CANADA

crossCanada| Caravan takes peace

Saskatchewan hits
visa students

Until this year, Saskatchewan

' ranked with Manitoba and Newfound-

land as the only two Canadian prov-
inces which did not impose differential
fees for visa students. But this fall
foreign students fees will be double that
of Canadian students.

This differential has angered many at
the University of Regina. Dr. W.H.
Rubrecht, a professor of Germanic and
slavic studies at U of R points out that

.45 per cent of degrees held by the
university’s faculty were earned ab-
road.

** An institution that would only cater
‘through its own for its own’ would
quickly lose credibility as a university.
Over the years, Canada has been a net
importer of academics and highly train-
ed professionals. If nothing else, this
carries an obligation to support less
privileged individuals and societies
now and in the future.”

In dollars and cents terms the profes-
sor points out that international stu-
dents inject about $4-million of for-
eign-earned currency into the Regina
marketplace while differential fees will
pull in no more than $40,000.

Hydro delays
tritium trucks

Ontario hydro has delayed plans to
truck tritiated water to its Darlington
site from its nuclear power plants.

~ Hydro Jack Muir says
the shipments will be postponed until
summer or fall because of delays in
completion of the $170-million tritium
extraction facility.

The Toronto Nuclear Awareness
Project says it is also possible that
Hydro is delaying the shipments be-
cause it does not want the controversial
shipments to become an issue during a
provincial election campaign. Tritium,
a by-product of nuclear power, can be
fatal in minute amounts. It is also an
essential ingredient in nuclear arms
production.

When the shipments begin, a daily
minimum of 9,800 litres of radioactive,
tritium-laced waters, will be trans-
ported in containers tied onto flat bed
trucks.

Petition for
decent housing

HAMILTON — A committee has
been formed here to save the city’s
Municipal Non-profit Housing
Corporation. Established in response
to citizen pressure, the MNPHC was
mandated to help provide housing for
1,500 families in urgent need.

Its efforts have been plagued with
frustration however, with high income
rate payers associations blocking each
attempt to build rent-geared-to-income
projects in their areas.

The city has refused to protect the
integrity of the corporation, and on
each occasion has caved in to the
protesters’ demands. Last year the city
missed out on provincial housing fund-
ing because it failed to meet deadlines.

The Hamilton Social Housing Coali-
tion has issued a petition in support of
the Corporation and is demanding the
city take action to provide for the
housing needs of all its residents.

Church and solidarity activists
brought a message of hope to refugees
languishing in Buffalo hostels waiting
for immigration hearings to enter
Canada.

The message, presented by Nancy
Pocock, a long time member of the To-
ronto Quaker Refugee Committee, as-
sures the refugees, many of them
fleeing from danger and repression in
Central America, of a wide public

Talking peace and war
to Canadian young people

Special to the Tribune

Max, Dez and Allison are three
Montreal high school students who are
taking a year from their studies to travel
across Canada.

But this trio has more than tourism
on their minds, they are members of
Students Against Global Extermination
(SAGE) and they’ve been talking to
their peers in auditoriums and meeting
halls from the Maritimes to the Prairies.

They were at the University of Alber-
ta, April 7, at a meeting sponsored by
Edmonton Youth for Peace. Their Ed-
monton stay included 20 visits to local
high schools before a public meeting
wrapped up the Alberta leg of the tour
and they moved on to Vancouver.

The possibility of nuclear war isn’t an
easy subject for anyone to grapple with.
SAGE thinks it’s even more difficult for
young people — the uncertainty, isola-
tion and fear that results from feeling

powerless in the face of an escalating
arms race. Talking about the unthink-
able is a first step.

The speakers empatized with their
audiences’ fears but they didn’t shy
away from the more controversial ques-
tions. When questioned on the need for
a strong defence, one of the.,,speakers
answered, ‘‘the Soviet people are very
concerned about peace. They lost 20
million people in the war. It is not their
consciousness that needs to be
changed, but that of the Canadian
people.” ~

Speaking of their experience, Max
told the Tribune the response has been
positive and they “‘see strong possibili-
ties to organize throughout Canadian
high schools.”

After their tour wraps up the three
will be going to the Soviet Union, as
guests of the Nobel prize winning
International Physicians for Social
Responsibility.

call to U.S.

commitment to winning them safe
asylum.

While the group wants Ottawa to ful-
fill its moral and humanitarian duties

- towards the refugees, it is taking part in
-*a larger effort to win a political solution
in Central America.

They are the first leg of a “Caravan”
which is making its way to Washington
D.C. fora mammoth rally for ‘‘Peace in
the Americas’’. The caravan will spend
nine days on its way to the U.S. capital
stopping en route to meet with Ameri-
can peace and justice movement rep-
resentatives.

The main purpose of the project is
“to give moral support to our U.S
friends who are working for peace with
justice in Central America and to
demonstrate the extreme concern of
the Canadian people with U.S. policy,”
says author and academic Alison
Acker.

Among those travelling with Acker is
Ann Pohl, co-chair of the Toronto
Anti-Intervention Coalition and mother
of three. Her daughter Julia will cele-
brate her first birthday during the trek.
Dorothy McWirter is a nurse who has
travelled to Nicaragua and Raoul
Gutierrez is a Salvadorean-Canadian
and a recent refugee.

These Torontonians will be joined by
other Canadians from Winnipeg,
Montreal, Quebec City, Kingston,
Peterborough, Nova Scotia, Waterloo
and Ottawa at the rally in Washington
on April 25. British Columbians will
travel to San Francisco to join over
100,000 Americans protesting their
government’s policies toward Central
America.

Buses leave Toronto on April 24, for
information call (416) 534-1766 or 465-.
7053.

Comprehensive system by year 2000 CP urges

TORONTO — The majority
report of the Conservative domi-
nated Special Parliamentary
Committee on Child Care is in
complete opposition to the over-
whelming majority demand for
immediate government action on
the expansion of non-profit
licensed child care space across
Canada, says the Communist
Party in response to the com-
mittee’s findings.

The party accuses the commit-
tee of ignoring the acute crisis in
child care by supporting for-profit
models. The report is silent, it
says, about changes to the Cana-
dian Assistance Plan, instead the
task force recommendations fall
in line with the provincial pre-
miers, who want the Assistance
Plan opened up to make more
subsidies available to commercial
child care.

‘‘A further recommendation
that is clearly cemented to the so-
cial policies of the neo-con-
servative agenda is for the Fed-
eral Business Development Bank
to make it easier for profit-motive
child care centres to get more
grants.

‘*But there is no recommenda-

Child care alternative

tion or provision in the proposed
package to support the expansion
of non-profit licensed child care,
which the majority of the more
than one thousand written sub-
missions called for. Moreover,
changing the current Child Care
Tax Deduction to an unequal tax
credit plan will not create despa-
rately needed spaces,” the state-
ment says.

“The neo-conservative major-
ity in Parliament refuses to accept
the fact that the clock of social
progress cannot be turned back.
Women are in the paid labor force
to stay and the services they re-
quire must be introduced and
progressively developed by
government. The Mulroney
government has no difficulty -
when giving billions of tax dollars
to the military budget . .. There is
no hesitation or concern over the
deficit when neo-conservatives
bail out banks and big corpora-
tions. Clearly the funds are there
to provide for the needs of chil-
dren of working parents. What is
lacking is the political will of the
Mulroney government,’’ the
statement charges.

The Communist Party rejects

the Committee report ‘‘for its
reactionary ideological ap-
proach’’ to child care. The party
says it “‘welcomes and supports”
the campaign of the broad coal-
ition of labor, women’s, day care
and religious groups for im-
mediate direct government grants
to non-profit child care services.

The statement says the party
will continue to work for its long
term goal of a universally acces-
sible, publicly funded compre-
hensive child care system. It re-
commends several immediate and
long-term measures for govern-
ment action including: im-
mediately improving the avail-
ability and affordability of non-
profit quality child care by adding
$500-million to the present child
care fund; special funding for the
Atlantic provinces where very
few non-profit child care: spaces
exist; maternity leave with full
pay; increasing family allo-
wances; cutting the military
budget by 50 per cent to free funds
to child care services; establish a
Child Care Financing Act; a uni-
versally accessible, publically
funded comprehensive child care
system to be in place by the year
2000.

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 22, 1987