HUNGER: SOMETHING CAN BE DONE!

But if our goal really is ending hunger, we must also take action against government cutbacks and corporate greed and hypocrisy, beginning right here at Loblaws.

• Loblaws owes almost $40 million in deferred, unpaid taxes. Think of all the food that that money could buy.

• Loblaws parent company Weston Foods gave the maximum allowable contribution to the Harris Tories, whose policies have increased hunger dramatically. Neither Weston Foods nor Lt.-Gov. Hillary Weston has spoken out against these cruel policies.

• In 1994, Loblaws executives Ian Delaney and Richard Currie took home, respectively, $3,646,541 and $3,306,309. While the Harris government advises the poor to survive on a $90 a month food budget, Loblaws executives must figure out how to get by on an average of $289,702 per month.

• Loblaws parent Weston is home to one of Canada's 8 billionaires, W. Galen Weston, net worth $1.3 billion. He is one of the group of the 50 richest Canadians whose wealth is equal to that of 5 million low-income Canadians

• Everytime you buy food in Loblaws to donate, Loblaws makes a profit off of that food. Would Loblaws be open to having other grocery stores or chains being part of the food drive, or is it mere coincidence that they seem to have a monopoly on store drop-off boxes?

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• While Loblaws and other corporations crow about their community support, figures show that corporations in fact spend far more in deductions for lunch than charity ($392 million for meals/entertainment versus $75 million in charitable contributions in 1991)

GREEN PRODUCTS? WESTON AND TEMAGAMI

Dozens of activists were arrested last fall trying to save the third largest stand of old-growth pine left in North America at Temagami. E.B. Eddy, a multinational forestry company, uses wood from Temagami, the Algoma Highlands and Algonquin Park. E.B. Eddy is owned by George Weston Limited, which also controls Loblaws and produces GREEN, President's Choice, no name, Too Good to Be True and Clover Leaf canned tuna and salmon, among others. It seems that Weston should be using its influence to protect Canada's old-growth forests, not to profit off of them. For more information on this aspect of corporate hypocrisy, contact OPIRG-Carlton at (613) 520-2757.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Phone (922-2500) or fax (922-0803) Loblaws President Richard Currie. Ask him why Loblaws has not been paying their fair share of taxes; how he can justify a multi-million dollar salary amidst such poverty; why his parent company George Weston Ltd. is using wood logged from Temagami.

2. Take part in initiatives aimed at ending hunger: community gardens, producing food outside of the corporate system, demonstrating at Queen's Park against the social assistance cutbacks, joining the June Hike to End Hunger and Homelessness. For more information, call Toronto Action for Social Change at 651-5800.

3. Speak out against the outright lies being told about the hungry and homeless by governments and corporations.

HAVE A GREED-FREE DAY!

For more information contact Toronto Action for Social Change at P.O. Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. W, Toronto, Ont. M6C 1C0.