‘the

education funding,

U.S. role in co

Prime minister Trudeau’s recent
visit to Washington was aimed at
Securing assurances from the
Carter administration that it would
Support the Liberal government
and would not interfere in
Canada’s crisis of confederation,
Communist Party leader William
Kashtan told a rally in Vancouver
Sunday.

In return for such assurances,
the Communist leader noted,
Trudeau promised a number of
concessions in important areas of
foreign and domestic policy.

Kashtan, concluding a four-day
tour of the province which took him
to Vernon, Courtenay, Port Alberni
and Victoria, addressed some 300

_ People in the Templeton High

School auditorium. His meeting,
Sponsored by the city committee of
the Communist Party, was part of
a cross-country tour aimed at
outlining the party’s solution to the
Constitutional question.

Kashtan elaborated on the un-

‘derstanding reached between

president Carter and Trudeau,
Pointing out that the prime
minister had promised a number of
Policy modifications in his
discussions with Washington.

He cited the case of the Foreign
Investment Review Act which, he
Said, was being ‘‘modified to the
point where it is useless”’ and noted
that Trudeau had assured Carter
that any proposed Canadian trade
diversification — intended to

reduce Canada’s dependence on
the U.S. — would be Stielved for the
time being. mei

Much more ominous, however,
were concessions in foreign policy,
such as increased commitment to
NATO and vastly increased arms
expenditures and moves toward a
more belligerent cold war stance
evidenced by Parliament’s vote of
censure of the USSR over the issue
of “dissidents.”

“Canada was the only country in
the capitalist world whose
parliament voted to pass such a
vote of censure,” Kashtan noted.
“And it was intended to show that
Canada was fully behind Carter’s
campaign for ‘human rights.’

“What it all adds up to is that
Canada had undertaken to modify
both domestic and foreign policy in
order to get assurances from the
U.S. that nothing will be done to
aggravate further an already
difficult situation,” he said.

But despite the prime minister’s
reception in the U.S. and the
sweeping concessions made to
Washington, Kashtan said, the
Trudeau government cannot
resolve the constitutional crisis
and has done nothing to modify its
own bankrupt policies which
precipitated the crisis in the first
place.

He said that Trudeau had sold
the country on the false concept of
“one Canada, one nation” and had
buttressed it with a policy of

nfederal crisi

WILLIAM KASHTAN... outlines Communist Party position on crisis

of confederation.

bilingualism and regional
economic development, aimed
purportedly at overcoming
regional disparities.

“But November 15 — the date of
the Quebec election — proved that
policy to be bankrupt.”’

Rigid implementation of the
policy of bilingualism has led to a

backlash in English Canada, he .

pointed out, and has done nothing
to guarantee the rights of the

Student
fee cam

The B.C. Students Federation
will be going to Victoria to press its
demand that the provincial
government rescind cutbacks in
the education budget and that the
province’s three universities not
institute fee increases slated for
next September.

The Victoria lobby—announced in
response to a pledge made by
premier Bennett to NDP MLA
Emery Barnes that he would
“squeeze in a meeting” with the
students — was part of a resolution
adopted by more than 1,000
students who gathered in the
Queen Elizabeth Plaza in Van-
couver last Thursday in protest
Over planned tuition fee increases.
_ The student rally was the second
in as many weeks as_ students
responded angrily to cutbacks in
provincial grants to universities
which had prompted boards of
governors to institute fee hikes.

Demonstrators gathered at noon
on Thursday in the courtyard of the
Vancouver School of Art © and
marched from there to the QE
Plaza where singers and speakers
were awaiting them.

National Union of Students rep-
resentative Ross Powell opened
the rally with the warning that the
Proposed fee increases were only
Part of ‘a long term attack on
education” but reminded students,
“if we’re determined we can win.”
_Margaret Wiebe, a representa-
tive of the Federated Anti-Poverty
Groups and a student herself,
Slammed the government for

ignoring its own study which had.

acknowledged that tuition fees
Presented an accessibility barrier
for lower-income groups.

“How do we reconcile this with
recommendation of the
Universities council for fee in-
Creases — which will limit ac-
Cessibility still further?’’ she
demanded.

B.C. Student Federation
organizer Karen Dean also pointed
to government duplicity on
noting that

ederation taking
aign to Victoria

education department officials,
while claiming that no more money
was available for education, had
stated that funds would be
available ‘‘if fees are increased.”

The B.C. Federation of Labor
voiced its support for the student
rally, declaring in a statement
read out to the students: “Our
Federation. fully supports your
campaign . against the
inadequacies of the provincial
education budget, cutbacks in
government funding of higher
education and the resulting in-
creases in tuition fees.”

Federation secretary Len Guy
also. criticized the Socred
education budget as ‘‘just another
instance of the Socreds cutting
back on services to people as a

A forest of placards stands out
entertains the more than 1,000

means of allowing corporations to
enjoy ever-increasing after-tax
profits.”

Vancouver-Centre NDP MLA

Emery Barnes took up a similar’

point and told the rally that

premier Bennett’s idea of getting

the economy on its feet “meant
_ Standing on your toes.”

“The government should be
taxing coal and resources,’’ he
declared.

Barnes also urged students to
take their protest to Victoria and to
press the government to rescind
the cutbacks.

“T took the message to Bennett,”
he said, referring to his earlier
meeting with the premier over the
issue of tuition fees. ‘“‘Now you take
it to him yourselves.”

o* w-
before singer Steve Gidora as he
students who marched from the

Vancouver Art School to the Queen Elizabeth Plaza last Thursday to

_own opportunist interests

—Sean Griffin photo

French Canadian people in Quebec
who continue to be discriminated
against on the basis of language
and remainalmost at the bottom of
the “‘economic totem pole.”

Since the Quebec election, the
Trudeau government has geared
its economic policy to undermining
the Levesque government,
Kashtan noted, and is “playing a
cat-and-mouse game” with the
Quebec premier over the question
of a referendum on separation.

At the same time, the Com-
munist Party leader stressed, the
Tory proposal of a ‘‘decen-
tralization of power’’ poses ab-
solutely no solution to the national
question and presents an ad-
ditional threat of greater
monopoly control because of
reduced federal authority.

Moreover, Tory leader Joe
Clark’s broad suggestion that
Quebec should be forcibly kept in
Confederation poses the grave
danger of ‘‘civil war and the end of
Confederation,”

Commenting on the NDP’s ap-
proach to the constitutional

‘question, Kashtan likened the NDP

leadership to Diogenes, the Greek
Cynic philosopher who went out
into the streets with a lantern
searching for an honest man.

“The NDP is going around
looking for a policy,” he said,
adding that NDP statements on the
issue have merely echoed the
opinions of other parties, par-
ticularly the Liberals.

As was the case with its initial
position on wage controls, Kashtan
emphasized, the NDP placed its
above

increases.

S seen

those of the working class.

“But most important, the NDP
does not — or will not — un-
derstand the question of a nation.
Likethe Liberals and Tories, it will
not accept that this country,
despite the BNA Act, is made up of
two nations and that any resolution
of the constitutional crisis must be
based on the equality of those two
nations and their equal right to
self-determination.”’

Only the Communist Party has
enunciated a policy which takes
into account both the English-
Canadian and the’ French-
Canadian nation and proposes that
anew constitution be drafted based
on “the voluntary partnership of
the two nations enshrined in a bi-
national state,”’ Kashtan declared.

The CP program also calls for a
restructing of the state apparatus
which would abolish the present
non-elective Senate and replace it
with a house of nationalities which
would have equal representation
from both English and French
Canada. Together with the present
House of Commons, it would form
a two-house system through which
all legislation would have to pass.

Kashtan noted ‘“‘the others shy
away from the concept of a
French-Canadian nation and the
right of the nation to self-
determination because that right
must include the right to separate.

“But that does not mean that we
advocate separation,” he em-
phasized. “In fact, we are opposed
to the separation of Quebec
because it is not in the interests of
the French-Canadian working
people. ‘‘A separate Quebec would
inevitably be absorbed by the
United States in one form or
another.”’

- The Communist Party leader
also. stressed that Quebec
separation would be completely
counter to the interests of working
people in English Canada.

‘“‘Working people in English
Canada share a common enemy
with their counterparts in Quebec:
monopoly and the multinational
corporations. That enemy would be
strengthened by a _ divided
Canada.”

Kashtan told the rally that the
Communist Party would be
distributing the pamphlet outlining
ifs stand on the crisis of Con-
federation in thousands of copies
across the country.

‘We havea distinct contribution
to make to the debate going on
across the country,’’ he declared.

-‘We intend to make our voices

heard.”

voice their protest against education cutbacks and anticipated fee

—Sean Griffin photo

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 18, 1977—Page 3