— iy The life of Indians living in of a ern Ontario is the subject - en open letter publish- aa @ last issue of the Long- News, official organ of eee branch of the Six n “Troquois” Confederacy. Cllr letter, written by Coun- ' Simeon McKay, follows: ae have a very hard time to bohika. living here at Kasa- tor oi, We get very low prices igh Tt furs and we pay very tel] Puces for our food. We will im aaa about the prices. The should agent at Sioux Lookout at all Not be an Indian agent ay, € Is a very bad man for will Beare asking you if you Papers Our letter in the news- has to or us because somebody MUch to ne us. We want very na elp ourselves but there Ourselyec” we can do that by d fig €s except we can trap beadwor oa make carvings and Bod bur’ Our beadwork is very tawa ut Indian Affairs in Ot- our wll not buy them. Only em vings we can sell to $3,009 © Could make more than Selveg 4 month to help our- Way’ to but only if we have a for mo, Sell ALL our best work lage wo, tight here in the vil- bring x € need somebody to is ne machines and help “4m how to sew so. we can Mak : childronts and clothes for our n oun ¢ have lots of trouble to get UE op hed back when we send lots ae twork out to the cities, times we do not get our _ 8Y BRUCE MAGNUSON a significance of the ance pI Health Services Insur- into a (or OHSIP) coming oa on Oct. 1/69, is that . itutes the most serious ; aan ever to the universal Caen, social security for ¥ . lans. It is in this sense ie to be understood as ; Parcel of Prime Minis- Tudeau’s declaration of war © same principl . dera) ie! Principle at the fe Th : e prontatio plan undermines fed eee embodied in the iv Zislation, to provide ¢ wey and compulsory medi- a Single €very Canadian through ister non-profit agency admi- eve y the government in depart Province, Such a serious he ne from the Act adopted NOt ha €deral parliament would for ,"Ve been possible, except ; T. Trudeau’s more than Supe pitulation to Ontario’s Ciple ne to depart from the prin- in bri universality, by allow- ister w2t® Carriers in to admi- eis scheme: a Such a step has been tariong Fee struggle over On- bec = €alth and hospital plan latper €S a symbol of a much { Matter ue: That is the serious rine scuttling the principle Cia Be cality in relation to so- placer uy generally, and its Select; Ment with a system of Cri tty based upon the old, test. Minatory and hated means a |) || An Indian asks: money back at all, but first we have to pay our money when we buy thread and beads and moose-hide. It makes us very sorry when we do not get’ our money for our work because it means our children have less to eat. That is why we have so much serious sickness, because we do not have enough food like we had long ago. For three years we have had piles of lumber in our village cut by Indian Affairs, some of us ask for a few boards to make a wall in our house to make bed- rooms or a table or a bench or some shelves to put our food on but when we ask we can not get any and we can’t get any an- swer. Why? Our family had to build a house for themselves last fall. They could not get any lumber from Indian Affairs so they had to find small short boards to make a roof and a floor and they had to use cardboard to make a door and the woman is one of our best craftworkers. She could earn lots of money with her work if she had a chance. Some people tell us that many people want to buy our good work and they will pay good prices but’ so many times we do not get paid we think it is better not to send for it. Three days ago the Indian agent Mr. Borton from Sioux Lookout came to pay treaty money $4.00 each for one year, he jist paid us with cheques but The OHSIP plan will cost a family of two adults and two children, with earnings of $4,000 per year, a total of $309 per year. (This is $177 for OHSIP and $132 for hospital insur- ance.) Without a doubt the most costly plan in Canada, and the most complicated and discrimi- natory. . But why is this so? One of the Establishment’s most influen- tial morning papers, the Toronto Globe and Mail, blames it on universality of the federal legis- lation, referring particularly to individuals barely above “the means test level.” ; “They will be compelled only by need, for their need will be as great as their ability to pay is small. That has always been the monstrous flaw in the fed- eral plan: because Ottawa in- sisted on universality it impair- ed its capacity to help those whose need was greatest. “Confused? Comfort yourselv- es. So are the politicians. Right across the land. Because, while there is iniquitous discrimina- tion ,within Ontario, there is even worse discrimination be- tween province and province.” Surely this would be an ar- gument for the principle of uni- versality, rather than against it. But note carefully the telling points made by the editorial writer in between skilful critic- ism of OHSIP. “The Government has been under pressure to cut medicare premiums: Much of this pressure — especially since the New De- mocrats won the Middlesex Why? he brought a mounted police- man with him for protection (why), are we dangerous? If he was a good man would he need a policeman and two other people to help him? There are 278 people here and a lot of them are children. 32 of our men are gone to Hearst to plant trees for the Lands and Forests for six weeks that is the only wages they — can get all year, last year was the first time our men ever got that chance. Indian Affairs sent a plane to take our men to the tree planting. Our store is own- ed by a free trader from some other village. There is almost nothing in it that we need to buy for ourselves every day. When the men come back from planting the trees, we will try to start a co-op store. It will be our store but there is no-one to help us; the only thing is we have a very good Indian man who is experienced, for a manager. Government -people do not want to help us to help ourselves because then they would have no jobs. Last year on October ll a CBC film crew came in here to make'a story of Kasabonika to show on the program (The Way It Is) they only wanted to talk about medicine. We wanted to talk about how to get enough food and better clothes for our- selves and our children but the woman. who was the director would not listen to us. It is the - same stupid way that they don’t even answer our letters. South by-election — has been highly irresponsible. The so- called friends of the poor know very well that a general reduc- tion in premiums would not as- sist the poor... “Mr. Robarts has been both wise and courageous to refuse to do the easy thing and cut premiums across the board. It might have been popular with the unthinking, but it would only have meant that taxes else- where would rise.” (For exam- ple, on the rich!—BM) “The principle” (af OHSIP) ‘ig sound; but there remain areas where premium relief should be granted. . . “Mr. Robarts would have been foolish to apply Ottawa’s $176-million to a cut in pre- miums across the board. For those at the top, it would have meant very little; for those at the bottom, it would have helped very little. This has al- ways been the trouble — the scandal — of universal wel- fare schemes. But what if, in- stead, substantial relief were offered at the lower end of the income scale?” “Specific reductions, related to income,” etc. etc. In other words, here we have the whole argument for a new social se- curity system, based upon selec- tivity and the means test: This is what Ottawa is now studying, based on the Economic Council’s outline and report on poverty in Canada. . « - The ideas are said to be evolv- ing around a combination of “highly restricted annual income On September 16, at Paiute Mesa, Nevada, the U.S. tested a nuclear weapon which is expect- ed to cause after-shocks for weeks. : The blast lifted 10 million tons of dirt and rock and bulged’ out the top of a desert mesa, even though the nuclear device was buried, 3,800 feet deep in the earth. In Salt Lake City, 350 miles away, tall buildings sway- ed in the shock, which Las Vegas, Nev., residents felt as three distinct shocks—like earth- quakes. Japan has protested to the U.S. over the scheduled nuclear weapons test next month under guarantees with a system of pro- grams designed to increased pro- ductivity of the poor .. . utiliz- ing these human. resources by providing them with better ac- cess to job opportunities and through investments in human capital.” While it is true that million- aires, like E. P. Taylor, do, not need family allowances, unem- ployment insurance, or even pen- sions, the fact is that such pay- . ments are not what has made them rich. Not even cancellation of the Qntario government grants of taxpayers’ money to improve his stocks of purebred race horses can make E. P. Tay- _lor into a pauper on relief. The real truth is that exploi- tation of labor through the pri- vate ownership of the means and instruments of production, is what has made employers and corporations rich and powerful. A selective welfare system based on the means test is cal- culated to save money for the rich instead of the other way _around. Wage control, more un- ‘employment, a stiff means test and a severely restricted social welfare ssytem, these are the means by which the real in- comes of the working people are to be levelled off at a lower level. At the same time, prices, taxes, rents, interest rates and profits will continue to roll mer- rily on and on. Welfare recipients are bitter over the inadequacy of the amounts paid and the social stigma attached ‘to it in our so- ciety. Taxpayers are resentful the Aleutian island of Amchitka in the North Pacific. The Japan- ese fear the test may set off quake shocks in Japan and cre- ate large earthquake waves in the Pacific which will crash into the heavily-settled Japanese home islands. The U.S. test on Sept. 16 protested by groups in the West- ern states, particularly in Den- ver. Previous nuclear tests in Nevada, according to industrial- ist Howard Hughes, have been fired directly over earth-faults, in complete disregard of civili- an safety, and have caused as many as 350 continuing after- shocks: —Daily World Min 1] . es CONTanveennnvnaauenennnaueeenaquueeecuuuueeeeguuueeeeuuouaeeegnuuveeesuuoeeeeesuveeeen SOQUOUUOEOQGOUUCOEUOUUUCEEROUUULOUEUOUOUEOEOOOUUUOREEOOUOEEREOOQOOLEEREOAOUUUEREOOOOTONEOOOOOUUEEEEOUOUOEOEOQOOOUGEOEGY GUUUOEEOOOUOUOEUOUUUULEEOUAUOUOEEEOOED Ont. plan violates non-profit medicare aim because they see welfare as a way of maintaining ‘freeloaders who won’t work.” This suits the capitalist politicians who are looking for scapegoats, and who find it easier to cut a dollar off the food bill of a poor mother with small children who is on welfare, then to make the rich and powerful pay their share of taxes. The struggle for real and meaningful change to reverse. the disastrous trends of present eco- nomic. policies which attack the living standards of the working people, calls for a militant and all-sided approach. The rising economic battles have to be supported by political action on the electoral front as well as in mass actions, such as picketing, demonstrations, mass petitioning and all-inclusive campaigning. ° The struggle around the On- tario Health Insurance Plan pro- vides a unique opportunity for the trade union movement in this province, and indeed, nationally, to mount an offensive against present policies and for an alter- native program in the interest of working people. Never. has the responsibility of those who lead labor stood out more vivid- ly than it does at this time. The _ Challenge is there, clear and un- mistakable. The people are pre- pared to take up the challenge providing militant and effective leadership is provided. Failure | to act can lead to disaster. But: the opportunities are enormous if the challenges ‘are grasped to mobilize for action and struggle to advance. : PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 3, 1969—Page 5 LJDAS (21 5 F2A@O300—- snus ee aoa