CPC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

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For a people’s coalition

Extend fight

against free trade:

The struggle for peace is
developing on the background
of a sharpening struggle for
markets in the capitalist world,
reflected more particularly in
the developing trade war be-
tween the USA and Japan, and
a currency war between rival
imperialist powers. These may

have serious implications in the days
ahead.

Canadian monopoly and its gov-
ernment strive to meet the increased
competition involved by stepping up
attacks on the working class and by
orienting on free trade with the U.S.
as a means of achieving “‘secure
access’” to the U.S. market.

It requires no stretch of the imagi-
nation to say that a free trade deal
with the U.S. would open the door to
the loss of Canada’s sovereignty and
independence, tie Canada more
closely to the aims of U.S. imperial-
ism and, not least, lead to a loss of
jobs for Canadians.

The trade union movement has
called for escalating the opposition
to free trade. Significantly, the CLC
has joined with the Council of Cana-
dians in the formation of an all-
Canadian network to step up the
fight.

Our Party welcomes the formation
of thecoalition, a coalition we called
for some time ago. What counts now
is effective action in all parts of
Canada which links up the fight

against free trade with an alter-
native: multinational trade; a further
extension of trade with the socialist
countries; a restructuring of the
economy so as to ensure industrial
development on the basis of natural
resources; the pursuit of a policy of
full employment; an independent
foreign policy; and a_ bi-national
democratic Canadian culture.

The offensive against the working
class and trade union movement
continues. Wherever possible,
monopoly and its governments st-
rive to impose wage cuts and force
other concessions from the trade
union movement. Faced with con-
tinuing and growing resistance to
their policies, monopoly is making
increasing use of the courts to
change the balance of forces in its
favor.

All these measures taken together
coincide with attacks on living stan-
dards, on Canadian sovereignty and
independence. They are all directed
into transforming Canada into a
non-union open shop.

These attacks by monopoly must
be defeated. A weakening of the
trade union movement would be a
weakening of democracy in Canada.

Our Party must be up front in the
struggle to defend trade union rights
and for a Labour Bill of Rights, link-
ing this up with demands that the
workers have a say over technolog-

ical change and over investment
policies. Our Party will give all-out
support to the trade union move-
ment in defence of its democratic
rights.

The growing offensive against
workers’ conditions and rights coin-
cides with a growing offensive
against the family farm. There is a
deep-going crisis in agriculture ac-
centuated by the grain war between
the USA and the European Eco-

COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER WILLIAM KASHTAN

nomic Community.

The crisis in the countryside is
growing, and calls for both
emergency and long-term measures.
Emergency action should include
deficiency payments and the re-
storation of legislation preventing
foreclosures. zs

Not least, we are called upon to
analyze the agreement between the
federal and provincial premiers on
Quebec’s entry into the constitution.

Rather than being a step
forward, the Accord refuses to
face up to the existence of the
French Canadian people in
Quebec as a nation with the
right to self determination and
to economic, social, cultural
and language equality.Instead
of facing up to the right to self-

determination and equality the Ac-
cord speaks only of a ‘‘distinct
society.”

Rather than being applauded, the
Accord should be looked upon as a
retrograde step, which leads to a
further decentralization of Canada.
It is taking Canada on a dangerous

road, opening the door both to
further penetration by U.S. im-
perialism on one hand, and to pre-
venting the Canadian people from

using the federal authority to ad-

vance social and economic programs
in their interests.

There should be strong opposition
to the proposed agreement.

In noting the growing monopoly
offensive against the working people
of Canada, we must also note the
determined and growing fightback
which is developing on a wide front.
The working class and its allies are
not sitting back or retreating in con-
fusion in face of the monopoly offen-

sive. They increasingly see the need
for cooperation, for solidarity. Coal-
itions have sprung up in many fronts.
Coalition politics has become a way
of responding to attacks on condi-
tions and rights of the working
people.

The political situation, as can be
seen, is highly volatile. What is new
in the situation is the continuing de-
cline in support for the Mulroney
government and _ its neo-
conservative policies, and an up-
surge of support for the NDP, shown
in recent polls. This may reflect, as
we indicated in a recent political
overview, a significant polarization,

a gradual realignment of political
forces in Canada. What appears to
be shaping up is a shift in voting pat-
terns and movements in both direc-
tions, to the left and to the right. It
suggests that the NDP may become
more than the balance of power in a
new parliament, that instead, it
could become one of the two main
political parties in parliament.

If this be the case, it would show
that increasing numbers of working
people and other strata of the
population are beginning to break
with the two parties of monopoly
and are seeking an alternative to
these parliamentary parties.

SRR EN ie Aue...

The fightback continues”

In noting the increased elec-
toral support being shown the
NDP, we should also note that
the closer the NDP comes to
““power’’, the more the right
wing tries to accommodate it-
self to the needs of capitalism.

While noting these tenden-
cies and the inadequacy of

NDP policies to meet the crisis of
capitalism, our Party does not turn
its back on a potentially new devel-
opment which could open up the
door to further electoral advances by
the working class and democratic
forces.

If this is a possible estimate, it
calls for a reversal of our tactical
approach outlined in our last CC

meeting, all the more so if it created
the impression we were calling for
the election ofa Liberal government.
This is not our aim. Our aim in the
coming federal election should be
the call for the election of a progres-
sive majority including Communists
in the next parliament elected
around new policies and a new direc-
tion for Canada. The NDP would be
its dominant element.

Are the forces there to help bring |

this about? Objectively they are to
be found, in the first place, in the
trade union movement. They in-
clude the forces of peace, the farm
movement, women’s movement,
senior citizens, Native peoples,
young, all the forces affected in one

way or another by the policies of
monopoly and neo-conservatism.

What is lacking as yet is their com-
ing together in a People’s Coalition
around common aims and ob-
jectives. Such a People’s Coalition is
not directed to replace existing pollit-
ical parties. Its purpose would be to
develop mass forms of extra-parlia-
mentary action directed to exert
maximum pressures for new policies
and a new direction for Canada.

In this way the People’s Coalition
that would bring together all the var-
ious movements opposed to neo-
conservatism could play a decisive
role in changing the composition of
parliament through the election of a
progressive majority.

There is no guarantee this can be
achieved, but it is correct for our
Party to work for such an objective
in the broad labor and democratic
movement. It flows from our effort
to build a peoples movement to
counter and defeat the pro-U.S.
orientation and more open pro-
monopoly position of the Tory
majority in Parliament. Our call for a
people’s majority outside parliament
to counter the Tory majority inside
parliament needs now to be given
focus around the possibility of form-
ing a People’s Coaltion to change the
composition of parliament and open
the door to new policies for Canada.

e Continued on next page

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$2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 3, 1987