Ottawa moving from
pension universality

By BRUCE MAGNUSON
It is a well-known fact that 53% of the 2,368,569
Pensioners across Canada live below the poverty
line. To correct this completely unjustifiable state
of.affairs and, as a matter of social policy, the
Non-contributory and universal Old Age Security
Pension should be brought up to $600 a month,
fully indexed to the cost-of-living and kept above
the poverty line.

-As for the pensioners who are deemed not in
~ need the government can find a way to increase the
personal income tax of wealthy citizens to

compensate for this extra outlay. That is the only
Way to ‘‘fully protect the lowest income Canadians
and the working poor’’. But while claiming to do
‘this, the federal government is doing the exact
Opposite. .
Here is how it is done.
The federal budget of June 28, 1982, provides
that, as of January 1, 1983, the basic, non-contri-
-butory and universal Old Age Security pension will.
have the amount of indexing limited to 6% and,
again, on January 1, 1984, the indexing will be
further limited to 5%. :
At full indexing to the cost of living on January 1,
1983, the basic pension would have come to

$251.73. However, limited to a partial indexation.

of 6% it will only be $249.23, a difference of $2.50.
With indexing at this rate for every three months of
1983, the net loss to the individual pensioner will be
$55 for the year. This means that the more than
2,368,500-odd pensioners across Canada will suf-
fer a loss of $130,272,395.
_ If we now add to this the even more limited
indexation for 1984, it is safe to say that more than
$250- to $300-million will be transferred from the
elderly during the two years in question.
However, a special message to all pensioners
along with the July 1982 pension cheques informs

teen

us that: ‘‘Low income pensioners who receive a
partial or maximum Guaranteed Income Supple-
ment or Spouse’s Allowance will not be affected at
all. These income-tested supplements will con-
tinue to be fully indexed. The small loss associated
with the limitation on indexation of the basic Old
Age Security pension will be compensated by a
double increase in the Guaranteed Income
Supplement."’ (This may be so for the few who get
GIS — partial or maximum — but what about the
majority of the destitute who have nothing but the
universal pension?) ;

‘*A sacrifice by pensioners who are not in need
will enable the government to protect low-income
pensioners fully and to help create jobs,’’ the mes-
sage tells us. (Surely they do not expect us to
‘believe that?)

‘*As you can see,’’ the message goes on: “‘the
principle of universality and indexation are main-
tained. In a period of economic crisis, however,
pensioners who are not in need are being asked (?)
to make a temporary sacrifice, over a two-year
period, thus sharing the responsibility of protecting
those who are less fortunate.’’ (Glory Be!) -

Of course. the truth is that the government is
moving away from the principle of universality in
pensions and have done so since 1973.

The gobbledygook is an attempt at obfuscation
to hide what is already an obvious attempt to phase
out the universal OAS pension altogether.

Perhaps this isthe reason for delay in issuance of
the Green Paper on pension reform, and the
increasing publicity about some big business com-
mittee now seeking to win public opinion for

‘privatization of pensions and every other area of

support and care for the elderly.
It must not be allowed to happen!

“«

A MODERMLENS®

Fifty-three per cent of

Canada’s 2,368,569 pensioners presently

live below the poverty line and Ottawa's plan, charges the
writer, is to phase out universal pensions altogether.

Racism — a divisive tool of c

Evidence is at hand showing that ra-
cism, which is ever present in capitalist
Society, is coming more to the fore in
these times of mass unemployment. This
will come as no surprise to class-
Conscious workers. For, racism is a
Natural concomitant of unemployment as
Competition sharpens for elusive jobs.

| Alfred Dewhurst

..| Marxism-Leninism Today

* * *

Racist theories spread by the capitalist
System and its spokesmen are intended
to sow disunity and enmity amongst
Working people of differing racial des-

its handmaiden, chauvinism, serve
Capitalism as a tool to break down
Worker solidarity, especially at times
When worker unity and class solidarity is
all important.

By ignoring facts, the racists peddle
‘the false concept of biological inequality
of the races of man. They maintain that
there are ‘“‘rapidly developing, higher”
Taces and ‘‘backward, lower’’ races.
According to them, the former are
Progressive and it is their responsibility
to rule over the latter who are doomed to
Subordination, slavery and extinction.

* * *

_North American racists not only con-
Sider the ‘‘white’’ race to be higher than
and superior to the ‘‘colored”’ (‘‘black”’
and ‘‘yellow”’ racés) but reduce this con-
Cept to narrower confines, such as cer-
tain ethnic formations, namely North
European, which is the “higher race’.
For Canadian racists this ‘‘higher race’
includes people of British, German and

andinavian descent in that order.

What does this mean to a country like
Ours? The population of Canada is a
Conglomeration of the most. varied racial
types represented by immigrants from
the British Isles, Europe proper, Africa,

Cent or ethnic backgrounds. Racism and

Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.

In racist terms the ‘‘white’’ race is
“superior” over the “‘colored’’ for-
mations, the Aboriginals are the
‘lowest’? of the ‘‘colored’’. The
‘superior’ section of the “‘white”
population is the Anglo-Canadian, fol-
lowed by other sections of the population
of North European descent, those of
French, Slavic, South European des-
cent, with the lowest being the Jewish
section of the population.

Standing at the peak of this pyramid of
racist discrimination and practice is the
Anglo-Canadian majority which, by and
large is infected in one degree or another,
with the poison of Anglo-Canadian
superiority, fueled by the chauvinist
Anglo-Canadian ruling class.

- * *

The racists maintain that the few
‘‘higher’’ races have created all culture
and civilization. The “‘higher’’ races,
they claim, are ‘‘active’’ and play the
leading role in history, while the ‘‘lower”’
races, being ‘‘inactive’’, play a subor-
dinate role. The truth is that the level ofa
people’s culture has nothing to do with
racial composition. It depends on the
sum total of social and natural conditions
of the historical development of peoples
and states, their alliances and social

_ contacts.

The racists claim also that the
development of society does not affect

racial peculiarities, but, on the contrary
the biological, innate qualities of race
determine the progress or retrogression
of human social groups. History has
proven that this man-hating idea of phy-
sical and psychological inequality of
races is but an invention of the ruling
white supremacists.
oe ae

The racists not only stubbornly persist

in disseminating their unsubstantiated —

biological explanation of history, they
also regard as identical such categories
as race and nation, although the former is
a purely biological category and the latter
belongs to sociological science. A glaring
example of the seriousness of this distor-
tion of reality is to be seen in the stubborn
refusal of the Anglo-Canadian ruling
class to recognize as a nation, the French
Canadian people who inhabit the territ-
ory of Quebec, while hiding behind the
false notion that the French Canadian
people constitute a race and are not a
nation.

Another false contention of the racists
is that there is a connection between race
and language. It is well known that the
division of peoples by language does not
coincide with their division into races.
Language and races develop indepen-
dently of one another. For instance,
Canada’s population is a conglomeration"
of racial types, yet the common language

apitalism

of these various types is English, or
French, if living in Quebec.
ee are

The ‘races of man developed from a
single, common stock — primitive man.
They are, from a strictly scientific point
of view, biologically similar sub-species
divisions. It is precisely the oneness of
their origin that accounts for the races
being basically identical, not only in
specific peculiarities of their physical
structure, but even in many small details.
When compared with overall similarity,
the few racial differences that exist are
less than of secondary importance from |
the standpoint of biology, or in the physi-
cal or psychological sense. These differ-
ences serve mainly to identify members
of the same, or related tribe. As far as
their evolution is concerned, scientific
research has proved that none of the
races, or ethnic groupings, stand higher

_or lower than the others in their level of

physical development.

Correction
In the column, It’s the system that’s at

fault, (Canadian Tribune, Sept. 6), where

speaking of production of surplus value
and accumulation of capital, the word
‘‘employed’’ was inadvertently used in
place of ‘‘unemployed”’. The passage
(4th column) should read: ‘*... in the
proportion as capital accumulates, the
lot of the worker, be his wage high or
low, must grow worse. The relative sur- .
plus population exists in every possible
form. Every worker belongs to it during
the times when he is only employed
part-time, or fully unemployed. It is this
reserve army of labor which is the key-
stone in the edifice of capitalism.”

‘

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 15, 1982—Page 7