Satur hinges on fight for Canada

Canadian

delegates to the fifth national LPP
Convention in Toronto, March 25-
ay who came from all parts of
vanada and represented a cross-
Section of Canadian life.

eee unionists, farmers, leaders
Sie € French-Canadian working
cape youth, artists, writers and
‘ ural workers, newspapermen,
SUuncillors, aldermen and school
meaices, housewives, pensioners,
W Canadians — men and women
joi anada’s Communist movement
: pee in discussing and adopting
ad ew national policy to*“Put Can-
“4 First,” placed before them by
a Buck in his opening address,
@ program for Canada—‘Can-

adian Independence and People’s
€mocracy.””

jane new LPP policy, he ex-
ot) aed calls for the election by

democratic elements among
we Canadian people of “a par-
‘amentary majority pledged to

doe tablish Canadian indepen-'

ence,”

5 qtis Majority will include “Can-

‘ans of all creeds and various
2 litical Opinions, including some
ments of the bourgeoisie, whose
ational ties with Canada are
Sucreet than greed for profits.”
jon Slements “will be impelled to
‘ 2 in national democratic action
Stop the U.S. domination of our
Suntry” and the Liberal and Tory
Parliamentary monopoly “that has
en abused for so long,” will be
1ssolved,

The LPP leader pointed out that
e € hew LPP program “is drawn
Ut of the life and problems of the
anadian people and (takes) its
ing Point from their democra-
© traditions and national aspir-
ations.»

It “a ’ : se
Cialis or Canada’s path to so

“a

ay “In this national convention,
Uck continued, “we proclaim
Sur confidence that democratic
_ ~8Nadians all over this country
will increasingly recognize the
Necessity to elect to parliament
©n. and women who are dedi-
Sated to the re-establishment of
©entrol by the people over Can-
‘an policies. To restore the
SoVernment of Canada to her
People, to establish officially and
Yond shadow of doubt, the su-
Premacy of parliament.
“ IS is at once the need for
Nd the Pathway to election of a
People’s majority to parliament.
hoes € call upon patriotic peace-
i ving Canadians to join hands now
0 the battle to make Canada free,
‘ dependent, her greatness builded
Ot © Peace, freedom and prosper
he happiness that is to be achiev-
€d by her sovereign people.”
mane 1953 federal election had
4 Ved none of the basic problems
pole Canada, “largely because no
br itical party except the LPP
pecusht those problems before the
ecole Each of the other parties
of PPorted the St. Laurent policy
US..canadian integration.”
© government “is completely
is © War camp of U.S. imperial- ‘
a and the recent world tour
* rime Minister St. Laurent
i eae Nakedly undertaken in the
a. "vice of U.S. war policy.”
Us detailed. evidence ,of the
and €conomic, military, political
Cultural domination of Can-
and said “the time is long over-
Tisy, 2en the mask of benevolent

peeteousness affected -by our
off _ Minister should be stripped

Play. — the sinister role that he
~~ ’YYS is exposed for what it is.”

®aling at length with the grow-

develop the struggle against U.S. domination, in al! spheres of Canadian ec
pens up great new possibilities for democratic pro gress

99
e

against U.S. domination, says Buck

“The future of Canada, our future as nations, French and English speaking, depends entirely upon the extent to which we unite to win
sovereignty. In’this struggle, which is now unfolding and commanding the support of widening circles of all classes, love of country and
militant defense of democracy merge in true patriotism. The inescapable need of all patriots is to unite now in a great democratic national front to
onomic, cultural and political life. This is a historic challenge, but also, it

party, was greeted with resounding applause from the 300

As he spoke these words, Tim Buck, national leader of the Labor-Progressive

TIM BUCK: “A parliamentary majority pledged to re-establish

Canadian independence.”

ing threat of economic crisis “that
hangs like a dark cloud over all
the countries of the capitalist
world,” Buck said: ‘
“As a result of the operation of
the economic laws of motion of
capitalism, aggravated to an ex-
treme degree by the anti-Canadian
policies of the St. Laurent govern-
ment, elements of this crisis are
maturing in Canada very rapidly.
He cited the stockpile of unsold
wheat; the half million unemploy-
ed industrial workers; the declin-
ing steel production; the drop in
foreign trade; the record rise in
stocks of goods on dealers’ shelves;
and other factors. :
“Unless radical measures are
adopted, on a sufficiently large
scale and in time,“ he warned,
“our country is headed for a
shattering capitalist economic
crisis.”
The LPP leader said the “fatal-
istic argument that nothing can be
done, that the masses of the peo-

ple must be the hapless: victim” of |

the crisis, must -be rejected.

“In the conditions prevailing to-
day,” he said, “that argument is
an attempt to immobilize the
working class. It is an attempt to
make of Marxism a barrier against
working class action.” On the con-
trary: Marxism is the “guide to
action,’ not a “straitjacket.’ We
are guided by the spirit of the his-
toric thesis of Marx—‘the philoso-
phers have only interpreted the
world in different way, the task,
however, is to change it’.”

Calling for mass popular action
against economic crisis, Buck said
that “obstacles to measures which
could protect the masses of the
people against depression are now
entirely political.” coe

lining measures as containe
Sere LPP’s 10-point “Beat The
Threat of Depression” program, he
declared:

“Economic crisis can be pre-
vented if the masses of the peo-
ple take up the struggle and com-
pel the introduction of whatever
measures are necessary.

“Even if we don’t succeed in a

eloping popular action on a scale
Ag anti compel the introduc-
tion of adequate measures in time,
our program of action will still re-
main valid. In addition to show-
ing how the threat of depression
can be defeated now, it provides

\

also the only way out of depression
if the crisis engulfs Canada.”

‘The national slogan the Labor-
Progresssive party had adopted —
“Put Canada First”—expressed the
vision of Canada’s destiny. +

“The purpose of our central slo-
gan is to focus attention upon that
which the nation must put first if
we are to survive as an independent
people,” he ‘emphasized. ; :

He spoke of the growing resis-
tance to the “policies of war and
national disaster,” charging that
the St. Laurent government pur-
sued a policy of U.S.-Canadian in-
tegration and “is completely in the
war camp of U.S. imperialism.”

“The fight ba¢k against the im-
perialist drive to war and national
disaster has not yet become fully
conscious, and even less has it be-
come united,” Buck said. “For the
time being it is largely instinctive,
expressing itself in sectional
actions in defense of sectional in-
terests. But it will gather momen-
tum as the essential national con-
tent of the problem is recognized.
The elements of a great national
resistance movement are coming
into being. :

“Tt will be the task of the LP
to help the working class to be-
come the unifying force and the
advance detachment of the nation-
al struggle against the threat of
depression, against U.S. domina-
tion, for Canadian independence
and peace.”

The speaker drew prolonged
applause when he _ proposed:
“The slogan of all patriotic Can-
adians must be ‘Keep McCarthy-
ism Out of Canada’.” He assail-
ed the anti-labor and anti-demo-
cratic clauses in Bill 7 now be-
fore the House of Commons and
called for the broadest action to
further strengthen the move-
ment against the proposed
changes in the Criminal Code.

On the threat of war, he said

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it would remain “ever present
while imperialism controls half the
world—particularly while the’ do-
minant imperialist power, the
U.S., continues to base all its poli-
cies upon an insane drive to con-
trol the whole world.”

Relaxation of peace action now,
he said, could be fatal.

Paying tribute to the .achieve-
ments of the world-wide peace
movement—he added: ‘Never be-
fore in history did two mighty
armies stop fighting, literally in the
midst of a great war, as happened
in Korea, that marked a major
victory for the peace forces of the
world. . . . It was a conclusive
answer to the pessimists who ask
‘what good will peace action do?’
The answer is to be seen also, in
the slight but real easing of inter-
national tension today.”

Buck said that “because Canada
is one of the countries most open-
ly dominated by Yankee imperial-
ism, it could be a decisive factor
in bringing about a conference of
the five great powers.”

He warned, however, against il-
lusions: . .

“The instigaters of war are not
yet defeated. The slight easing of
tensions evident during the past
few months is already evoking
more strenuous provocations from
the leaders of the war camp. John
Foster Dulles’ threat of. instant,
masssive retaliation, Premier Ad-
enauer’s 150,000 shock troops in
officers’ training corps and his an-
nounced intention of proceeding
immediately with the remilitariza-
tion of Western Germany, the U.S.
plan for the militarization of Pak-
istan and the remilitarization of
Japan, U.S. insistence that France
continues the ‘dirty war’ against
the people of Viet Nam ~ are all
evident signs that the madmen of
the imperialist world have not yet
abandoned their drive to engulf
mankind in a horrible atomic
war.”

And to the cheers of the dele-
gates who gave him a tremendous

ovation, - the LPP national leader
concluded with these confident
words:

“The changes we are making cor-
respond with the changes taking
place in the world.

_ “The days of imperialism with
its exploitation, its oppression and
its wars are numbered. The pro-
mise of peace and peaceful deve-
lopment is becoming clear.

“The imperialists are not go-
ing to be able to prevent continu-
ed social advance. The demo-
cratic people of the world will
not allow them to again hurl
mankind into war to maintain
their power to exploit working
men, and oppress weaker na-
tions.

“The triumph of socialism in the
Soviet Union and the gradual
transition to communism there is
a preview for all mankind of the
path of development that is now
certain in People’s China and’ the
People’s Democratic Republics of
Europe.

“The peoples of the colonial
countries have added reason now
for their determination to achieve
national liberation; working peo-
ple in the capitalist countries have
concrete evidence that they do not
have to be the passive, helpless
victims of crisis which, now, is the
consequence of the blind, suicidal
efforts of a handful of imperialists
to turn the clock back. :

« “We are on the threshold of a
new historic forward surge of man-
kind.

“In this hour we shall make our
best contribution to world progress
by doing our duty to Canada.

“Our path of struggle — to stop
U.S. domination, to win Canadian
independence, to win through to
People’s Democracy, is Canada’s
path to socialism. By that path the
Canadian working class willl make
its historic contribution to the de-
feat of the imperialist instigators’ of
war and to the achievement of our
shining goal of Communist society
for all mankind.”

Hear a report on the

Speakers:

Chairman

MONO TUICUCUL ILI LL IO TCI UP UD ODED 0 t

>
A NEW NATIONAL
POLICY FOR CANADA!

Fifth National Convention
Labor- Progressive Party

PUBLIC MEETING
PENDER AUDITORIUM
SUNDAY, APRIL I1--8 p.m.

NIGEL MORGAN

LPP PROVINCIAL LEADER

MAURICE RUSH

LPP VANCOUVER ORGANIZER

ALF DEWHURST

LPP PROVINCIAL ORGANIZER

Silver Collection

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 2, 1954 — PAGE 7