- QUIPS and QUIRKS

More in sorrow than in anger we reprint in full the following
item in the English-language news bulletin of the Chinese official
news agency under the heading “Canadian People Hold Anti-U.S.
Demonstration”:

Ottawa, March 3 (Hsinhua)— Over 2,500 Canadian people
demonstrated in front of the U.S. embassy here recently, strong-
ly protesting against U.S. imperialism’s policy of aggression in
Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Holding aloft portraits of Chairman Mao and carrying red
flags, the demonstrators shouted, “Long live people’s war!”
“Death to U.S. imperialism-” “U.S. aggressors get out of Viet-
nam!” and other slogans. They exposed on the spot a handful
of revisionists and other saboteurs who had sneaked into the pro-
cessions, and made them extremely embarrassed.

The demonstration reflected the daily awakening of the Cana-
dian people. More and more people have come to realize that
U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the people throughout
the world.

The report is correct, except for a few minor details. First, the
things that were reported correctly: a demonstration did take place
at Ottawa and the Canadian people are ever more recognizing that
U.S. imperialism is the common enemy.of the people throughout
the world. We also won’t quarrel about the number of participants.

Now as to those troublesome (facts are so stubborn!) details:

e The demonstration was of students and youth, initiated by
the McGill Moratorium Committee in Montreal.

e The demonstration was on Parliament Hill, i.e., at the Cana-
dian Houses of Parliament, and was directed primarily against
Canada’s complicity in the criminal U.S. imperialist war of aggres-
sion against Vietnam. (We know, comrades of Hsinhua, about the
delicate negotiations under way between the governments of Cana-
da and People’s China, and we hope—as we have always advocat-
ed—that full diplomatic and trade relations are soon established,
but please! ...

e The demonstrators chanted mostly, “We want peace!” and
the bulk of the banners carried such slogans as “Stop arms sales!”
“End Canada’s complicity!” “Withdraw U.S. troops now!”

e The demonstration was attacked by a group of Maoist rowdies
and provocateurs who rusHed to the microphone, grabbed it and
shouted obscenities and anti-peace slogens.

e The Maoists exposed themselves as enemies of the fight for
peace, who by their prevocative and disruptive actions can only
help U.S. imperialism.

Otherwise the news report carried by Hsinhua was quite correct.

* x *

A reader sent in this cartoon for our column. He didn’t say where
it comes from, but it seems up our alley.

“Seven o'clock, General, dear. Time to get up and start undermining world peace!”

* * *
A cartoon in The New Yorker, widely reprinted in Canada, shows
a company executive addressing a stockholders’ meeting. The exe-
cutive says: ;
“And though in 1969, as in previous years, your company had
to contend with spiralling labor costs, exorbitant interest rates,
and unconscionable government interference, management was able
once more, through a combination of deceptive marketing practices,
false advertising, and price fixing, to show a profit which, in all
modesty, can only be called excessive.”
*x * *

AIN’T IT THE TRUTH?
Whenever profits begin to fall
You can’t tell Wall Street
From the Wailing Wall.

—J. S. Wallace
x * *

All the government and big business blah, so assiduously spread
by the mass media, hasn’t succeeded in befuddling the public. A
recent Gallup Poll reported that 58 percent of Canadians think that
business and manufacturing gain most from rising prices, only 9
percent thought labor was the gainer, and barely 1 percent pointed
the finger at the farmers.

Honest Abe was right, you can’t fool all of the people all of the
time (Pierre Elliott Trudeau take note).

* * x

A reader suggests that when we sing “O Canada, glorious and
free” our Prime Minister thinks we mean that it’s free of charge
to the Yankee billionaires.

x * *

J.S., who lives out on the prairies, writes his comments in verse
(we can only quote a quatrain) on the “Divine right of profit and to
hell with wheat”:

When you cannot donate your own wheat
To the needy within your own nation,
In my opinion—may I repeat—

That’s imperialist regimentation!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 20, 1970—Page 8 ~

For left unity

By ALAIN PATRIE

MONTREAL — As a bright
herald of things to come and in
response to surging grass roots
demands, an alliance of labor,
farmers, citizens committees
and co-ops has initiated a re-
gional conference for April 4 and
5 in Montreal.

Against a background of social
and economic unrest, the Quebec
Federation of Labor took the
first step, the calling together of
all representatives of the work-
ing people of Quebec and par-
ticularly Montreal in an effort
to advance political action and
quite possibly launch a political
party of labor that would unite
all the left elements of the pro-
vince. .

“The principal organizers of
the conference are the Quebec
Federation of Labor (QFL), the
Confederation of National Trade
Unions (CNTU) and the Corpora-

tion of Quebec Teachers (CEQ),””

Gui Dupuis, executive secretary
of the Montreal Labor Council,
told the Canadian Tribune.

“Last year our convention
called for the founding of a
united front in Quebec. The
times call for just such a stra-
tegy. We started by announcing
our intention to work in regional
sections in an effort to politicize
the workers.”

“GRASS ROOTS” |

Invoking the resolutions of a
preparatory conference, the vice-
president of the CEQ, Mathias
Rioux, the president of the Mon-

Quebec labor's initiative |

-Montreal, one of the highes!
North America, but the cl)

treal Labor Council Armand Joli-
coeur and the president of the
Montreal Central Council of the
CNTU Michel Chartrand issued
the letter of convocation. The
two-day conference intends to
study in workshop sessions the
vital problems concerning the
condition of the “Quebec wage
earner, and the role of the wage
earner in the cities. —

“What must be understood in
all this,’ Mr. Dupuis stressed,
“is that we have opened the con-
ference to the grass roots. We
will listen to-all voices con-
cerned, be it the Montreal Citi-
zens’ Committee, the Tenant As-
sociation or students. Some of
our workers belong to the Que-
bec NDP or the Parti Québec-
ois. Some to the Quebec Com-
munist Party. We are prepared
to listen to them and then act on
a general concensus.”

CIVIC PROGRAM

Parallel with this devélopment
a new civic action group
launched a full scale attack on
the municipal nabobs of Mon-
treal. Accusing the city of anti-
democratic practices and shock-
ing neglect, the group issued a
4]-page manifesto on the Drap-
eau-Saulnier clique, entitled the
Balance Sheet of a Decade. It
highlights these crimes:

e The city allots 0.9 percent
of its budget to housing and 8.9
percent to- a commercial fair,
Man and His World.

e The cost of rent averages
24 percent of a family budget in

‘ance of a labor part

fuses to take advantage of
vincial legislation to ©

e Fares for public trans
creased by 66.6 percent mm
years.

e More than 50 percent
population occupies
dwellings that are slums”
buildings over 50 years old. | |

@ More than half of the®
families live on less than $9)
a year, 20 percent have ine?
below $3,000. th

e The entire cify count!
composed of professionals
business men. There is n0
ing class representation. '

e'In 1966 only 35 perce.
the electorate cast . votes |
municipal politics. i

e Montreal has 2.78 PO.
men per 1,000 citizens. The
tional average per 1,000 ¢
is 1.75. Montreal city 0%
bases its program on repress
and exploitation.

STEPS WELCOMED

“We hail these welcome
velopments,” declare? | i
Walsh, leader of the 7
Communist Party. “The |

(
(

J

y on sf
municipal scene is the first
to a higher stage. th

“While we applaud
moves we will continue ia
for a provincial party of Bes
even though we may 1 4 j
ceed to this stage for the |
elections.” (

!

The report entitled “Steel and
Inflation”” which claims to be a
study of cost and price develop-
ments in the Canadian steel in-
dustry by the Prices and In-
comes Commission and releas-
ed by the Minister of Consumer
Affairs at Ottawa on March 12,
is a clear political attempt to
whitewash the industry and put
the blame for inflation on labor,
a Communist Party press re-
lease charges.

4

‘Our resources
not for grab’

C. S. Jackson, president of the
27,000-member United Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers
union (UE), has called on Prime
Minister Trudeau to immedi-
ately issue a ‘public statement
categorically rejecting the U.S.
government’s use of oil quotas
as blackmail in their pursuit for
control over Canadian energy re-
sources.”

In a wire to the Prime Min-
ister, Jackson said, “No govern-
ment has the right to mortgage
Canada’s future by deals on
basic resources. These resources
constitute our birthright and
only by direct agreement of the
Canadian people can they he
sold or loaned out.”

In urging Trudeau to declare
“that our resources are not up
for grabs,” the union leader said,

“There never was a more Dlat- -

ant challenge to force a deal
which would deny future gener-
ations of Canadians the re-
sources which are ours and on
which our expanded civilization
depends.”

At the same time, not even
this one-sided and strictly pri-
vate “investigation” based on
such information as the indus-
try has seen fit to provide can
hide the fact that the tendency
is clearly for labor cost per unit
of production to decline rather
than to increase.

Labor costs in terms of dollars
per ton declined from $34.70 to
$30.70 in 1964, from whence it
increased to $38.80 in 1967,
only to decline again to $36.80
in 1968. Obviously such rates
are closely related to the fullest
utilization of productive capa-
city and the pro rata use of all
facilities, factors which are
wholly and completely deter-
mined by management.

The fact that only a handful
of internationally known giants
control the market and set

“obstacle to economic P

prices at will is ignored
Commission and no recOh
dation for any action ® iy
posed other than to stale.)
“the price and cost increa™,
the steel industry in 196 |
clearly inconsistent with!”
able price stability.” wal
Having made that obs© at |
the Commission tends  ¥;
the blame for the situa f
labor and to make the i@ a
come out smelling like 4
Hence the only remedy “@
the Commission and of
ernment seem to offer iS 4 4)
ly recession in which lap",
made to pay through um
ment and greatly reduce y
comes for the crisis mala)
tion of an archaic private ‘ia
system that has become

et |
roe
for the people of Canada

ou
_— SORAY, WE'LL STOP ASKING FOR A SHORTER WORK

WeEK-..low ABOUT A LONGER WEE END ” a