(Intemational peace meets
list problems, solutions

Two international gatherings of consequence to world
Peace took place with Canadian participation in the latter
Part of January — one in West Berlin and one in Vienna.

In Vienna the meeting of officers and organizing com-
mittee members of the International Liaison Forum of
Peace Forces brought together a spectrum of opinion.
Thirty-eight representatives from 26 countries belonging
to different political parties, trade unions, peace move-
Ments, and international non-governmental organiza-
tions exchanged views. :

They expressed ‘‘their deep alarm”’ that in the past
few months “‘the threat to world peace has further in-
creased because of the deployment of new American
nuclear missiles (first strike weapons) in some west
European countries ...”’

Their communique declared that it was this develop-
Ment that destroyed the basis for the Geneva talks,
“forcing the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Treaty allies
to take counter-measures ...””

Calling upon participants in the Stockholm Con-
ference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures
and Disarmament to live up to the great hopes placed in it
by the world’s peoples, participants in Vienna also an-
nounced ‘‘an emergency representative meeting of poli-
tical and public organizations and movements in Stock-
holm’ next month to dwell on the essentials of the
Current Stockholm conference.

Acts of Aggression

The Vienna communique did not fail to record the
Tecent ‘‘acts of intervention and aggression in the Middle
East, southern Africa and Central America’’ or overlook
the violation of the United Nations principles and ‘‘in-
sults and obstruction”’ in its specialized agencies, such
as UNESCO, from which the USA gave notice of with-
drawal. It criticized efforts to convince world public
Opinion that ‘nothing special had happened either in
Europe or the whole world’’ while in fact ‘‘the situation
is much more dangerous and frightening.”

Finally, agreement was reached to ‘‘organize this
summer in Vienna an international event devoted to
building support and positive public opinion for the UN
efforts to end the arms race.’’ This, and the
Brandt/Palme findings, it was felt, would contribute to
Preparations for the Third Vienna Dialogue for Dis-
armament and Detente, early in 1985.

The International Liaison Forum is headed by leading
Personalities, government and former government
Ministers, peace and trade union leaders from Britain,
Colombia, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, USA and USSR,

with even wider participation. Romesh Chandra of India
Is its president. Participating from Canada were John

Backgrounder

Hanly Morgan, president of the Canadian Peace Con-
gress, Jeannette Morgan, member of the CPC executive
committee, and Janet Bruin, representing Edith Ballan-
tyne, a vice-president of the ILF and general secretary of
the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom. £

* * *

The other recent meeting significant for world peace,
was the session of the presidential committee of the
World Peace Council in West Berlin, Jan. 21-24.

Declaring in an Appeal that ‘‘peace is in mortal
danger’, the representatives of peace organizations and
public opinion in 140 countries, condemned U.S.
deployment of Pershing 2 and Cruise nuclear missiles in
the Federal Republic of Germany, Britain and Italy. This
had blown up Soviet-American talks on reduction of
medium-range nuclear armaments in Europe, “they
charged.

Denouncing the elevation of international terrorism to
state policy as in ‘‘the armed butchery of tiny Grenada,
the aggression in Lebanon, the undeclared war and hos-
tile actions against Nicaragua and .. . collusion with the
racist regime in South Africa which is wreaking destruc-
tion and death in Angola,’’ the Appeal urged peace
organizations to act.

The priority should be to: stop further U.S. deploy-
ment of missiles in Europe; to remove the new U.S.

missiles already deployed; and to restore the conditions

needed to resume honest and business-like talks on nu-
clear arms reduction.

The Soviet Union and other socialist countries, it
points out, “‘have declared that in case of the restoration
of the former situation there would be no need for
counter measures ...”

Stop Reagan
In a blunt, 25-point statement, the WPC leaders casti-
gate the blind concept of “‘equal responsibility’’ of the
USA and the USSR, and declare that this concept “‘is
weakening the struggle for peace and misleading the
peoples.”
The Reagan forces, it states are the main source of war

danger. Reagan’s abandonment of the pursuit of co- ’

existence and detente for a crusade against socialism,
puts extremism in the saddle in international policy deci-
sions.

The document notes deep concern at the Reaganites’
actual planning for ‘‘admissable’’, ‘‘limited’’, ‘‘pro-
tracted’’, and even ‘‘winnable’’ nuclear war, and

Europeans cry

“NO!”’

American first-strike weapons on
the doorstep of the Soviet Union
are the most appropriate fuse for
touching off a nuclear world war.

Americans, we beseech you:

Do not deploy PershingIll
and Cruise Missiles in Europe!
For the sake of humankind—

Don’t do it!

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Eleven former NATO-generais from eight countries
signed this document saying ‘‘no” to U.S. first-strike
weapons. Their message: “Do not deploy Pershing II and
Cruise missiles in Europe! For the sake of humankind —
Don’t do it!’ The generals are from Portugal, Italy,
Greece, Norway, United Kingdom, Federal Republic of
Germany, France and the Netherlands.

equates stopping humanity’s slide into the nuclear abyss
with stopping Reagan.

That means battling for a halt to deployment, for a
nuclear freeze, for no first use pledges by all nuclear
powers, for prohibition of nuclear weapons tests, pro-
hibition of chemical and other mass destruction
weapons, limiting conventional weapons, preventing the
militarization of space and for NATO-Warsaw agree-
ment on mutual non-use of force.

Stopping Reagan means defending the UN, and
supporting the Non-Aligned Movement; demanding that
resources alleviate hunger, unemployment, illiteracy
and under-development — not enlarge military
squandering.

Seized with a sense of urgency the World Peace Coun-
cil meeting stressed ‘‘equal security’ east and west as
the only basis to reduce and liquidate nuclear weapons.
‘The mighty peace movement,” it declared, ‘‘can make
governments listen to the voice of the peoples — the
voice of reason and peace!”’

Problems of needy unresolved

Lalonde reneges on pension promises

By BRUCE MAGNUSON

Instead of an increase of $102
Per month in Guaranteed Income
Supplement (GIS) recommended
by a Parliamentary Task Force
and accepted by Finance Minister
~onde as a priority for early
implementation in December, we
ae have a reduction of that

gure to less than half, or $50
Payable in two instalments of $25
ach commencing July 1 and De-
Cember 1, 1984.

§ The calculated cost of this at
250-million this fiscal year and
Million in 1985-86 may or
May not be exaggerated. But the
Claim that this will guarantee a
| total pension for 750,000 single
| ld persons at $600.16 a month by
1 end of this year is highly
_ QWestionable, bearing in mind that
€very one of these persons has to
© an application before the end
Of March this year, and every
Year after that to benefit from this
Mcome-tested program.
3 Changes planned to help some
000 immigrants who now re-
Ceive only a part of the Old Age

Security Pension because of fai- —

lure to meet residency require-
ments required for a full pension,
is calculated to cost $3-million
this fiscal year and to rise to some
$10-million in the fiscal year of
1987-88.

Futile Gestures

None of this will solve the prob-
lems of the millions of needy in
this country. It simply amounts to
futile gestures following more
than a decade of wrangling and
political obfuscation of the reality
of the situation.

If, on the other hand, Lalonde
had raised the universal Old Age
Security Pension to a decent level
and removed the income-tested
GIS there would have been some
hope for the 57 per cent of our
pensioners (who now number
close to 2's million) to rise above
the poverty level income.

Even more criminally absurd is
the situation facing over two mil-
lion unemployed in this country.
All the fancy talk about money-

_ purchased pensions will not help

them one iota.

But the doctors, lawyers, den-
tists, chartered accountants and
all other self-employed pro-
fessionals in the upper income
brackets, who have been lobby-
ing for the government to increase
the current limit of the RRSP (Re-
gistered Retirement Savings Plan)
tax-sheltered contributions got
what they were after and more.
The limit on RRSPs by 1988 will
be tripled at $15,500.

In 1982, the maximum benefit
under the Canada Pension Plan
was $3,692. Even the civil service

‘only provide just $15,000 a year

for those with more than 30 years
of service. But statistics gathered
by the parliamentary task force
on pensions indicate that a small
percentage of high-income Cana-
dians, primarily business ex-
ecutives, are able to build private
pensions with tax assistance,
providing them with post-retire-
ment pensions of $60,000 per
year. The value of the current tax
benefits that go toward pensions
was worth about $5-billion in
1982, according to a government
green paper on pension reform.

The task force on pensions ex-
pressed concern in its report that
this tax benefit ‘‘accrues dis-
proportionately to upper-middle
and upper-income taxpayers.’”

Disproportionate

“It’s difficult to agree with a
system where the poorest of the
poor survive on $542 a month and
yet that co-exists with some get-
ting $5,000 a month’’, said
Chairman Frith of the task force.
The task force suggested the
post-retirement income of the
poorest group be raised to $644 a
month.

The task force also recom-
mended limiting the amount of tax
assistance available at the upper
end, suggesting a top figure of
$33,000 a year in tax-assisted
retirement income.

(This figure was based on one-'
and-a-half times the average wage
and would rise as the average
wage increases.)

The task force noted that its re-
commendation would not limit an
indivudual’s post-retirement in-
come. It would simply limit the

amount of it available for assis-
tance.

“Tt’s the obligation of the
government to assure a person
help with his retirement,’’ Russe
MacLellan (a member of the task
force) said. ‘‘But, my gosh, after
an income of $33,000, how much
do we have to help out?”’

A good question! One also
wonders by what magic Finance
Minister Lalonde expects some
kind of so-called sustained recov-
ery to come out of his policy of |
putting some $400-million into the
hands of consumers in the current
budget, while taking $1,600-mil-
lion out of their hands in his
budget of April, 1983?

And all this is happening while
millions are taken out of pro-
duction of new values and put on
Unemployment Insurance and
Social Welfare, workers and far-
mers are losing their homes and
possessions, while banks and
corporations are taking more and
more through rent, interest and
profit.

Some hat-trick!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 29, 1984 e 5