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Yes, let's pull out
f NORAD

and chart a new foreign policy

By NELSON CLARKE

Ni eessibility that Canada
nt has \c Air Defense Agree-
less a p Now been raised by no
of th “son than the President
ivy Council, Walter

Speakj
: ad to a National Press
fon in Ottawa on
oe rdon Said “it may
dom a © better part of wis-
Own 4 small nation like our
Positi Teconsider its whole

r E
Poitcten oe than increasing
 Tionately . osPeMditures propor-

ed St pee those of the Unit-
These and the Soviet Union.”
Secong Re rather belated
Mr. orden en's coming from
ef archite He was one of the

Li cts of the high pres-

: . er, : i
to im al campaign of 1963

POs

Heqacear Weapons upon
Ment, An a4 the NORAD agree-
he aay; spite the fact that
Clear majo an People refused a
‘ Tity to the Liberals at
i 1ssue, Gordon,
Ne rest of his

. COllegoy
aa Agues, and with
ed three g Socred backing, forc-
arliament a decision
Clear weapons for

'
ang pettheless,

friends
Acludin @ 0

today, Gordon,
On the Toronto
Newman ttawa columnist
ting to th, are at least con-
lly Bere development of
Whole ey debate about
as of Canadian

© Canadia, ue" Policy.
'S can an Tribune and its
~ Oly welcome that

8 ,
new Spaper has a

proud record of having fought
NORAD from the beginning.

The agreement was signed in
1958 and was valid for a period
of 10 years. Hence it comes up
for renewal in May of 1968.

Under this agreement Cana-
dian forces were “integrated”
under U.S. command for the
“defense” of North America
against the imaginatory threat of
Soviet aggression. From a deep
hole in the ground at Colorado
Springs the orders were to go
forth to send into action Cana-
dian as well as American-man-
ned planes and Bomarc missiles
against Soviet bombers. Several
times (and probably much more
often than we know) the whole
vast machinery of nuclear war
was nearly thrown into motion
when the trigger-happy officers
mistook flocks of geese or the
rising -moon on their radar
screens for oncoming Soviet air
craft.

NORAD was and remains a
flagrent violation of Canadian
sovereignty and independence.
Far from protecting Canada it
vastly increases the danger in
which our country stands, be-
cause it ties us to the aggressive
and terribly dangerous policies
of those who rule in the United
States.

If in 1958, it was still possible
to deceive wide sections of
Canadians into believing it was
somehow the Soviet Union
which threatened peace, this is
hardly the case today when
every. man and woman who
thinks at all can see the bloody
fruit of American aggression in
Vietnam.

There will be wide agreement
among all sections of demo-
cratic opinion in our country
that it is in Canada’s vital inter-

ests to cancel the NORAD agree-

ment.

There is a set of developments
which can now reinforce and
make fully realizable this de-
mand.

The Pentagon generals and the
U.S. merchants of death who
make billions out of the manu-
facture of armaments are driving
hard for the establishment of
an anti-ballistics weapon system.

If Canada remains in NORAD
this system will be imposed on
us at a frightening economic
cost.

Peter Newman, writing in the
Toronto Star, says: “This would
have sweeping strategic, poli-
tical and economic consequ-
ences, robbing us of what little
consultative sovereignty remains
to Canada in military matters.
It would require the financing
and construction (by Canada) of
missile defense around our
cities and a vast private and
public shelter program.”

Newman has estimated that
it would cost $250 million to
“protect” each Canadian city
with an anti-ballistics missile
system.

If such a course were embark-

‘ed upon, Canadians would really

be compelled to choose guns
instead of butter, ta choose an
ABM defense system that would
not really defend us, instead of
the schools, the houses, the hos-
pitals, the health programs our
people so much need.

It is little wonder that Liberal

politicians, even from the stand-
point of saving their own poli-
tical fortunes, ~are shrinking
away from such a decision.

Is there an alternative? Of
course there is.

The Communist Party put
forward alternative proposals in
the program it adopted at its
1959 convention. They are worth
recalling now:

“The policy which  corres-
ponds most realistically to the
cause of peace and independence
of Canada is one which breaks
completely from the aggressive
imperialist policy of the USA—
the main sources of the war
danger. Such a complete break
necessitates the proclamation by
Canada of a foreign policy of
neutrality. Canada cannot be
secure or independent unless it
completely disengages _ itself
from entanglements in U.S. mili-
tary alliances intended for war
against the socialist countries.
The practical way to effect this
disengagement is for Canada to
proclaim a policy of neutrality.

“Neutrality would represent a
democratic independent Cana-

’ dian alternative to the present

automatic commitment to im-
perialist war at the orders of the
USA. It does not mean isolation-
ism: it would be a positive con-
tribution by Canada to the de-
velopment of a policy of peace-
ful coexistence with the socialist
states; to the development of
mutually advantageous trade
with all countries; to the lessen-
ing of world tensions. It would
strengthen Canada’s voice in de-
manding the ending of nuclear
tests and the abolition of nuclear

and atomic weapons through
general and complete disarma-
ment.

“It would mean the with-
drawal of Canada from NATO
and NORAD, the removal of
U.S. military bases from Cana-
dian territory, the restoration of
Canadian armed forces to Cana-
dian command, and the reduc-
tion of those forces to levels re-
quired by the defense of Cana-
dian borders.”

To this it can be added now
that obviously a neutral Canada
could be expected to abandon
Martin’s slinking “quiet diplo-
macy”; speaking up in total con-
demnation of the U.S. aggres-
sion in Vietnam, and stop selling
armaments for that war.

This is not to argue that we
would have to ‘wait’ to declare
a policy of neutrality before do-
ing this. The Canadian people
are demanding with ever greater
clarity and insistence that our
policy towards Vietnam must be
changed now. S

The point is, as this writer
sees it, that the demand for a
Canadian foreign policy of peace
and the demand for a complete
break with the USA in the
interests of our independence,
sovereignty and security fully
complement and reinforce each
other.

The rising tide of anger
against the U.S. murder of the
Vietnamese people, and now the
developing search for an alter-
native to NORAD — this is the
stuff out of which will be shaped
a new course for Canada in the
world — a course of peace and
independence.

Be
on. int ;
of obbits erestin

i
&d One alte ay,
F anot

ter smoking four to four and a half years, they
er from lung cancer.

UNION CALLS FOR PROBE

Are we being taken’
on Columbia power?

HE United States’ plan to
increase generating capa-
city at Grand Coolee dam

to 9.2 million kilowatts, was
roundly condemned recently by
C. S. Jackson, national presi-
dent, United Electrical Workers
Union. Jackson wrote to Min-
ister of Energy, Mines and Re-
sources, Jean Pepin, ‘ pointing
out that “this is far in excess of
the 3.7 million kilowatts men-
ticned when the treaty was
under discussion.

“The United States author-
ities,” he said, “appear to be
losing no time in wringing the
maximum advantage out of the
deal made with Canada.

“Obviously the greatly in-

creased capacity of Grand
Coolee, doubtless to be followed
by additional increases in gener-
ating Capacity in generating
plants downstream, produce sub-
stantial additional benefits for
United States which would be
impossible without Canadian
storage and regulation of Co-
lumbia River flows .. .”

Noting that the U.S. author-
ities ‘evidently do not intend to
pay Canada anything” for a 250
percent increase “in generating
capacity, Jackson called for ap-
pointment of a_ parliamentary
committee to hear expert testi-
mony of interested parties.

Proper questions for such a
committee, he said, should in-

clude additional compensation to
Canada for additional down-
stream benefits acquired by
United States, added costs to
Canada, or hindrances to maxi-
mum power development in Can-
ada, by reason of storage and
flow regulation called for by

U.S. power generation require-
ments and the possibility of any
of the additional power gener-
ated in the United States being
fed back into Canada through
the U.S.-Canadian grid (or other-
wise) which could mean in ef-
fect that Canada will pay for
power which we should rightly
be paid for.

May 5, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3