13
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WYTH ay

g Oentemin’ Celebrations of the
A with of Confederation,
ft a, Expo peat exciting show in
i. ment has ee federal Liberal

€d to conceal
0 s eal the

me cetation is in crisis
4 Whole ae under the rug be-
Nation «208, the French Can-

7 S .
™ply will not stand for

4, You

» the ¢
ome _. '€deral government
h. the cent ehty big efforts. It

1 n .
ore peniall year by elevat-
“abinet: aut French Canadians
alttion {g ¢2U Pelletier, Chre-
Vail. The» 2€8 Marchand. All
Phy * fact i ce le of Quebec re-
ftttaken NO real steps have
Confeder,,t this centennial
fhe Pngiisy tion to remake the
om '2Ns 9 -anadia
Unis 4 a new basi and French
Hag keoale 80vernment in
sentm ‘ advantage of this
me firmly. order to reorient
‘atc » While On a reactionary

Jbundering against

Rs .

ify, Quebe
y Oupleg

en

8lish (and Jewish)
€. Daniel Johnson
May “iment, a Concessions to na-
h bogs Fy, me as French-only
i Fa Que Priority labels

. enti

ipecutlemen’s agree-
is ro to postpone
i] after SIC constitutional

the festivities are

aR

Dreg;
be, dent

ty et oe Ontario Cham-
hai Campaion: Tecently called

ship of lifes defend the

”»

Ph: Ur
Rng ®Reous rt _ Strongest and
is goi
al 80ing to be
pot US if we are go-
Coy ea eyen if we are to
Wand not events,” Fred-
@ting «the chamber’s
aR ' Toronto.
Ries Say that the
Continuous at-
Ole a
By bai. lectiye Pectrum of “con-
ey in lleva » ve Pinion.” aes
a “that no so-
: are world has
How j S members as
S Capitalism go-
« Y SO many
nical or hos-
m. again faders ready to
Xk Priseps “St property and
j a Ge 9 the

Zz
@D
a
j=]
om
s

Past, on

, € must ac-
i maces to ruth in Mr, How-
¥ thy, Me th : Over Ountiful Capital-
Ise _y€ars ago, i
lat {pitalism, show:
non, veel imprigmendous pro-
in ig ““capitatig oe by feu-

oa
1
S
eaOosrF
QL.
an
oO

Di
the alism

over. Both brought in amendments to
the Speech from the Throne inaugurat-
ing the centennial session of Parlia-
ment which censured the government
for not proposing measures designed to
assure the French Canadian people it
would deal positively with their griev-
ances. Both amendments failed to go
to the root of the matter—the fact that

Sy

by
SAM WALSH

Leader, Communist Party of Quebec

the French Canadians in Quebec con-
stitute a nation and must have the
sovereignty, the right to self-determi-
nation that goes with that fact.

The NDP called for a “special status”
for Quebec. The Conservatives, for a
constitutional conference of a broad
character (but not guaranteeing Que-
bec equal representation). Thus neither
could ignore this central feature of
Canadian political life. On the contra
ry they felt it necessary to single out
the crisis of Confederation as the main
point of attack on the government at
the opening of the centennial session.

There are other features of Confede-
ration which are ir. crisis—notably the
whole future of Canada as an indepen-
dent country vis-a-vis the United
States.. The threat of U.S. expansion-
ism in the 1860’s was a strong factor

Wo future for capi

preconditions for something new —
something better. For it was never the
owners of capital who got things done,
who built the great industries and
cities, but the workers—now just as in
the early days of the financial buc-

aneers.

by
RAE MURPHY

Editor, Canadian Tribune

So it is that in our young and high-
ly developed country capitalism has
come to an impasse. What the future
will bring in technological change we
can to some degree project, but how
shall society adapt and change itself to

make the new possible?

Without a new set of social values,
how will Canadian society deal with
the rights of labor in the present and
future? How will we deal and grapple
with the constitutional crisis of our
country and our two nations?

The quirk of history which brought
John A. Macdonald to London to sign
the instruments of Confederation for

‘Our two nations

in pressures for union of the British
North American colonies a_ century
ago. The U.S. military-industrial power
has grown since then to proportions of
a menace to mankind (Vietnam!). The
need for a common opposition to im-
perialism and war on the part of both
Canadas is not unrelated to the need
for a speedy solution of the issue of
national equality and full recognition
of Quebec as the national state of the
French Canadian people.

But however much the relations be-
tween English and. French Canadians
have been conditioned by relations
with the United States, and by federal-
provincial relationships within Canada
—the failure to solve the problems of
coexistence of the two national com-
munities in Canada remains the chief
cause of the crisis of Confederation.

Confederation has failed to create
genuine unity in Canada because it
failed to recognize the French Can-
adians in Quebec as a nation with the
full right to self-determination up to
and including separation. Hence from
the beginning it was an unequal “mar-
riage,” in which one partner constantly
was at a disadvantage, having to fight
for its “rights” on a myriad of partial
political, economic, language and cul-
tural questions. In no small measure
this explains the disparity in standards
of living, education and opportunity as
between Quebec and the average for
English Canada.

This explains also why the demand
to scrap the BNA Act comes more and
more insistently from Quebec.

Canada and on the same day of the
same year found Karl Marx in the same
city finishing the final proofs of his
masterpiece, Capital, has perhaps only
symbolic bearing on our country’s de-
velopment.

Marx was speaking of mainly Eu-
rope, Canada was starting out in life
an almost a Clean slate. There was the
great wilderness to open, land to be
settled and cultivated, new cities and
industries to be built. Yet the workings
of the capitalist system that Marx re-
vealed, the inherent deficiencies which
would at last bring forth its change,
applied fully to our young land.

The struggle between labor and capi-
tal, in distinctive Canadian conditions,
has been part of our heritage from our
incepticn. Cur histcry hes been the
blendins of the conscious will of those
who seek a better way and the spon-
taneous conflict of interests between
those who own for a living and those
who work.

It may well be that due to the spe-
cifics of our new land many of the
worst contradictions of the capitalist
system could be blunted by the endless
miles of uninhabitated farm lands, the
abundance of resources and strategic
trading position, and the general clean
slate that presented itself to the ex-
ploiters. But social progress has a way

alisin

The people of Quebec have taken
note, in passing, of the concessions
given toward French language instruc-
tion in the schools in some English-
speaking provinces, as well as the
premiums being offered for bilingual-
ism in the federal civil service. This is
all to the good, and only just. But they
see no signs of serious consideration
being given to their fundamental de-
mand—which has to do with the French
Canadians in Quebec—their right to de-
cide their own destiny free from the
crippling structures of Anglo-Canadian
domination.

The concessions and manoeuvres
which French Canadians note in Eng-
lish Canada tend to make them regard
with considerable scepticism the pro-
posal of the Communist Party to con-
vene a Constituent Assembly equally
representative of the two nations to
work out a new Constitution. They
have no confidence that their “part-
ners” in English Canada would accept
equality of representation (when they
are the majority if Canada is consi-
dered as a whole) at such a Constitu-
ent Assembly, let alone genuine equal-
ity as between two nations in a new
Constitution.

In Quebec the struggle for national
self-determination is on. If the work-
ing class moves more decisively on the
political scene in the near future the
struggle for national self-determina-
tion will take on a much more distinc-
tly democratic character and will be
directed against monopoly capitalist do-
mination. If widespread support deve-
lops in English Canada for the de-
mands of the people in Quebec, there
is every likelihood that Quebec will use
its right to self-determination to join,
on the basis of equality, with English
Canada in a new confederal pact. But
in any case Quebec has taken the path
of struggle for national self-determina-
tion, and sees itself in harmony with
and part of the same struggle that is
taking place by millions of nationally

oppressed in many parts of the world.

of catching up.

How, for example, can the basic
problems of Canada’s agriculture be
solved in the interests of those who
farm the land without a whole new so-
cial approach to cooperatives in the
growth and distribution of food?

In industry, how can the contradic-
tion between the private, profit inter-
ests of those who own the factories and
those who work the machines and con-
sume the products be settled in this
era of technological change? Shall so-
ciety control production, employment
and prices or shall the sacred rights of
ownership remain unchallenged? How
shall be Canadians become masters in
our own house?

There is no way, until we grasp the
essential truth that this country and
wealth with which nature has endowed
it is the heritage and birthright of its
people.

The exploitation of man by man, the
social wealth of a people owned and
controlled by a handful, can have no
future in Canada’s second century.

It is in the struggle for solutions to
the basic contradictions of our social
fabric that we address ourselves to the
future. It is in the context of this strug-
gle that Canada will enter its second
century without uncertainty and with
common goals.

June 30, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9

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