Free trade brawl
Sir: Although every, statement in John Ralston Saul's review of the Canadian election (`No middle ground', 26 Novem- ber) is open to challenge, I wish merely to correct his facts on one point.
He says that in the last days of the campaign, 'a group of writers and artists reached into their pockets to take a nation- al advertisement against the [free trade] deal', and that 'the Business Alliance itself put together a rival advertisement of wri- ters in favour'. He says this Business Alliance is 'dominated by US branch plant operations and Canadian multinationals'.
As a signatory of the first ad, Mr Saul would surely have noticed that the `rival ad' came out in the same newspaper on the same day (The Globe and Mail, 19 Novem- ber). To my certain knowledge the produc- ers of the latter (myself and two others, all of us literary types) had no inkling of the former.
Why did we produce our `rival ad'? Because John Ralston Saul and others like him were saying just the sort of things he says in your article, and were getting away with it — claiming, for instance, that all Canadian writers and artists are against the Free Trade Agreement, because it threatens the Canadian identity and Cana- dian culture. The purpose of our 'rival ad' was to show that this claim was false, that there are prominent Canadian writers and artists in favour of free trade. (Our ad, incidentally, had many more signatures.) Our ad was partially paid for by the Canadian Association for Trade and Job Opportunities, an organisation of strictly Canadian-owned businesses of small and medium size. We asked them for the money, not the other way around. Their support was clearly acknowledged in our copy (the ad Mr Saul signed did not state who was paying). I have never heard of this 'Business Alliance', the villain of Mr Saul's piece. Perhaps he is thinking of the Busi- ness Council on National Issues. As with so much of what Mr Saul writes, it is hard to say.
David Warren
60 Lindsey Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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