ELECTION ’84

| Atruly patriotic,
| democratic culture

Canada has a rich and vigorous cultural tradition. The creative
Work of Canadian artists plays a vital role in the life of our society.
tis through the arts that the best traditions of our past, the best
Values of the present are preserved and perfected.

That tradition, our children’s valuable heritage, is threatened.

€ cultural community has greatly increased public awareness

Of the problems facing Canadian culture but despite all efforts,
€ arts are suffering from government neglect. At no time, in any
Country are the arts self-sustaining. Culture is not just another
Usiness, a commodity to buy and sell —that is the ‘‘culture’’ of

the very rich and that is the attitude expressed by government to

_ the arts.

The “bottom line”’ of culture is far more than profitability. It is
an essential contribution to the quality of life of all Canadians and
Particularly of the future generation. Because every aspect of our

'V€s is especially vulnerable to U.S. influence, in constant losing

Competition with giant U.S. corporations, there is a crying need
Or a new ‘‘bottom line’, for policies which will protect and
£ncourage Canadian artistic creativity. We need policies which
Will give us the ability to control and end those aspects of cor-
Porate entertainment which ridicule working people, which are
Pro-war, violent, racist and sexist. :

creasing dangerously. The two major examples are the shrinking
budget of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the
decade-long static budget of Canada Council. In these times of
€conomic crisis, arts budgets are among the first slashed. Military
oak increase and all social spending is cut. Why? We are not

War!

Today’s reality is that instead of government action to stop

-S. corporate takeovers, we see only the mildest of wrist-slaps
delivered to these powerful giants, and then only after we’ve
Made a fuss!

We pay the taxes — instead of bombs and missiles we want the

Nding, the policies which will promote a flourishing and

umane cultural life. We want the many, many jobs which the
Cultural sector can produce. We want a government which will
lake the following steps:

e Firm measures to stop takeovers and mergers. FIRA’s
8uidelines must be strengthened, not further emasculated.

e Increase support for the CBC, the National Film Board. We
heed government-funded, publicly controlled institutions =
Privatizing will only mean more U.S. control and fewer jobs in
Canada.

e Canada Council is more than a financial business cor-
Poration. The criteria for funding should not be set by Ottawa
Mandarins of business or solely by the cultural elite. Criteria
Should be democratically decided by representatives of all sec-
“Uons of the population. See
__We need poligies which allow a decent living to Canadian
artists. Too many live below the poverty line or are subject to the
equitable vagaries of Revenue Canada. oe

© Stop corporate ‘‘charity’’ which amounts only to tax write-
Offs and free advertising for big companies. Support the arts by
‘axing the corporations and direct the funds under public

| Scrutiny,

. © Government action to implement Canadian content regula-
tions on TV and radio — at present 70 per cent of TV watched in
Nada is from the USA. gt
e Set up acrown corporation to produce Canadian school and
University textbooks. The 83 per cent presently imported from
Oreign sources should be producing jobs for Canadian
academics, publishers, printers as well as Canadian content for
Our students. : :
e Recognize and increase support for the important contri-
bution of the network of amateur cultural endeavor across the
Country. ‘ Ce
e Drastically improve programs and funding for amateur
SPorts. For a healthy society sports must be more than an invest-

_ | Ment proposition for the super-wealthy.

_@ Promote peace and international friendship by restoring full
Cultural exchange with the socialist world.

e Stop fence-sitting on the crime of pornography. The huge
‘Profits made at the expense of the dignity of women, children and
Men cannot be tolerated. = eat
_ These are the first, basic steps necessary to regain a thriving,
Job-producing Canadian culture. Ne

A healthy culture would be responsive to the interests of not
a i ‘

But today’s reality is that support for our cultural life is de-

Canadian arts suffer
from Tory-Liberal cuts

The Liberals and Tories will
attempt to placate the electorate
with speeches long on somewhat
mediocre oratory and short on pol-
icy. These no-policy speechs are
merely a screen to hide the policies
which they do have in place. It is
their policies which have produced
the following facts and figures
taken from reports made public
since the Applebert Commission
report came out. These are only
some of the results which the Lib-

eerals and Tories have to answer
for.

Movies — The 100 per. cent tax
exemption produced a few Cana-
dian movies and jobs but soon
became a front for U.S. companies
to make their movies cheaply.
ACTRA states that there was an
actual drop in the Canadian share
of income for writers, performers
and technicians in the boom Can-
adian Film Development Corpo-
ration (CFDC) period.

American movie distributors
take in 80 per cent of Canada’s
annual box office, but in May this
year, Francis Fox, communica-
tions minister, released a new pol-
icy calling for American studios to
distribute more Canadian movies.
Ottawa put up $48 million for the
Broadcast Fund to trigger Cana-
dian prime time TV programs —
Fox’s new policy is an open
invitation to U.S. distributors to
turn Canadian taxpayers’ money
into profit for Hollywood moguls.

Pay TV —If the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommu-
nications Commission (CRTC)
goes ahead as proposed, two
monopolies will control Pay-TV

~ for the entire country.

Books — Only 13 per cent of
English books sold in Canada in
1981 were published here; 67 per
cent of school textbooks used in
‘1981 were foreign produced, mainly
from the U.S. .

The takeover of Canadian pub-
lishing houses continues and a new
trend emerges, mergers of U/S.
branch plant houses in Canada.
Little or nothing is done to stop
this increasing U.S. monopoly con-
trol which threatens the survival of
Canadian publishing.

Magazines — Tamarack, Last
Post, Fugue, Content, Branching
Out, Weekend, Today Magazine
— a few of the magazines which
have folded in the last few years.

‘Meanwhile Canadian taxpayers
subsidize Time and Newsweek to
the tune of $8 million a year in
special postal rates.

Canada Council’s chairman,
Maureen Forrester, admits pub-
licly that five out of six applicants
are turned down. :

Canadians in all branches of the
arts face an increasingly insecure
future — a warning signal for the
futue of Canada as a country
which we cannot ignore.

Put Canada First!

Steel quotas ‘unacceptable’

HAMILTON — Communist
Party candidates Bob Mann and
Liz Rowley condemned the call by
Bethlehem Steel chairman Donald
Trautlein and United Steel Workers
of America (USWA) president
Lynn Williams for much tougher
trade barriers against steel imports

LIZ ROWLEY
Hamilton East

than, those recommended by. the

International Trade Commission.
Liz Rowley, Communist candi-

date in Hamilton East, said: “The

_ initial recommendations by the

ITC were bad enough. If imple-
mented between 2,000 and 2,500
Canadian jobs would be lost. But
these recommendations which are
much much stiffer will mean the
loss of even more jobs in Canada
— and not only in steel.

“Any quotas or tariffs on Cana-
dian steel are completely unaccep-
tate and must be rejeted wholesale
by Canada — and by a govern-
ment that will have the guts and the
policies to stand up to Reagan and

the U.S. steel companies and say

no in no uncertain terms,” she said.

Bob Mann, the Party’s candi-.
date in Hamilton West, and a
union steward at Stelco’s Hilton
Works, said, “I am appalled at the
fact that the International Union
and its ‘Canadian’ president Lynn
Williams would take a position
that directly injures Canadian
steelworkers, while putting the

just a few but to the workers and the farmers, to the special needs
of the young, to the two-nation character of Canada, to the rights
of minorities. To be healthy our culture must be truly democratic

and truly patriotic.

These are decisive times for the future of Canada, not least of
all for the culture.of our country. To preserve and build that
heritage we have to make sure that these issues are discussed in

the federal elections.

To preserve our heritage we have to stop the drive to the right
and prevent the election of a majority right-wing government.
The election of a large progressive bloc, including Communists,
would be the best guarantee of steps toward real change, away”
from neo-conservatism and the status quo. :

The cultural community alone cannot save the situation, nor
will it win any lasting solutions from the Liberals or Tories. What
is vitally necessary is to work toward an alliance of all progressive
people and organizations who, together, can mount an effective
fight for Canada and for her culture:

&

- Communist Party of Canada

a

A

Central Executive Committee,

union in the pocket of the bigest
steel makers in the U.S. Williams
has obviously forgotten — or else
he never knew — that as president
of the USWA his job is to fight for
steelworkers — Canadian and
American, and not for American:
transnational corporations.”

Calling on other candidates in

‘the Hamilton area to express

themselves on this issue, Mann and
Rowley added. that the quotas
point up the danger of Canada’s
deep economic and political dep-
endence on the U.S.

“We need a government that’s
going to put Canada first,” they
said, “and that means laying it on
the line to the Americans that this
isn’t the Slst state. It also means
opening up our trade relations to —
include the socialist world and the
newly developing countries. This.
done, we would no longer be
blackmailed by Reaganonomics,
and the whims of U.S.-based
transnational corporations.”

Hamilton West .

» PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 8, 1984 e3

\