CARABA

By MEL DOIG
Provincial Leader, et Party of Canada (Ontario)

The Ontario New Democratic Party, in its second
leadership change in the recent period, has accepted the
resignation of Michael Cassidy as leader. This action
was taken almost immediately after the severe losses of
that party in the Ontario provincial election.

Those losses undoubtedly precipitated a leadership
crisis in the Ontario NDP. The loss of over one-third of
its seats in the legislature, however, involved not only an
individual's leadership or lack of it in the recent provin-
cial election, but an on-going crisis of policy that has
bedevilled the Ontario NDP for years.

The information media, as in the Ontario election,
continues to focus on the superficialities of the charisma
ratings of TV‘or press for this or that potential party
leader. This media distortion is calculated to sidetrack
the cold facts of the NDP’s electoral losses of seats, and
the parth’s failure to mobilize its vote.

The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) has neither
the intention nor the desire in any way to interfere in the
internal affairs of the Ontario NDP. ;

At the same time, it is clear that the electoral ups and
downs of the NDP today affect, in the parliamentary
ey eg ee

Ont. NDP loss than just leadership

tario. For the results of the Ontario election were :0t
only a loss for the,NDP. They were also a setback for the
working people. It is equally clear that how the Ontario:
NDP resolves its crisis problems of policy and leadership
at its February leadership convention is a matter for
concern..

Appropriate lessons, therefore, should be neh froin
the outcome of the Ontario election. The danger is that
the election of a Tory majority at Queen’s Park will bit
seen by reactionary forces as the signal to push politics
further to the right i in this province.

The NDP, it is hoped by progressive and democratic: | _
forces, will fight any such moves by advancing a demo--
cratic alternative to Tory policies, policies that serve
: g above all the interests of the U.S. multi-nationals and the
..|3 corporations.

é It was the NDP’s failure to advance such an alterna- |
4 tive policy that led to its electoral defeats and that |
, opened the door to the Tory victory. ;
gc Now the pressing need is to advance policies to ‘*Put
. 4¢ Ontario Back to Work’’ by putting an end to foreign |
du control of Ontario’s economy. Around such policies,
z unity in action of the NDP, the Communist Party, or-.

MICHAEL CASSIDY, Ontario NDP leader a loser in the
media’s charisma test. :

& ganized labor and all democratic forces in our province | |
can be strengthened to defend the working people’s liv- —
ing standards and democratic rights. ;

The people of Quebec delivered a jolting setback to
the political right in the April 13 general election. They
: refused to join the move to the right which has developed
in several capitalist Countries, of which the election of
President Reagan has become the symbol.

This is also the opinion of Norbert Rodrigue, presi-
dent of the Confederation of National Trade Unions
(CSN), who said: ** The Liberal Party tried to exploit the
right-wing current noticeable in several industrialized
countries, but the people of Quebec reacted by voting to
protect the few collective gains they were able to extract
in recent years.”

The message of the Quebec population was clear.
They defeated Claude Ryan’s Liberal Party. They com-
pletely eliminated the Union Nationale and Social Credit
from the National Assembly. They eliminated the arch

YCL |
Spring School

Bourgeois democratic ~
revolution — Tim Dean

Socialist revolution
— Jim Rushton

National liberation
revolutions — Miguel
Figueroa

imperialist destabilization
— Ben Swankey
May 16, 17, 18
Websters Corners Hall —
25470 Dewdney Truck Rd.
Maple Ridge

$5 per day

$10 for weekend
meals included
information: phone
Ray Viaud 876-2972

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 24, 1981— Page 6

P.Q. victory a blow to right |

reactionary turned Liberal, Camil Samson. They also
eliminated the rightist PQ member of the National As-
sembly, the Haitian Jean Alfred, who supported the U.S.
policy of sustaining the murderous Duvalier dictatorship
in Haiti, and who was consequently expelled from the
PQ caucus.

A second factor, equally important, is the determina-
tion of Quebeckers to achieve the right to self-determina-
tion and national equality, while being opposed to
sovereignty association — which means political in-
dependence for Quebec.

Once the promise had been given that there would be
no referendum on sovereignty association in a second
term, the Parti Québécois appeared as a far better de-
fender of the national interests of the Québécois against
the Trudeau constitutional option. All the more so when,
at the end of the campaign, Claude Ryan said his differ-
ences with Trudeau, in this connection, were of little

‘importance. This, in the face of the main slogan of the

Parti Québécois, which asked Quebeckers to stay strong
in opposing the Trudeau option. -

Many asked: How is it that Ryan, who presented an
image in the National Assembly of a real Quebec intel-
lectual Reagan, did some ludicrous acrobatics, as the
election campaign unfolded, promising social measures,
which were diametrically opposite to his hostility in the
National Assembly to social measures proposed by the
government.

The answer is not difficult to find. The moment that
his supporters began to speak face to face with ordinary
folk, he realized that they did not accept the reactionary
social policy which would remove the few gains they had
won over several years. Ryan’s inelegant and hypo-
critical retreat lost him considerable credibility.

Even the Gazette, the organ of St. James Street, in the
last week of the campaign sharply criticized its erstwhile
idol. Nobody had commanded Ryan to go as far as
Reagan, it said, but what they did want was that he
remain consistent. And his social promises, it protested,
showed unacceptable weakness as well as undermining
his credibility.

The vote of the candidates of the Parti Communiste du
Québec, as expected, was low. Many people, in all 10
constituencies, said that they were in agreement with the
PCQ program, would like to vote for the PCQ candid-

ates, but because they also agreed that Ryan and his y
party constituted the main enemy, they would vote this’

time for the Parti Québécois.

The vote of the PCQ does not bely the soundness ofits
election tactic, for the principle objectives of this tactic
were achieved, blocking the access to power of Ryan —
the man of the monopolies; the elimination of the Union
Nationale from the National Assembly; strengthening of
friendly relations with the left of the Parti Québécois and
of the trade union movement.

The leftists, and especially the WCP (Workers!
“Communist Party’’) and the MLs (‘‘Marxist-Lenin-
ists’’), on the other hand, played the game of the Liberals
in putting the PQ and the trade union leaders in the same —
bag as the Liberals. It is significant that neither of thos¢ _
parties presented a candidate in Argenteuil against
Claude Ryan, but both ran in Taillon against Rene
Levesque. They must be unmasked systematically if
their anti-Communist, anti-trade union, anti-Soviet, and-
anti-peace role.

There now remain only two parties in the National!
Assembly, the government party, the PQ which defends _
the interests of small and medium enterprise and the
professionals, and the Liberal Party, the party of the
monopolies and the multi-nationals.

There must be a third party after the next provincial
election, a party of the working people which will defend
their class interests. The Parti Communiste du Québec iS
doing everything as of now, to give a structure to thé
mass anti-monopoly movements, and to unite them
more and more, and to propose to them a politica’
dimension which can evolve into the creation of a mass
federated party of the working people. It is in this pet
spective that one should look at the contribution of the
Parti Communiste du Québec in this election, and that all
its members and friends should carry on their political

struggle.

-Quebeckers in recsioniiog the PQ government delivered! 8
jolting setback to the sseee right.

ate ss