Health care RIP

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by Craig Segal

If you don't think globalization is messing with your life in First World Montreal, go pay your last respects to health care, says Gerard Greenfield of the Canadian Automobile Workers. Because health care is dying in a hospital waiting room somewhere.

Prescription drugs are getting harder to afford because international trade laws don't allow governments to manufacture patented drugs, Greenfield declares. And since Canadians are getting used to paying big money for their drugs, the government will find it that much easier to privatize health care.

The same thing is happening all over the world, says Greenfield. Drug companies defend their monopoly and high prices by saying they need the money for research. But Greenfield calls that "B.S." since "80 per cent of profits are spent on advertising."

Greenfield spoke at a community forum about the effects of corporate globalization on communities of colour last Saturday in Côte-des-Neiges. The forum, titled "Enough Is Enough," was organized by the Immigrant Workers Centre, which is hastily organizing its own protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Quebec City next week.

Also announced at the conference is an anti-FTAA protest in Montreal for people who can't make it to Quebec City. The Montreal protest is happening April 17-20 outside the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Call the Anti-Capitalist Convergence at 409-2049 for info.