a “united front,”

In his judgment, labor would

be “swallowed up and extermin-

ated” if it allied itself with the
Liberals.

The incident serves to high-
light the political debate begun
as Quebec gets set for the next
provincial elections, likely in
mid-June.

In this province, where poli-
tics are always taken seriously,
the current discussion has as-
Sumed deeper meaning as one

greats issue begins to emerge
from the. mass of slogans and
partisan propaganda.

That issue, in a nutshell, is
the question of whether Que-
bec’s fabulous natural resources
should continue to be handed
over to foreign trusts, or eX-
ploited to make Quebec's peo-
ple wealthy.. At stake is the
question of French Canada’s
continued existence as a nation.
All parties will be judged on
the basis of their answer to this
billion dollar question.

*

Rene Chaloult, nationalist and
one-time leader in the Bloc
Populaire, for months has been

addressing meetings in*the pro-_

vince in an attempt to rouse a
popular storm against the sell-
out of French Canada’s heritage.
Significantly, Chaloult was

At a recent Montreal;LJnion Institute called by the
Canadian Congress of Labor an imteresting exchange took
place. Jean Louis Gagnon, editor of the Liberal party weekly

Le Reforme and one of Georges Lapalme’s right-hand men,
was asked about the coming provincial elections.

His reply was that the Liberals and unions should form
that the labor movement should make

common cause with- his party within which there was a
“ginger group’’ seeking important “‘social changes.”

Jacques Morin, a CCL official, sarcastically asked
whether the Liberal party last time it was in power ‘‘revoked
the Padlock Law, changed the seat distribution and did not
pass a bill to outlaw strikes by public service employees.’'

oe |

By FRANK ARNOLD me

é
¢ ’
eae:

St. John’s Gate, Quebec City

The battle

Quebec

rr = 7

cluded, the problem of the hour
is “our economic liberation.”

*

‘Chaloult’s stirring call to na-
tional action to defent Quebec
against the sellout to the U.S.
plundereds is warmly received
in the Labor movement. In its
annual brief to the provincial
government, the CCCL deplored
that “our natural resources do
not fully benefit the workers of
Quebec.”

“The abundant wealth of
our sub-soil should, as much as
possible, be converted in our
province which possesses the
sources of energy necessary for

these riches. Certainly not us.
We are no longer masters in our
own home. , . . Our natural re-
sources—our forests, our hydro-
electric power, our mines —
which constitute our patrimony,
are more and more conceded to
foreigners who exploit them
cynically for themselves when
it is not against us. ~

“The dictatorship which we
Suffer particularly threatens our
culture,” Chaloult continued bit-
terly. “The enslavement of our
people to foreign monied pow-
ers — to the trusts — blocks
our development and comprom-
ises our existence.”

One of the solutions put for-

chosen by the St. Jean Baptiste
Society to make the closing ad-
_ dress at its annual congress.

Chaloult’s speech was built
around the theme: “Political in-
dependence is utopian without

>
economic independence.” our freedom.

“ “Our province’is rich,” he de-

clared, “but who profits from fiscal autonomy is settle, he con-

. but not to feed new industries in Quebec. Ore car-
riers take it by both the Atlantic Coast and St. Lawrence oe

River routes to steel mills in the United States. —

ward by Chaloult is “the partial
‘and gradual nationalization of
certain categories of goods which
should be exploited for our pro-
fit and which will permit us to
sueceed more effectively to gain

Now that the quarrel over

the aig a of large steel
enterprises, fo

be forgotten that we are deal-
ing here with riches that do not

reproduce themselves,” said the
CCCL brief.

r it should never

Le Devoir reacted to Chal-
oult’s speech with an editorial:
“Liberation or Revolution.”
Signed by editor Gerard Filion,
it echoed Chalout’s cry and
carried his proposals for nation-
alization one step further, as a
means of overcoming the pre-

sent discrimination against

French-Canadian technicians
and engineers in U.S. plants in
Quebec.

“The nationalization of the
Montreal Light, Heat and Power
and the Montreal Tramways
gave good jobs to people,” said
Le Devoir. “One naturally re-
flects: that which succeeded
with Hydro-Quebec and the
Montreal Transportation Com-
mission, why not repeat with
Shawinigan Water and Power,
Gatineau Power, Quebec Power,
several’ paper companies, and
several mines?”

“State enterprise,” Le Devoir
feels, “is perhaps not the ideal
in itself; but if it is the sole
means for a poor people to lib-
erate itself from slavery, one
should not hesitate to have re-
course to it,” :

So powerful is the sentiment
on natural resources that even
the Duplessis government —
chief instrument of the giant
giveaway program — is oblig-
ed to take note of it.

4

Defending against the Ungava
steal, one Union Nationale Coun-
- cillor admitted that, “true, the

_annual rent for the iron ore

concession is $100,000 and it is
expected that 10,000,000 tons of
ore will be shipped each year,
but that’s only part of the story.”
The other part, he said, is that
the government has the power
to place a 21 percent tax on
the profits . . . which it does
not do.

It is against this background
that the provincial Liberals are

trying to cash in on the rising
wrath of Quebec's people against,
the national betrayal. Lapalme ©
has> even announced he will
make natural resources the chief
plank in his election platform.
The Liberals are busy wooing
labor and trying to channel the
province-wide sentiment into
votes for the party.

~ But the Liberal chariot is
running on four flat tires. Few
people in Quebec forget that it.
was Louis St. Laurent himself,
the chief architect of “integra-
tion,’ who personally slapped
Maurice Duplessis on the baek
' for the Ungava steal.

\ The federal - Liberals have
made it abundantly clear that
they will not fight Duplessis
provincially — provided Dup-
lessis stays out of federal poli-
tics. This division of labor —
or Liberal-Duplessis axis — has
been so openly pursued that it
is sanctified with the title “col-
laboration.”

Commenting on this “pact of
‘non - aggression,” Le Devoir
‘points out that “the collabora-
tion of Duplessis’ MPPs with
certain federal MPs has for its’
sole object the triumph of com-
mon principles . . . to get re-
elected and to preserve for
themselves the ‘cheese’.”

Lapalme’s pose as a knight
in shining armor is somewhat
tarnished by the fact that the
provincial Liberals have had a
majority in the Legislative
Council (Upper House) lo these
many years, yet every Duples-
Sis bill passed — including the
anti-labor bills 19 and 20. There
is no fight in the provincial
Liberals, because the hard fact
is that Ottawa prefers the Du-
plessis regime to them.

“The Liberals are putting the
accent, apparently, on the ex-
ploitation of natural resources,”
writes Filion. “Will they dare
to go beyond the limits of what
is decently permitted among
parties sworn to the defense of
capitalism? I doubt it.”

APRIL 6, 1956 —

The Social Democratic (CCF)
party in Quebec is also enfeebl-_
ed and badly split.

Wholesale desertions from the
CCF’ in Quebec — particularly
from the labor movement —
have followed the anti-Quebec
position unfortunately adopted
by certain B.C. and Ontario
CCFers around the tax ques-
tion. Nor has the change of
name — from CCF to Social
Democratic party — erased the
bitter memories of the anti-
French-Canadian attitude of eer-
tain CCF-CCL officials at the
last CCL congress.

Lacking a correct approach on
the national question, the Social
Democratic party is floundering
badly and’ will probably not be
able to conduct a real campaign
around the 30 candidates it pro-
poses to run.

*

In these circumstances, the
LPP which has announced that
it will run 40 candidates,
emerges as the third party —
as the only serious -opposition
party to the old-line parties of
big business. This will be the
first time that the LPP has
challenged the parliamentary
monopoly of the Union Nation-
ale and the Liberals on a pro-
vincial scale.

In the editorial which com-

ments ruefully about the lack
of Liberal fight, Le Devoir ques-
tions whether “in the face of
this absence of audacity on the
part of the old-line parties, it
might be asked with some ‘anxi-
ety whether the fine role of
preaching social reform in Que-
bec is being left to the Com-
munists.”

The LPP, through its pro-
vincial leader Gui Caron, as
early as 1946 was the first to
warn of the consequences of
the sellout of Quebec to the
U.S. trusts.

' Today the LPP will take the
provincial stage as the only al-
ternative to the old-line parties
by virtue of its program which
proposes to transform Quebec’s
parliament from an intrument
of national betrayal into a
vehicle for national redemption.

The decision of the LPP to
nominate 40 candidates is a
serious contribution to the stim-
ulation of the development of
that patriotic movement, of a
national popular front.

These candidates (30 are al-
ready in the field) will take the
hustings to project a new poli-
cy for the French-Canadian
nation: oo

ae Stop all further conces-
sions of Quebec’s natural re-
sources. ;

Use raw materials, power,
to build a steel industry, to de-
velop secondary industry at
home.

Inventory ‘all U.S. con-—
cessions with a view to eventual
nationalization.

M Use the wealth of the
province to provide free health
insurance, free universal educa-
tion, equal living standards with
the rest of Canada. °

_ Assist the training of
thousands of Quebec scientists,
engineers, technicians to man
our industries, mines and mills.

Stop the attacks on the
labor movement, remove all re-
strictions on freedom in Que-
bec, repeal the Padlock Law,
and anti-labor Bills 19 and 20. _

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 9