Oe Rt Ate ee

BY STANLEY RYERSON

Canadian

IF somebody tripped you, push-

ed you over, and then tried to
tread on your face,you assured-
ly would react.

When something of that sort
happens to a country, its people
react likewise.

That. is beginning to be the
case with Canadians.

After three centuries of being
a dependent colonial pawn, first
of France and then of England,
our country had just begun to
stand on its own feet—when the
new imperial power-bully of the
Almighty Dollar started shoving
us around.

(Because it was almost a cen-
tury and a half since Yankee
troops had tramped over Can-
adian soil and burned Toronto;
because our own mental image
of the USA bore largely the im-
print of names like Lincoln and
Roosevelt, while our critical
faculties were a bit dulled by
the ‘cultural’ conditioning - of
the endless barrage of American
publicity output—we were slow
to react. Moreover, the fact
that our own government and
ruling bankocracy have been
feverishly eager collaborators in
fastening the new fetters of
Yankeedom upon the country,
and that they’ve been mightily
assisted in,the operation by their
labor lieutenants—this confused
many, and continues to do so,
though with diminishing effects.

What’s beginning! to be realiz-
ed are these harsh truths:

Canadian economic’ develop-
ment is thwarted and hobbled by
American-dictated policies which
deprive us of markets, surrender
our richest resources to alien

saddle the population
with an intolerable burden of
armaments expenditures, dras-
tically lowering living standards.
Canadian state sovereignty has
been let go by the St. Laurent
government—with Tory, Socred
and right-wing CCF agreement.
They have turned the Canadian
state into a mere extension of
the U.S. big business-military
power apparatus. They have
opened our highways and air-
fields to U.S. troops, just as they
handed over our iron and oil
deposits to U.S. corporate buc-
caneers.

.

Canadian science has
prostituted in the interests of
atomic and_ bacterial
“preparations of the North Am-

trusts,

been

warfare

_erican trusts. Canadian cultural

growth has been stifled and de-
filed by the avalanche of U.S.
blood-and-murder films,
waves, pulps.

air .

It’s time we got angry.

Ss

Our. anger has precedents.

The biggest, widest mass
movement in our history had
Canadian Independence = em-
blazoned on its banner: the
people’s Revolution of 1837-38,
which won us “responsible gov-
ernment” and laid the demo-
cratic base for a united Canada.
Confederation, which we com-
memorate this July 1, was the
enactment in law of our exist-
ence as a state, in face of the
danger of American envelopment
and annexation.

The Canadians were determin-

ed ‘to exist, together—as Cana-
dians. 2:

That is our national birth-
right; .we’ll not readily surren-
der it,

But we must realize — and
spread the recognition wide —-
that the dream of a united, in-
dependent Canada, “strong and

Who'll lend him books?

B.M., Jericho Beach Hospital,
Vancouver, B.C.: I honestly
think the Sportlight column is
a swell addition to the Pacific
Tribune and most of the fellows
I’ve talked to think likewise. I
know that quite often here the
sports items have prov@ked some
pretty lively discussion.

I think that the articles on ~

sports in the Soviet Union and
the People’s Democracies, be-
sides being very interesting and
informative, are downright vital
in order‘ to combat such perni-
cious blurbs as O’Brien’s article
in the Vancouver Sun the other
weekend, It seems that.with the
Olympics coming up the tempo
of anti-Soviet sports writing has
been, greatly stepped up. That is
why a PT sports page is so neces-
sary.

I know a lot of fellows who
have no political ‘savvy at all,
yet sports, I think, is common
ground for most people, Of
course, I could be biased, being
such a sports fan myself, but
all in all I’m sure most readers
will agree with me when I say
there is no apology needed for
the Sportlight column.

I have been having quite a
struggle these last few months.
In March I came down with a
dose of pleurisy which is really
tough stuff to handle on top of
the TB, and then my good side
‘filled up with fluid so I had

quite a session in a single room
in an oxygen tent.

Anyway, I managed to pull
through that OK and got feeling
good enough to be moved back
to the ward. I was just there
two days when I had a near-fatal
hemorrhage one night so it was
back into the single room and
oxygen tent for me. I hemorr-
haged for about a week steady
and had just about ‘had it”
when they managed to get some
of the new TB wonder drug
(Kimifon) for me. It sure lifted
me right out of the holerand
right now I’m feeling not too
bad, I got out of the oxygen tent
a couple of weeks ago and now
I guess it’s just a case of taking
things easy and gaining my
strength back.

There is one thing about being
stuck in the single room and
that is that I can get a bit of
reading done. I’ve been getting
through -about 2,000 pages a
week because that’s absolutely
all I have to do is just read. But
now I’ve read myself right out
of books,

I was wondering if, anyone.
would be willing to loan me a

few books; I would see that they .

are well looked after and re-
turned in good condition. I don’t
feel quite well enough to tackle
anything too heavy, but would
like some good = progressive
novels,

e ] * Je

Fur industry's plight

H.Y., Lister, B.C.: I recently
received a leaflet dealing with
the plight of the fur industry,
which in my opinion has received
the heaviest wallop below the
belt of any industry—brought on
mainly by the heavy taxation
needed to build the criminal war
machine.

I believe the taxes have been
cut some recently, as the result
of a delegation to Ottawa led
by Robert Haddow of the Fur
and Leather Workers Union, but
I don’t believe the little amount
taken off the taxes will save
the industry.

The leaflet is addressed to all
members of the B.C. Trappers
Association, and is written by a
trapper who lives at .Meldrum
Creek, B.C. He says, in part:

“Your finance minister at Ot-

tawa is taxing our business out
of. existence. Last year he took
from our sockets in taxes almost
$35 of every $100 worth of furs
we trapped. Our own provincial
minister took another $3. Thus,
excise, luxury and other taxes
took 88 percent of the value of
our furs before we received a
dollar,

“The past season has been
disastrous for all of us. The fur
trade is not to blame. The Euro-
pean situation plus the high in-
flationary period in\which we
live plus Mr, Abbott’s ill-
considered taxes are solely re-
spensible for our present plight.”

-free,’”’ has to be fought for, to

be fulfilled.

At every step of the way, the
ruling rich have frustrated or
betrayed the people’s will to in-
dependence. Democratic Cana-
dian consciousness has taken
shape only in the teeth of upper-
class toadyism, now directed to
London, now to New York. The
rebel-patriots before, the spokes-
men of the working class today,
have been the ones to voice the
conscience of Canadians.

At Columbia University, on
June 5, Lester B. Pearson found
it necessary for the umpteenth
time to come up with an attempt
at an alibi for Ottawa’s servility.
He ‘‘justified’’ the government’s
readiness ‘‘to follow the leader-
ship of the United States and
Britain in world affairs, ‘because
it is the leadership of free states
and free men’.”’

His policy, and his masters’,
is dedicated to preserving the
$60 billion of corporation profit
of U.S. and Canadian monopo-
lies; it cals for the brazen, need-
less sacrifice of Canadian
lives in war abroad, the
scuttling of people’s welfare,
health and living standards here
at home; it ties us to the germ-
war criminals in Korea, and the
Nazi gangsters in West Germany.

This policy of dishonesty is
peddiled to us as “patriotism’’—
by men in the pay of foreign
corporations.

Resistance to policies of be-
trayal is labelled ‘‘treason’’—by
the same traducers.

It is a matter of honor, to be
howled at for defending Canada
against the Iscariots who are be-
traying her.

e

The party of Canadian Com-
munists, the LPP, takes pride
in the fact that it is hated and
reviled by the present millionaire
owners and barterers of Canada
—and that it is revered and lov-~
ed by the honest working folk
who are the future owners and
masters of their land.

It is the miners and _ steel-
workers, railroaders and metal
workers, loggers and textilers,
farmers and fishermen, house-

“ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 27, 1952. —

‘from the 18th and early

e “. . . They have turned the
Canadian state into a mere
tension of the U.S. big bust
ness-military power apparatus:
They have opened our high
ways and_ airfields -(like’ the
RCAF. Arctic base at Re
solute Bay, Cornwallis [sland '
shown above) to U.S. troops
just as they handed over a
iron and oil deposits to U.»:
corporate buccaneers. . + + Its
lime we gol angry.”

vives and youth and works
professionals—the mass of work
ers by hand and brain—wh0 at?
the bearers of true patriotis™
It is not the corporation lawyel
and stock exchange sharks wh?
can truly speak for Canada ~)
even though they and thei? big
shots have temporary control
the state,

@
The people of Canada 5)

yet to speak. Their word
be, for peace, for friendshiP
the peoples, for democracy» a
the independence of our #7
Just as the slogan, Canadian "
dependence, first was raise tio?
patriots who draw inspirt ott
century European and Ameri?
revolutions! just as canad?
democratic consciousness 2% 3
powerfully when our 10%
fought against fascism i?
ance with the immortal he Je
of Stalingrad—so will the bat e
for our independent destiny iy
won in solidarity with the Me
free, liberated peoples ° 1e°
camp of socialism, in joiMt “of.
sistance to the atomic 1unacy
the camp of war and death
ee
r

As the LPP program prom}
so shall it be:

aa o
“Together we shall puile
new and better world—® oJ
happy, prosperous and pene of
Canada, independent of @! opl?
eign domination, whose pe
are its only masters.” Pi
Life — and the people ~ ial
triumph in Canada, @§
lands, f nis
That is the challenge of ! ae
Canada Day of 1952.

psGe ge