pension investments or anything else. This latest crisis appears to be
symptomatic of a highly centralized union, one with huge amalgamated locals
where meetings are both infrequent and inaccessible to most members, and one
whose leaders recently negotiated a two-tier wage structure with grocery giant
Loblaws — a deal on which the vast majority of members affected did not even
get to vote.
An
MFD activist participated in the founding conference of the Workers’ Solidarity
and Union Democracy Coalition in October 2004 in Toronto. For
MFD info click here.
Canadian
Corporate Takeovers and Mergers slow down
Everything’s
relative. While corporate mergers and acquisitions worldwide were up 14 per
cent (US $771 billion, or about CDN $951 billion) in the first six months of
2005, in Canada transactions in the same period were down 13 per cent, compared
to the first half of 2004.
KPMG
Corporate Finance reported that the number of Canadian deals that closed in the
first half stands at 638, compared with 649 a year earlier.
The
biggest deals this year were Toronto Dominion Bank’s purchase of 51 per cent of
Banknorth Financial Group, the merger of Adolph Coors Co. with Molson Inc., the
takeover of Masonite International Corp. by Stile Acquisition Corp., and
Noranda Inc.’s consolidation of its ownership of Falconbridge Ltd.
Though the numbers for Canada in 2005 disappointed domestic
financiers with more bullish hopes, the overall expectations of global magnates
were unsullied as the worldwide trend towards ever bigger corporate monopolies
proceeded apace.
The
fate of workers affected by the job shedding that accompanies mergers, however,
is another story.