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For a Communist Party candidate, life
On the hustings can be anything but
Ordinary.

Frequently frustrated by a big-business
Media that treats Communists as “also
Tans,” sometimes rejected by people
because of a lingering Cold War attitude
that rejects the label “Communist,” and
Considered spoilers by some fervent New

€mocrats, the Communist Party of Cana-
da’s 52 candidates — 10 of whom are run-
Ning in British Columbia — have had more
than their fair share of tribulation.

But then there are the triumphs — such
as the applause that erupts from audiences
When Communist candidates call for the
Nationalization of commercial banks, the
°onstruction of a Canadian merchant
Marine, or a nuclear-weapons freeze — and
the pleasant surprises, as when total
Strangers phone in their offer to take a lawn
Sign or distribute leaflets for a local CP
Candidate,

It’s these small but significant victories
that make Communists optimistic about
t © future of politics in Canada.

‘Some guy came up to me last night,”

-C. party leader and candidate for Van-
Couver Centre, Maurice Rush, relates, “He

_ told me ‘I don’t agree with your party, but I
ke what you say.’

‘I think the most satisfying thing is wit-

Program are listened to, and discussed,”
Said Rush, who has contested elections for
the Communist Party, and the Labor Pro-
Sressive Party since 1945.
Le That makes Rush, who joined the party
in the early 30s and who succeeded the late
igel Morgan as provincial leader seven

-CPers on the hustings. He was first nomi-
Rated to contest Vancouver Centre in 1945,
ut couldn’t run. At the time, he was over-
Seas, having just been released from prison
Camp \in Germany. :
€ was soon to run, however, for the
Party in a provincial election.
; Rush’s roots were in Kamloops, where he
lived until age 18 and where he could see
_*very day” young single unemployed rid-
ing the freight trains in a usually fruitless
Search for jobs.

of social awakening for large number of
People. I was soon riding the rods myself,
‘When I moved to Vancouver in 1935.”
Rush was soon involved in youth organ-
ling for the party, and recalled that in those
Ys, “there wasn’t as much emphasis on
the Parliamentary struggle. After the war,
€ enthusiasm with the victory over Hitler
8ave much prestige to the Labor Progres-
Slve Party.”

The LPP was so named because the
Communist Party had been declared illegal
the early war years.

Since those days, the party — despite a
Program that meets with spontaneous
_ “Pplause when points are raised at all-
Candidates meetings — has suffered some-
What from the stigma of anti-Communism.
ut with a new depression underway,
©mmunist candidates see that situation
Uming around.

____ “A lot of people come up to me after the

all-candidates’ meetings. And they'll say,

LE V Ou tell us what can be done,’ ” said Fraser
alley West candidate Viola Swann.

._ All these people are coming up and talk-

'Ng about the blues of the capitalist system,
th I have the socialist system to offer
tem,” said Swann. :

. For Swann, the experience is also reward-

: 8 because, after running three times in the

Nding — the first being in the 1979 federal

“lection — she has become well-known to
Urrey and district voters. ;

Od Doran, running in the New

Westminster-Coquitlam riding, has similar

‘essing the warmth with which items of our |

Years ago, one of the most experienced .

“Of course, the Hungry 30s was a period »

experiences. A Communist since the early
50s, Doran has run five times in the riding
and finds increasing support in the com-
munity, and among those he works with at
the Roberts Bank coal terminal.

“The guys are quite open about
acknowledging my candidacy,” Doran
reports. ““They ask me, ‘How’s the cam-
paign going?’ and things like that. Anda lot
of them are saying, ‘I’m glad your’re run-
ning.’ They give me the distinct impression
they feel that if we weren’t running in this
election, the issues wouldn’t get raised.”

Doran was a seaman in the merchant
marine when in 1947 he emigrated from
Scotland. He was never involved in any
other party, he says, but probably

“absorbed by. osmosis” the strong socialist
sentiments of his working-class neighbor-.
hood in Glasglow.

SY PEDERSON...‘some trouble keeping
hats straight.’

A Communist Party member since
1954 — the depth of the Cold’ War
period — Doran, a longshoreman and
former president of the Prince Rupert
Labor Council, has seen many changes in
the public’s attitude towards the party. But
further up the coast, the younger Sy Peder-
son, Communist candidate for Comox-
Powell River, has also noted changes in his
briefer involvement in campaigning.

Running as he is for the third time in the
riding, the change Pederson has noticed is

_ “that NDPers are now willing to discuss

with me our program — including the call
we make for unity of progressive forces in
elections.”

That makes running for the party easier,
Pederson, a faller and activist in the Interna-
tional Woodworkers, said while admitting
that running the first time was “really
scary.”

The 36-year old Comox Valley resident is

“a camp committee member, a safety com-

mittee member, camp chairman, executive
board member of IWA, Local 1363, and
second vice-president of the local labor
council. Those duties, onto which is added
the punishing schedule of all-candidates
meeting in a riding that covers both sides of
the Georgia Strait and goes as far south as
Gibsons, “sometimes make it hard to keep
all my hats straight,” said Pederson. —

“Other than that, I feel really up about
this candidacy. I find a lot of the guys I work
with are really supportive of me.

- “I think the unity thing has really caught
on with a lot of working people — part-
icularly after the fall of °83 and the Solidar-
ity movement,” said Pederson.

Over in Port Alberni, Communist Party
veteran Mark Mosher finds support comes
from the younger workers and ex-workers
at the Island city’s pulp mills.

It isn’t all a bowl of cherries, running in
the Nanaimo-Alberni riding, however.
Mosher recalls looking past a parked
motorcycle into the darkened doorway of
an apartment of a subsidized housing com-
plex and informing the unseen occupant

Communist candidates: party’s
program provides the triumphs

that he was running for the Communist
Party.

“You'd better keep running then,” came
the terse reply.

Mosher, a 60-year resident of the Alberni
Valley, chuckles at the recollection. A pio-
neer member of the International Wood-
workers, a longshoreman for 26 years and a
school trustee for 10 years, he’s seen more
than his share of adversity.

Another candidate with a long trade
union history, and a founding member of
the IWA, is Esquimalt-Saanich CP contes-
ter Ernie Knott. A son of a woodworker,
coalminer and “professional hobo” involved
in union organizing in the U.S. and Canada,
Knott joined the party in 1947.

The veteran Communist candidate reports
he has “cordial relations”? with the NDP
contender for the riding, Bob Cameron,
and positive feedback from individuals on
the party’s program.

At 24, Reg Walters does not have the
long history of political involvement held by
some of his colleagues. But the candidate
for North Vancouver-Burnaby was a near-
winner in the Salmon Arm aldermanic race
in 1981, and has a history of activism in the
Young Communist League, the Salmon
Arm Peace Council and the area’s unem-
ployed action centre.

While Walters had not been to many
all-candidates meetings at press time — he
had four on his plate for the upcoming
week — he had already experienced the
positive response people give the party’s
analysis when he and Rush received an ova-
tion for their statement on unemployment
during a forum at Langara Campus.

Walters can also relate an incident in
which the Communist Party turned out to
be more popular than the major right-wing
party. —

“A bunch of YCLers were out leafletting
in Ray Viaud’s riding,” Walters related.
“We were having trouble getting into one
apartment building, so we phoned up an
occupant and asked if she’d let us in. When
we told her what party we were with, she
said, ‘Fine, just as long as you’re not with
the Tories.’ ”

Fellow YCL member Viaud, running in
Surrey-White Rock-North Delta, is a vete-
ran of the student movement and a worker
in the People’s Co-op Bookstore. He’s met
several young people out of work who tell
him they agree with aspects of the Commu-
nist Party program.

“However, even if they agree with you
and say they like your program, they’re still
a bit apprehensive at the thought of voting
Communist,” said Viaud. He credits the
party’s presence in his riding with the fact
that the NDP candidate is now talking more
about the issue of disarmament.

“MARK MOSH
adversity.

...IWA pioneer used to

Kingsway candidate Bert Ogden feels
good about his candidacy after a packed
meeting last week that saw big applause
from some 200 area voters for the party’s
peace stance.

“Unfortunately (NDP incumbent) Ian
Waddell was going heavy on the two-
superpowers theory,” Ogden relates. “So I
reminded everyone that it was the Soviet
Union that signed the SALT II treaty, has
called for a nuclear freeze and made the
unilateral no-first strike declaration.

“I'd say I got more applause than any of
the other candidates,” said Ogden, a vice-
president of the B.C. Peace Council and
welfare director in the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers Union.

Ogden said he came to “respect” the
Communist Party during his logging days
on Cowichan Lake. “I found the most
active guys in the union (IWA) were Com-
munists,” said Ogden, who joined the party
in 1945.

The Communist Party’s long-standing
presence in federal campaigns seems to be
paying off in increased support from non-
party people, Miguel Figueroa, CP candi-
date for Vancouver East, estimates.

“Tve been getting phone calls from total
strangers asking for buttons and offering to
leaflet,” said Figueroa, a former organizer
with the National Union of Students and an
unemployment activist.

“T think we’re seeing a time when people
are considering electing Communist Party
candidates. That concept is there and it’s
not surprising, since our program gives real
answers to Canada’s crisis no other party
has,” said Doran.

“We see the election battle as part of the
extra-parliamentary struggle for better
working conditions, for jobs and peace,”
said Rush. The election gives us the oppor-
tunity to take our policies to greater
numbers of people.

“The greater our success here, the

stronger our position will be in that
struggle.”

Here is a list of events at which Com-

24 to 30.
Aug. 24, CP candidates in Vancouver
will be at the Russian Peoples’ Home, 600
Campbell Ave., 7:30 p.m.

tan and CP candidates are at Trout Lake
Park, Vancouver, from | to 6 p.m.

Aug. 26, there’s an all-candidates
meeting on peace at Chalmers United
Church, 2802 Hemlock St., Vancouver,
7:30 p.m. From 4 p.m. on, CP candidates
will be at the CRAB benefit, foot of
Columbia St. on the waterfront. Surrey
candidate Ray Viaud is on Cable 10
between 8 and 10 p.m.

Aug. 27, Miguel Figueroa and Maurice
Rush are at the Carnegie Centre, 7 p.m.,

CP candidates speak

munist candidates will be speaking, Aug. ‘Walters is on Shaw Cable 7 p.m. to 9

Aug. 25, national leader William Kash-

while North Vancouver candidate Reg

p.m. Nanaimo-Alberni candidate Mark
Mosher is on Nanaimo radio station
CHED’s open line show at 9 a.m., and
radio CHUB’s openliner at 12:40 p.m.

Aug. 29, Figueroa is on Cable 10
(Vancouver East), 9 p.m. New West-
minster-Coquitlam candidate Rod Doran
is at the Como Lake United Church, 535
Marmont in Coquitlam, 7:30 p.m., while
Mosher is at an all-candidates meeting at
the Villa Hotel, Nanaimo, 7:15 p.m.

Aug. 30 is an all-candidates debate
and question session on Vancouver Co-
op Radio’s Pigeon Park Review (102.7
on the FM dial), 5 p.m. Mosher is on
Port Alberni’s CJAV radio, 8 p.m. to 10
p.m.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 22, 1984 e 3