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RCMP chief proposes

Ue

police state methods

rassed the Trudeau administra-
tion is illustrated by the terse
news story that the Prime Min-

By WILLIAM BEECHING
fan first press interview in
Blven by Canada’s new

Higeitt spe aissioner, William ister has said that he does not

clusion’ . peuilates the con- believe RCMP Commissioner

Etter at he is just like his

ane counterpart, J. Edgar
T. That he has embar-

Higgitt will be holding many
news conferences.
The important fact is, how-

‘

551 Je Univ
Blom, “4 to'rescind its 1950, vote’ to ban Communists from em-
539 ‘eae in the University of California. The faculty also voted
dismiss 2 to “condemn” the Board of Regents for ordering the
Profe al of Professor Angela Davis, an 25-year old assistant
Ssor of philosophy, on the grounds that she is a Communist.
the i tles Jenkins, president. of the Associated Students at
Playin, versity of California, accused the Board of Regents of
Missal Gn opportunistic political game in ordering her dis-
in a declared the Regents “‘realize they are going to lose
Meek i because their action is unconstitutional”. but they
Case, reap political dividends by prosecuting an untenable

phica roresser Davis is teaching her class in “Recurring Philoso-

On the memes in Black Literature,” and the students and faculty

Uses

p niversity campus at Los Angeles, and other UC cam-
the ¢

ee Organizing so as to guarantee ‘that students attending
Urse get proper academic credit.

aw a dramatic demonstration, more than 2,000. students
Class

ed fr and in what she symbolizes, that the class had to be shift-

©m a 350-seat room to one accommodating 1,800.

e Professor Davis was given a standing ovation when she

ute | the podium, and again when she concluded her 45-

Signed pete, Following the formal class, many of the students

th ae authorizations for a lawsuit on their behalf against
S.

Min

aes Registrar of the university got two sets of conflicting

i ae preceding the class. The University chancellor order-
The Ne 4 deny credit to any student taught by Professor Davis.
Qnd pews Senates’ committee on Undergraduate Courses
Otten; riculum, ordered him to give proper credit to all students
Ng the class.

€d up at her first lecture. So great was the interest in her .

ever, that the Trudeau adminis-
tration appointed Mr. Higgitt
deliberately, as a man who had
headed up Security and Intel-
ligence (S&I), where he has
been conditioned for years to

think in terms of curbing and |

suppressing the trade union
movement, and the people’s or-
ganizations.

William Higgitt’s statements
expose him as a reactionary. He
issues brazen instructions to the
government of Canada on a
number of questions, including
foreign policy matters. Canada’s
“top cop” is busy giving bad
political advice to the govern-
ment.

Ottawa is currently conduct-
ing negotiations with the Chi-
nese People’s Republic concern-
ing Canada’s diplomatic recog-
nition of that country. The out-
come could mean the opening of
an embassy of the Chinese Peo-
ple’s Republic in Ottawa. The
RCMP chief says that such an
embassy would be an outpost of
Peking’s spy network, and
would have to be closely watch-
ed by security forces and, there-
fore, that it should be deliber-
ately limited in size.

Embassies are not set up as
cloak-and-dagger operations. Es-
pionage is never contingent on
the establishment of an em-
bassy. The establishment of em-
bassies and the opening of
trade are usually steps that
make for an easing of interna-
tional relations. Of this, Mr.
Higgit is only too well aware.
His position is strictly that of a
political reactionary.

The close connections the CIA,
FBI, and RCMP maintain has
influenced his efforts to establish
the RCMP as a supra-govern-

. ment—much as the CIA is in the

United States.

Mr. Higgitt does not like
Canadians to travel to Cuba. If
he could, he would prevent them
from going there. He says Cana-
dian tourists go there to be
trained in subversion. His
charges will come as a shock to
many thousands of Canadians
who ‘have travelled to that
country over the years. His re-
marks on Cuba are intended to
bring pressure on Ottawa to
tighten up, or even cut off, rela-
tions with that country.

His public dispensations come
at a time when the socialist
market is easing the wheat mar-
ket crisis. It is a market bright
with promise for Canada if the
Canadian government takes the
appropriate steps to establish
friendly and mutually beneficial
trade relations.

Mr. Higgitt claims that the
Communists have not changed
over the years, and that it is
Communists who play a signi-
ficant role in student unrest. The
positions of the Communist
Party on all social and economic
questions in Canada are an open
book, and Mr. Higgitt knows it.

The suggestion that student
unrest would not exist if it were
not for the Communists is mani-
festly ridiculous. It is like say-
ing that the Communists possess
some magical quality enabling
them to bring thousands of
students into protesting some-
thing that doesn’t exist.

He proposes no solution to
the problems facing young peo-
ple that compel them to take

sometimes drastic actions.

Mr. Higgitt tries to put over
the hoax that the struggle for
socialism is a conspiracy, rather
than the struggle of millions of
working people for a new sys-
tem that would make it possible
to enjoy human dignity and
justice.

Canada’s new RCMP commis-
sioner has the same thoroughly
reactionary outlook in the realm
of crime. He proposes to tighten
up the laws, improve the tech-
niques of catching criminals, and
approves the wiretapping me-
thods of the police state—but
does not deal with the social
roots of crime. He only sees his
job as an enforcer. |

If there were any doubt about
the police state mind of the
RCMP chief, it should quickly
be dispelled by the fact that
Lubor J. Zink’s seal of approval
has been given him. Mr. Zink, a.
columnist with the reactionary
Toronto Telegram, spends his
working hours trying to dress
up anti-Communism in a ratio-
nal image. It may pay Mr. Zink
personally to do so, but a good
rule of thumb is: if Lubor J.
Zink is against it, it must be
good for the working class.

Mr. Zink, much like Prime
Minister Trudeau; pays only lip
service to the right of dissent.
He says, “The right of every
mature man and woman to cri-
tically examine and seek to im-
prove the organizational frame-
work in which they live is the
very essence of democracy.”
Then the punch line: if you
“abuse” the right of dissent
(meaning that if you do some-
thing about changing the prob-

lems which cause dissent) then

you are likely to fall into the
“pitfalls of anarchy and free-
dom.” ;

That, certainly leaves Abra-
ham Lincoln, and a good many
bourgeois politicians who have
followed him, to the left of
Messrs. Higgitt and Zink. _

Mr. Zink anxiously advises
everyone to practice “self-dis-
cipline.” “Dissent,” he says, “has
to be constructive.” Indeed it
does; there is no more reward-
ing task, and nothing that is
more in the interests of Cana-
dians, than to set about the
winning of socialism for Can-
ada.

Mr. Zink, just as the .RCMP
commissioner, suggests that stu-
dent unrest is a “dissent which
springs from nothing more than
the impulsive desire of every
new generation for change mere-
ly for the sake of change. . -

These reactionary-minded men

deliberately distort the essence
of student unrest, the sources of
which are their alienation, their
high exploitation by capitalism,
the brutalizing and warping of
their lives, the twisting of their
finest ideals for the benefit o'
the profit machine. ;

Students—and other youth—
are to be congratulated for
pitching into the struggle for
peace and social progress, and
raising those struggles to a high
level in an example worthy of
any Canadian to follow.

In suggesting that dissent can
lead to regressive action, Mr.
Zink leads away from the heart
of the matter. In the effort to
prevent dissent from becoming
meaningful, the tendency is for
the forces of capitalism to unite
in opposition to the dissenters.
Certainly that seems to be the
danger in the present Quebec
situation, in which there appears
to be an effort to congeal all
capitalist forces around one reac-
tionary policy, directed to deny-
ing justice.

This, of course, is not a prob-
lem confined to Quebec. The
danger of “regression” inherent
in today’s situation is that the
Canadian capitalist class also
seeks to capitalize on the above
problems to lead Canada down
a similar path.

William Higgitt, Canada’s new
RCMP chieftan, bodes no good
for Canada. His appointment is
unsuitable. He has obviously
stepped out of bounds. His
snooping is not directed at the
Communists, but is directed at
weakening the people’s strug-

gles for social justice, disguised,

in Mr. Trudeau’s remarks about
preserving “law and order.” The
law and order they wish to pre-
serve, is the right of capitalist
exploitation. His appointment,

/coming at this time in Canada,

requires the opposition of all
progressive Canadians.

‘You RECENED A STAY SICK. CARD FR
AND A*GET WELL’ CARD

THE PLANT
FROM THE HOSPITALSTAFF !”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 17, 1969—Page 7

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