EDITORIAL_

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is concerned
more profoundly than ever this year with
the world-wide struggle for disarmament
and peace.

In Canada that means raising effective
Opposition to the criminal testing of the
U.S. Cruise nuclear missile on Canadian
soil.

On International Women’s Day, March
8, women everywhere, with the participa-
tion and solidarity of men, are voicing op-
position to arms escalation while simul-
taneously women in the capitalist system
must fight the daily economic battle. Their
call is to protect labor’s gains, defend living
standards against the assaults of the corp-
orations and their willing governments,

uanderers of billions on armaments

which ensure nothing.
_ On the economic scene the wage gap be-
tween men and women has widened, and
the fight for equal pay for work of equal
value is increasing in urgency. A society
which grows fat and arrogant on the ex-
ploitation of workers, exploits women
more, turning lack of equality into dollar
profit. |

The battles to enforce affordable food
prices, affordable housing, and available

and affordable daycare, are not exclusively
women’s problems. Women, men,
‘mothers, fathers, single parents are being
robbed of their earnings, of their oppor-
tunities and of opportunities for their chil-
dren. Not only economic, but health, edu-
cation and cultural standards are being
pushed to the depths.

Although the massive movements for
peace and disarmament, the great trade
union and political battles for jobs, wages
and social services are everyone’s battles,
the system tries to see to it that women have
fewer weapons and weaker organization
for such battles, because their traditional
double exploitation means greater returns
for the capitalist system.

This cannot be tolerated; and on this
International Women’s Day the reality of
unity among working women, farm
women, Native women and those in other
fields, must be brought closer to real-
‘ization.

The fight for peace, equality and unity,
the goals of International Women’s Day,
1983, have ever-gathering new support.
March 8 is a time for declaring such sup-
port in unmistakable terms.

The real threat to Canada

The impudence of the Reagan regime is
affecting — and angering — ever-larger
numbers of Canadians, people from widely
divergent sectors of society. There is an
unacceptable arrogance in the U.S. pres-
sure applied to Canada’s government,
economy, security, ecology, and people.

The three films, two having to do with
acid rain spewed out by uncontrolled U.S.
industry, and one dealing with the devasta-
tion of nuclear war, have received the most
publicity of all the disputes growing out of
U.S. heavy-handedness with its neighbor
and “ally”.

The films have to be labelled,
McCarthy-style, while an attempt is made
to label and intimidate those who: wish to
see them as well. :

The USA tries to resolve its own crises by
arm-twisting and crude pressures on the
federal government. Washington believes
it has Canada in its pocket because of the
compliance of the Liberals — and even
more so the Tories.

One might cite the Foreign Investment
Review Act (FIRA) which the USA is using
threat and subversion to undermine so that
U.S. corporations will have an even freer
hand in running this country.

Or there is the high-handed U.S. ban on
Air Canada passengers who, in good faith
bought low-priced tickets to U.S. cities,
only to see the Canadian airline over-ruled
from south of the border.

There were the unfair practices against

Canadian truckers on cross-border routes,
refusing them licences, etc. There is the
everlasting dispute’to try to gain the upper
hand for the USA to hog the Atlantic and
Pacific fish catches despite Canada’s in-
sistence on its territorial water rights.
There is the attempt to cripple Canada’s
lumber exports to the USA through
newly-devised tariffs, and the blocking (at
least temporarily) of a sale of transit
equipment.

In the ecological field there is the blunt
refusal of the USA to take steps to stop the
acid rain that is killing hundreds of Cana-
dian lakes and endangering human health.
And there is the stubborn insistence on
building the Garrison Diversion Project, a
disaster which experts say will pollute the
natural water system of southern
Manitoba.

It is clear that the Canadian Government
is not standing up to its NATO ally. In fact,
it reacts by allowing the world’s most irres-
ponsible military power to test its deadly

_ nuclear missiles on Canadian territory. Ot-

tawa is hand in glove with the militarist
goals of the Pentagon.

Clearly it is not the government or the
Tory servants of the U.S. multi-nationals
who will free Canada from U.S. control. It
is left for the working people, the labor
movement, the Communist Party, other
democratic forces, and members of the
New Democratic Party to stand up and de-
fend our country. It needs defending now

as never before. '

Prices for oil an outrage

What could be more outrageous than the
forcing of Canadians to pay higher prices
for Canadian oil, gasoline and heating oil,
while the prospect is for tumbling world
prices?

Yet this is what the conspirators among
the Ottawa Liberals, the Edmonton Tories

and the transnational oil corporations are

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 11, 1983—Page 4

ot en ches

determined to do. Alberta’s Lougheed says
he will never loosen his grip on the flood of
oil dollars, and federal Energy Minister
Chretien and the PM site their helplessness
in view of the 1981 deal’s “no rollbacks”
clause. It’s a clear case of one more

Liberal-Tory conspiracy against the people —

of Canada.

- looks good for our paper.

WESTERN
EUROPE

Drawing by Yuri Ivanov

ee

_ U.S. Pentagon: This necklace will look lovely on you, my des

Flashbacks |

25 years 50 years

THIRTY-SIX JOBLESS STOP
STORMY YEARS THE BAILIFF
On March 15, 1922, the TORONTO — _ JU

employed organized in th
Torento Council of U!
employed, neighbors 4%
sympathizers, have held ©
for the past two days the ¢
forts of bailiffs to eveict
Sarafin, his wife and the
child from their home at !
Tecumseth Street.

During the past days u
police have been on the ste
in good force and have ma

first copy of The Worker
came off the presses in To-
ronto. Three weeks pre-
viously the Workers’ Party of
Canada was founded as the
first. nation-wide, legal party
of Communists.

At its first convention the
delegates decided:

“The Party shall eventu-
ally acquire a Party press in
order to give expression to Z
the interests and aims of the. a continual effort to keep!
working class movement picketting jobless movil

et from the neighborhood. It

That was carried out. amusing to note, howevé

Thirty-six years is a short that when cameramen fro
time historically, but they the press arrived, the poli
have been filled with world faded like the morning ™!
change. On. this anniversary _ There were during the ©
socialism is stronger, it is the 75 men in the house al
main content of the times in small force remained ¢4
which we live. The future night to prevent illegal acti

being taken by the bailiff.
The Work

Tribune, ,
March 4, 19

March 10, 1958

Profiteer of the week

Royal Bank, which recently decided to slap a charge on th
Visa credit card holders who are so inconsiderate as to pay
time, and-avoid paying interest, had a three-month, after-tax pr
(period ended Jan. 31/83) of $112,395,000. That's up fr
$80,684,000 in the same period a year ago.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN 5

: Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L-3X9. Phone 251-1186.

Subscription Rate: Canada $14 one year; $8 for six months.
All other countries: $15 one year.

Second class mail registration number 1560

s