SSS SE A ee

Commentary

——___ xs

Pees

NDP policy paper echoes peace agenda

. BY TIM FIRTH
There is one truth in this nuclear
age — no nation can achieve true security
byitself. .. security in the nuclear age means
common security,”

Significantly, the federal New Demo-
cratic Party chose to introduce their state-
ment on Canadian defence policy with this
quote from Cyrus Vance, former U.S. secre-
tary of state. It is a theme which is central to

anada’s Stake in Common Security, an
April 1988 report by the NDP international

airs committee.

The report is both welcome and signifi-
Cant. It is a stark contrast to the Conserva-
tive government’s June, 1987 White Paper
on Defence. And it marks a departure from
the NDP’s initial response to the Conserva-
tives’ formula for integration into the U.S.
War machine.

__ The Canadian peace movement will find
in this NDP statement of policy much that
Speaks directly to its own major concerns,
and which contributes very positively to the
dialogue among all Canadian peace acti-
vists Concerning the immediate tasks ahead.

From the perspective of the B.C. Peace

Council, the report’s recommended policy
on NATO does leave room for possible
retreat on the NDP’s policy of uncondi-
onal withdrawal, and the emphasis is not
always where we might place it, or placed as
strongly as we might like.
_ But the report performs a major service
presenting a comprehensive and articu-
late statement of the “new thinking” needed
to advance the cause of peace in Canada
and internationally. As such it should be
taken up for discussion enthusiastically.

The basic thrust of Canada’s Stake is that

anadian land, territory, airspace or terri-
torial waters should not be used for any
Purpose that could be seen as threatening to

"4 third country. Security for Canada, it
States, “relies not only on Canada’s ability
to defend itself militarily but even more on
an international order that recognizes and
Tespects Canadian sovereignty. Therefore,
Canada best contributes to its own defence
when it takes measures to create a more just
international order.”

_ Our role, it states, is one of war preven-
tion. We must unequivocally reject the doc-
ttine of deterrence and its philosophy of
heading off aggression by raising the level of

threatened reprisals against “the other
side.”

The document acknowledges that the
New Democrats’ precursor, the Co-
operative Commonwealth Federation,
“backed the formation of NATO in 1948,
while hoping the UN could eventually make
it unnecessary by establishing a global
security system.”

At the 1961 founding convention of the
NDP, leader Tommy Douglas, (with more
than a little wishful thinking, we might
note), “led support for NATO, arguing that
it might still function ... as an economic
alliance ... to lead the way in helping the
developing countries of the world.” The
argument was also advanced that Canada
could better work for disarmament within
NATO.

But the 1960s war in Vietnam, the emer-
gence of fascist dictatorships in NATO

April 1985

countries like Greece and Portugal, and
NATO reluctance to support disarmament
changed that perspective. At the NDP
national convention in 1969, delegates
voted for the current policy that Canada
withdraw from NATO.

Canada’s Stake hits NATO for its “cur-
rent reliance on a nuclear strategy (based on
flexible response) and in particular the fact
that NATO is prepared to use nuclear wea-
pons first.” The NDP report decisively
refutes the NATO contention that the War-
saw Pact enjoys superiority in conventional
weapons.

In the present climate of improved East-
West relations, the NDP believes there is
opportunity in the years immediately ahead
for Canada, as long as it is in NATO, to use
its membership to work for troop reduc-
tions, a chemical weapons ban, a no-first-
use policy, and so on.

Letters

Maurice Rush, B.C. leader, Communist
Party of Canada, writes: The statements
made by Energy Minister Jack Davis on

~ June 8 in response to an editorial in the
Vancouver Sun cannot go unchallenged.

First, he states, in defence of energy
€xports to the United States, that the
“export contract itself must be for a cer-
tain term. And once that term has run its
Course, export deliveries cease.”

Who is he trying to kid? Does he want
us to believe that after B.C. has built up
huge electricity surpluses based on export
the U.S. that we will be able to stop the
flow of energy to the U.S.? What will be
done with the huge surpluses which B.C.
will not need? :

Once we commit ourselves to develop-
ing projects to export power to the U.S.,
we will be permanently stuck with that
policy. The only way to avoid that is to
Teject the policy of committing our energy
resources to the U.S. And the best way to
do that is to reject the continental energy

Who is Jack Davis trying to kid?

deal which is part of the Mulroney-Reagan
trade deal.

Second, with regard to the downstream
benefits from the Columbia River, Davis
claims that “patriation comes first. No
return of downstream benefits, no firm
power export sales to the U.S.”

That statement is incredible. In about
ten years time, Canada will have to rene-
gotiate the sale of downstream benefits on
the Columbia. (Downstream benefits are
the power generated downstream of Can-
adian storage dams. Half of those benefits
belong to Canada under the Columbia
treaty but for the first 30 years they were
sold to the U.S. for $425 million. The first
of the sales agreements expires in
1997 — Ed.) But the Socreds are rushing
ahead now with development of energy
for export even before the downstream
benefits are even negotiated.

Last month, the National Energy Board
and B.C. Hydro apparently reached a
secret agreement, without public hearings,

“the return of downstream benefits is

. straightforward and honest answers from

to allow the Crown corporation to reacti-
vate the Burrard thermal station to pro-
duce power for export to the U.S. And
why were Davis and the Socred govern-
ment in such a hurry to set up the B.C.
Power Export Corporation to act as an .
agency for handling large-scale exports to
the U.S. if what he says is true — that
there will be no firm sales to the U.S. until

assured?

Obviously, the Socred government is
proceeding to arrange large scale exports
of firm power on long term contracts long
before the downstream benefits issue is
settled. There is also the danger that those
benefits will be negotiated away by the
government in return for increased access
to export markets in the U.S.

The public should demand more

Jack Davis. The Socred government and
stop trying to pull the wool over the pub-
lic’s eyes.

But the policy it advances is for Canada
to withdraw from NATO, after notifying
the alliance of the intention to do so in “a
subsequent term of NDP government.” To
sum up its position on NATO, the report
states that the “defence of Canada and the
peace of the world depends to an important
extent on the dissolution of the military
blocs — NATO and the Warsaw Pact... .
It is in this context that New Democrats are
committed to Canada’s withdrawal from
NATO; 2

There is far more Canadian-American
entanglement in NORAD than through
NATO, the report warns, and it predicts
that “if Canada continues on its present
course, the prospect is of complete absorp-
tion into U.S: strategies.”

An alternative the report proposes repla-
ces NORAD with a new agreement “shorn
of any links to ballistic missile defence (and)
to devise —under Canada’s leadership and
management — improved peacetime sur-
veillance and an improved warning system
in the event of crisis or war... .”

Canada’s geographic position between
the USSR and the U.S. not only makes it
possible but necessary to play a role in
reducing the risk of war. Canada must not
be seen as endangering the security of either
neighbour, the report argues.

The stationing of weapons or weapons
systems of an offensive nature on our terri-
tory is more than a remote possibility. The
use of our north in the Pentagon’s so-called
Air Defence Initiative is just one of the
alarming possibilities the report warns
against.

The reports states that an NDP govern-
ment will not proceed with the “dangerous
and extravagant purchase of nuclear-
powered submarines.” Such a move, it says,
might well be perceived by the USSR as
threatening because the subs are of “great
offensive capability (and would allow Can-
ada) to become partners in the Forward
Maritime Strategy of the U.S. Navy.”

The report goes on to say that cruise
missile tests and low-level flights of U.S.
bombers over British Columbia raise the
same question.

Sovereignty over our extensive coastline,
together with responsibility for fisheries
management, mineral exploitation, pollu-
tion control, and extensive search and
rescue capabilities will necessitate what the
document calls a “heavy emphasis on mari-
time surveillance” and a correspondingly
large portion of defence expenditures in this
sector.

Further, an NDP government will seek to
extend the anti-nuclear actions of Australia,
New Zealand and the eleven island states of
the South Pacific Forum into the broader
Pacific region. Those states are signatories
to the Treaty of Rarontonga, which bans
nuclear testing, stocking of nuclear arms
and the dumping of nuclear waste.

On a major point, the report notes that
“the most effective way of bringing the arms
race to a halt is a comprehensive test ban
treaty.”

The report favours strengthening the
United Nations, restricting Canada’s role in
the international arms trade, researching
conversion of war industries and facilities.

Canada’s Stake in Common Security
characterizes the 1959 Defence Production
Sharing Agreement with the U.S. as a “mil-
itary free trade deal” which is “unacceptable
to Canadian foreign policy and inimicable
to our goals for a Canadian industrial pol-
Icy.”

The report also addresses other major
concerns of the Canadian peace movement,
including the reduction and elimination of
cruise missiles, declaration of Canada as a
nuclear-weapons-free zone and preventing
Canadian participation in Star Wars.

Tim Firth is co-ordinator of the B.C. Peace

Council

Pacific Tribune, June 15, 1988 e 5

SPER i i

ct Raa Misa

Zed bad

ccd

ais iil, da

em Ne

vid gi

iy

nalhisteibitillis Aidit Win, sidsntaninadamicaaene die nation

ei rt Pa

eee spentocmmteceeinepccccenm > © Seentetaemesunecsccmages 2 nes. aterm memeantsresseeememmctneeentvinesmacr*  emeumaweammR ~~,