Letters to the Editor South Africa sanctions would hurt Canada

Many Canadians must be wondering why Mr Clark continues to stick his meddling nose into South African affairs, while at the same time avoiding Canadian native reservations, much like Canadians avoid blackflies in May. They must also wonder why Mr Clark likes to do all these anti-South African sanctions in far-away places such as Canberra. Besides being totally useless and harmful to the Canadian economy, such exotic trips are deadly to the Canadian taxpayer.

The ludicrous element in Mr Clark’s obsession remains the fact that Canada can not really do much more damage to South Africa by imposing new sanctions, even if such sanctions were helpful. The steel industry warns that 20,000 Canadian steel workers would lose their jobs if South African alloys such as ferro-chrome and manganese were not available. The Canadian mining industry would just shudder if Joe Clark were to impose sanctions on industrial diamonds, and one can speculate what the environmentalists might say should platinum group metals (used in catalytic convertors) from South Africa be cut off. These are just some of the products Canada needs to buy from South Africa and which are not reliably available elsewhere. Conversely, there is nothing South Africa needs to buy from Canada which is not available elsewhere.

Perhaps it is not fair to centre out Joe Clark as alone being obsessed with South Africa. Brian Mulroney, John Turner, Ed Broadbent and several others are equally obsessed.

What one could suggest to Mr Clark and his like-minded colleagues would be for them to spend some quality time in Canada, do some squalor tours of native reservations and spend a year in Sioux Lookout. Then he could go to South Africa and say: “We have solved our problems in Sioux Lookout and, although we know that your problems are more complex, come to Canada and see what improvements we’ve made.” R. H. Posma Oshawa, Ont.

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