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- - Our energy for our needs

If there’s a will, there’s no earthly
reason why Canada cannot be built up
as a great industrial country. We have
natural resources of every kind within
aur borders. We have a skilled and in-
dustrious working class, trained spe-
Cialists of all sorts: And we- have
energy resources galore. All those
things are here in abundance and they
are Canadian — what grows on our soil
and what lies in the bowels of our
earth, our rivers—and above all our
people. But the monopolists and their
governments, who are temporary “cus-
todians” of the people’s wealth, prefer
to sell it for a fast buck to foreign
interests than use it to build up our
own country.

Energy is the life’s blood of modern
industry. Canada has tremendous po-
tential energy resources. But there is
under way, and already far advanced, a
plot to develop that potential not for
us but for the U.S.

There is a plan for the development
of our oil, natural gas, uranium, coal
and electricity. A conservative official
estimate in Ottawa is that capital re-
quirements for prospective develop-
ment during the 1970’s will be about
$50 billion in current dollar value.

These capital demands projected by
the Department of Energy, Mines and
Resources are questioned by the priv-
ate estimates of Harris and Partners
Ltd. of Toronto, which consider that
$75 billion is a more realistic figure for
capital developments. On this basis,
the projected investment in energy re-
sources development alone would in-
crease at an annual rate of 20% after

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1972—PAGE 6

isl

1972, compared with 10.4% in the past
decade.

When the capital demands of other
sectors of the economy are taken into
account, Harris and Partners conclude
that the demand for capital during the
1970s will exceed the domestic supply
by some $38 billion in current dollars.

Such capital inflows will not be off-
set by current account deficits; parti-
cularly in view of increased energy ex-
ports to the United States. Energy ex-
ports are expected to double by 1980.
As a direct result of this Canada’s ex-
change reserves will expand and the
exchange rate will rise to record levels.

The financing of high reserves will
be inflationary, and consequently a
high foreign exchange rate of the Cana-
dian dollar will ruin Canada’s manu-
facturing industries.

In other words, their plan will
throttle Canadian industry instead of
building it.

The plot to sell more of Canada’s
energy resources to the U.S. mono-
polies on their terms is, therefore, an
ill-disguised plan to de-industrialize
Canada in order to meet the energy re-
quirements of the United States.

But even this dees not exhaust the
consequences to be suffered on a long-
er-term basis.

The immediate consequences, once the
election campaign is over, will be a
stepped-up government-monopoly drive
to further increase unemployment and
undermine the living standards of the
Canadian people. The alternative to
these disastrous policies is a change in
the direction of national policy — to
build Canada, not sell it out:

Is it possible to visualize a 10-Year
Development Plan to provide for some
two and a half million jobs, as proposed
by William Kashtan,, leader and chief
spokesman for the Communist Party of
Canada at the outset of the current elec-
tion campaign? :

Mr. Kashtan and the other Commun-
ist candidates across the country are
adamant in their view that such a full
employment plan is feasible—without
inflation.

What is needed to bring it about is a
new direction of economic policy. Such
a new economic policy has to provide
for economic growth based upon all-
round economic development in all re-
gions of Canada. It has to set the stage
for economic independence by curbing
the monopolies—foreign and domestic
—and establish effective public owner-
ship and control as the prime pre-
requisite for two important and indis-
pensable results:

e the fullest development of Cana-
dian nationhood;

e to bring the benefits of the scien-
tific and technological industrial revo-
lution to the people in all corners of
Canada.

= ok %

Economic expansion and continued
development in that direction has to
ensure that the growth is towards a
balanced economy, overcoming distor-
tions brought about by private corpor-
ate exploitation and profiteering at the
expense of the people.

Planned economic growth is the only
way by which we can ensure a higher
living standard for all Canadians, in-
crease opportunities for education and
careers for all young Canadians, a job
or an adequate income as a right for
every Canadian, cultured leisure in-
stead of unemployment, and security
for all.
ok * *

One example of what can be done is
to develop Canada’s vast and potentially
rich Northland as a major part of a
program of planned public develop-
ments. The contrast between the tre-
mendous developments in the Northern
territories of the Soviet Union (with-
out any foreign investment) and the
nonchalant indifference of successive
Canadian governments to our own
Northland is striking.

* % %

The level of economic planning that
can be operated in a capitalist society
such as ours in Canada falls of course
far short of the possibilities of planning
under socialism. But even with such
limits, it can be used to produce strik-
ing results. Its potentialities were indi-
cated by the achievements of Canada’s
economy during the war. Proof of its
value can be seen today in the opera-
tions of literally every great monopoly
corporation in North America.

. They would ‘havé

Idle hands. . this

created $6 billion worth of goods
year!

The universal form of planning used
by all sections of state-monopoly He
talism is their elaborate use of maf ,
research, plans and inter-monopo'Y
agreements to gouge the people 5
maintaining high prices, regardless t
capacity to produce. It is estimated
current mass unemployment costs ion
Canadian economy more than $6 bill |
dollars, one billion more than the 0%
of the projected MacKenzie valley pipe
line. Be,

Our pressing need in Canada, }§
take control of economic developm™ :
out of the hands of the private corp? oa
tions and put economic planning Fi
work for the people of Canada insté

a * *

Another example of the nee vita
planned development is in the The
area of the Maritime Provinces.
latent riches of the Maritimes ca” bs i
vide industry as a base for prosPr a
farms and fisheries, and better v4
tion and conservation of woodlands bE
called for by the New Brunswick tio!
eration of Labor. The Labor Fede i
brief noted that the pulp and pape ce’s
dustry controls 63% of the prov 2 to
commercial forest land, with licet ae
exploit 45.5% of commercial
owned by the Crown. It called fof “1,
creation of a Crown corpora util
manezge public forests and to help
ize woodlands owned privately-

* * *

for
do

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We must end the cozy “Play oy.
which the government of Cané@ 9 use
ables United States corporations pan”
their subsidiaries in Canada 4° un
nels through which to dispose me of
dreds of millions of dollars wor
“parts and components.” This ia '
be intensified under the DISC P* jl be
where over-runs in U.S. plan me:
channelled into Canada duty cess
the ground that they are ei af put
parts of some “Canadian” pro Mig
sold in Canada at prices much | ready
than their prices in the U.S.
plants are closing down here,
everywhere, with the ranks OF *