L : k ;
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the y
Tory government are still publicly “keeping 1
their options open” on U.S. Defence Secretary #
Caspar Weinberger’s 60-day invitation for ‘

Canada to participate in President Reagan’s rf
$26-billion Strategic Defence Initiative — the |

_ Star Wars program. k
Privately, the Mulroney cabinet has DY
undoubtedly made its choice, to throw its i

complete support behind Reagan’s dangerous |
new program despite some possible divisions 1
over participation from some Tory members. 1
But the government has offered little comment €&
on the issue over the last two weeks, hoping e
that the outcry that greeted the announcement

of Canadian participation will dissipate as the
deadline comes up.
But if anything, the opposition to Canadian
participation in Star Warsislikelytogrowin 5
intensity as the peace movement across the r
country takes to the streets in disarmament "
rallies Apr. 27. }
Certainly there have been few issues on a
which it is more vital to mount a massive 1
campaign of opposition than against theStar
Wars program which, if it is carried out, would i,
put the arms race into the most dangerous and {
destabilizing phase since Hiroshima. ,
a

That stark danger has so far been realized
far more in Europe — where the Danish ‘
Parliament repudiated its defence minister’s
stand in support of Star Wars at the NATO '
meeting — than it hasin this country. r

That may be partly because both Mulroney *
and External Affairs Minister Joe Clark 4
continue to insist that the program is only |
“research” and that Canadian participation t
would only be at the research phase.

But as John Lamb, the director of the
Canadian Centre for Arms Control and
| Disarmament — which has generally

Deflat

Five months ago as officials from the U.S.
and Canadian Departments of Defence held
“defence contract procurement” seminars
across the country, the then federal Defence
Minister Robert Coates told Canadians that
the “possibilities are just unbelievable” for
& businesses to obtain defence contract work
from the U.S. Department of Defence.

Four months later, the new Defence
Minister Erik Neilson was more restrained but
no less misleading when he told reporters that
there could be “significant economic spinoff
benefits” from participation in the U.S. Star
Wars program.

“T suppose if somebody came forward and
said, would we be interested in bidding for a
part of a contract which would create, say,
10,000 jobs in Winnipeg-Fort Garry, I think
we would have to take a look at it,” added
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, suggesting the
possibility of job creation. —

The message is clear: Canadians are to be
sold participation in the U.S. program on the
promise of jobs.

And it is a phoney promise.

Massive military spending in the U.S. has
already forced interest rates to high levels,
choking off expansion in key areas of the U.S.
economy, including housing construction on
which thousands of Canadian jobs depend.
Adding the $26 billion projected cost of the
Star Wars program would only aggravate that
problem.

The pressure inside this country for
Canadian participation in Star Wars is clearly
coming from the Department of Defence and
from the military contractors, one of whom
argued in the Financial Post Apr. 6 that the
“vast majority of technical innovations in
recent history” have come from the military or
the space program. Defence Minister Erik
Neilson has also claimed that Star Wars
research would have spinoffs in data
processing and communications technology.

But those claims just don’t stand up,
according to a recent study by Robert

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8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 24, 1985