Editorial

Keeping the focus

As the Tories ready for the elections, topping $12-billion in promises in-an
effort to buy the voters with their own tax dollars, it becomes ever more crucial
that the widest mobilization of Canadians be achieved to defeat them and their
neo-conservative agenda.

Mulroney’s cabinet ministers and MPs are everywhere, cheque books at the
ready. Eleventh-hour programs are announced with breathtaking speed. Sud-
denly, a Tory housing minister is appointed. All at once, the just claims of
Japanese Canadians are being addressed. Finally, the Tories are becoming
concerned about the environment. Child care mysteriously takes on “‘priority”
status. Tax reform, Native peoples’ demands, farmers’ concerns now find their
way into Tory speeches.

The Reagan-Mulroney trade deal is their centrepiece. It is being sold as no
other government program has ever been sold. An entire task force has been
established, millions of dollars earmarked and the business community enlisted
to give the deal the hard sell.

This exercise, of course, is designed to make Canadians forget that the
Mulroney government is the most right wing, anti-people, corrupt and pro-U.S.
government in history. The campaign’s purpose is to offer up an image of a
caring, popular and pro-Canadian party, a transformation which will last only
until election day.

To ensure a Tory defeat will require wide mobilization and clear biisniataies
that Canadians can rally around. Anything that blurs-or blunts the need-to
defeat the Tories’ agenda must be avoided.

It’s in this light that the comment by NDP leader Ed Broadbent that he would
not rule out a coalition with the Progressive Conservatives (or Liberals) comes
as a surprise to Canadians who are preparing to enter this crucial election
determined to stop the Tories, and who see the NDP as the realistic alternative.

Where could there be a community of interests between the two parties?
Around what policies could a Tory-NDP coalition be built? What would
happen to working people’s interests in such a marriage?

The Tories have advanced their cold war Defence White Paper as policy; the
NDP has issued a defence and foreign policy paper favouring detente and

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TRIBUNE

‘ : ema A : : EDITOR Published weekly at
disarmament. The Tories are for privatization and deregulation; the NDP is Sean Griffin 2681 East Hastings Street
opposed. The Tories speak for big business and its attack on people’s living ASSISTANT EDITOR ere a
pease trade unions and social’ programs. The NDP has an opposite Dan Keeton Phone (604) 251-1186
m
ree Subscripti te:
Broadbent's later clarification that he will not enter into a anu with any BUSINESS Mike Pr uk ane ers Faas year @ $35
minority government which supports “free” trade is welcome, but there is a Pro two years @ Foreign $32 one year
lesson in all this: Canadians who want the Mulroney government defeated must GRAPHICS Second class mail
continue to sharpen their critique of the Tory big business program, present Angela Kenyon registration number 1560
clear alternatives and actively mobilize for that victory at the polls. La
—

hen Dan Godfrey, a member of the
Burnaby Club of the Communist
Party, passed on, his wife Marie thought
the best way to preserve the memory of a
hard-working progressive was a scholar-

PEO Peo

ship fund. So it was that the Dan Godfrey
Memorial Scholarship Fund was created.

The fund, administered by the Centre
for Socialist Education, grants $500 annu-
ally to a deserving student pursuing post-
secondary studies. It has just delivered its
first award, to first-year Simon Fraser
University student and political activist
Jack Fairey.

Jack, who turned 18 on Sept. 2, received
A-level marks for studies in English, His-
tory and languages in his final year at
Burnaby South secondary school. Centre
director Jack Phillips notes that Fairey has
displayed a strong interest in world politi-
cal affairs, with particular emphasis on
Native and environmental issues. He is
known as an outspoken advocate among
his peers for national liberation move-
ments and socialism, and is active in
Greenpeace.

Jack Fairey says he’s not certain to
what profession his studies will eventually
lead him. He’s taking linguistics, Latin, the
history of Western civilization and pre-
Confederation Canadian history. But at
his age, he’s got time to make up his mind,
and we wish him the best of success.

* * *

he big-business press likes to tout its
alleged objectivity, but as anyone who
has been involved on a picket line or a

demonstration knows, that so-called lack
of bias is in fact support for the status quo.
That was the argument Tribune assistant
editor Dan Keeton gave at a seminar of
B.C. student journalists sponsored by the
student-run Canadian University Press —
Dan’s old stomping ground — last week-
end. And that claim to objectivity came to
mind again this week when we looked
over a recent issue of Soviet News and
Views.

The publication of the USSR Embassy
in Ottawa printed a letter from York Uni-
versity professor emeritus of mathematics
Lee Lorch. It wasn’t initially intended for
that publication, but for The Globe and
Mail — which had rejected it.

As Professor Lorch explained ina brief
note preceding the letter, he had written to
respond to an article by Globe corres-
pondent Lawrence Martin entitled, ““Glas-
nost presents ray of hope to dead republic
of Lithuania.” Lorch, who has travelled
“half a dozen times” to the Soviet republic
between 1966 and 1985, noted that the
paper had printed two letters which “con-
vey the same views as those reported by
Mr. Martin.”

In his letter, the professor reported that

‘since becoming a Soviet republic, Lithu-

ania has produced several mathemati-
cians _of world renown. He observed:

ISSUES

“Before beoming a Soviet republic,
Lithuania was not on the mathematical
map. Between two world wars, Vilnius,
the city and university to which Mr.
Martin refers, were not even on the map of
Lithuniana —they had been annexed by
Poland.”

Leningrad and Moscow universities
undertook the training of Lithuanian

-scientists and mathematicians until the

republic was able to produce world-class
scholars on its own, Lorch wrote. He also
noted: “When (Vilnius University) cele-
brated its 400th anniversary in 1979, vast
sums were provided to renovate its classi-
cal buildings and decorate them with
murals and memorials emphasizing Lithu-
anian traditions, and to construct a new
campus.

“No doubt the new and more realistic
policies now taking shape in the USSR will
have positive and spiritual implications for
Lithuania,” Lorch wrote.

Informative words. Too bad the Globe
wasn’t ready to pass them on to its readers.

*  * *

e have a notice that Citizens
Concerned About Free Trade is
sponsoring a “Save Canada Rally,” feat-
uring a talk by their chief spokesman,
David Orchard, on Wednesday, Oct. 5. It’s
at the Maritime Labour Centre, 111 Victo-

around $8 billion.

ria Dr. in Vancouver, at 7:30 p.m. The
topic is “Free Trade: What it means fort
Canada.”

hen U.S. corporations look 10

expanding operations in Canada,
no area of endeavour, it appears, is consi
dered too low. This occurred to us when 4
representative of Waste Management of
Greater Vancouver left his business card at
our office. His intent was to woo us away
from our city-owned dumpster with 4
pitch that our discarded paper, rejected
photo prints and apple cores would bé
better off deposited with private entef-
prise.

We’ve decided to stick with the publicly
owned facility. The private firm has no
plans to treat garbage any differently than
any other service, which will continue tO
deposit it in wasteful and environmentally
damaging landfills. Besides, such plans
would only interfere with the billions of
dollars made by the private corporation’s
parent firm, Waste Management of Chi-
cago, which was among the “big three”
waste disposal firms reaping big profits
last year.

The business pages report that the total
take for Waste Management (now listed
on the Toronto Stock Exchange), Browning-
Ferris of Houston, Texas, and Laidlaw of
Toronto — infamous for undercutting
unionized municipal garbage collection if
this province — was $6.6 billion Cana-
dian in fiscal 1987. For the current fiscal
year, that figure is expected to rise t0

e

4 Pacific Tribune, October 3, 1988