The following letter was sent Aug. 10 to Prime
Minister Trudeau by the Central Executive of the
Communist Party of Canada over the signature of
Central Organizer John Bizzell:

Re: Proposal To Upgrade the Distant Early Warning
(DEW) Line.

We draw your attention to an article in the August 5
issue of the Globe and Mail under the byline of Robert
Sheppard entitled “Canada, U.S. Study Reopening
DEW Line’.

The article is based on a briefing session given in
Edmonton to ‘‘some journalists’” by Major Edward
Holme, a Canadian spokesman for the North Ameri-
can Aerospace Defence Command.

We are informed by the article that the DEW line is
to be reactivated and upgraded because of a “‘per-
ceived threat from Soviet-made cruise missiles’.
New DEW lines might be built until satellite tracking
stations for the north are built.

As we have seen no repudiation of Major Hoime’s
pronouncements by your government we can only
conclude that Major Holme accurately reflects
government policy.

This gives great cause for concern.

quires that the deployment and testing of airborne
Cruise missiles (to which you have committed Canada
against the wishes of the majority of its citizens) will
elicit a response in kind from the USSR. There can be
no surprise in this for Mr. Andropov, Mr. Gromyko
and Marshal Ustinov have all warned that the Cruise
missile and Pershing II gambit of the USA, will re-
quire that the USSR develop similar weapons.

And the same logic requires that corresponding
warning systems be developed by both sides and
logically the military means to knock out such warn-
ing systems.

Your government is dragging Canada deeper and
deeper in to the morass of the U.S. nuclear first-strike
capacity. Rather than securing the futures of our citi-
zens,. you place them in ever greater jeopardy. At
each turn of the spiral, initiated in every instance by
the U.S., the world finds itself in an even more pre-
carious situation while nuclear parity emerges ai an
enormously costly and dangerously higher level.

This was the case in 1969 when the Committee on
External Affairs and National Defence reviewed
Canada’s membership in NORAD. At that time the
new and “‘ultimate’’ weapons the U.S. was deploying
were the ABMs and MIRVs. At that time you and

New DEW line would show Canada’s complicity

your government remained silent, apart from your
assertion in the House that you were morally opposed
to the ABM. And now, when the danger is even.
greater you have abandoned even moral opposition
and have become fully complicit in the appalling war
preparations of the Reagan administration.

It appears, Mr. Prime Minister, that you have cho-
sen to walk with the U.S. war mongers rather than to

walk with your own Canadian people on the path of

peace that’the great majority want.

Our security does not lie in refurbishing the DEW ~

line any more than it does in testing the Cruise or
manufacturing its guidance system or allowing the
Strategic Air Command BS52s that will launch the
Cruise to overfiy and operate out of our airspace.

Our future security does however lie in removing
Canada once and for all from the first strike strategy of
President Reagan; in withdrawing from NORAD —
which is the treaty covering your agreement on the
Cruise and the proposal on the DEW line. Our securi-
ty, above all, lies in making Canada into a nuclear
weapons-free zone.

We call on you, to repudiate Major Edward
Holme’s statements on the DEW line and to annul the
Cruise agreement. Act now before it is too late.

The deadly logic of the nuclear weapons spiral re-

Axworthy’s plan designed
to equalize poverty — CPC

TORONTO — Charging that,
‘an economic disaster is being
prepared for the working people
of Canada,”’ the Communist Par-
ty’s Central Executive slammed
Employment Minister Axwor-
thy’s ‘‘untenable’’ proposals for
economic recovery. They show
that ‘big monopoly capital and its
governments have no solution
other than td hit the working

still harder,’ the August 9
party statement said.

What Axworthy actually called
for, it states was: Equalization of
“poverty among all working
people; a minimum drop of 12 per
cent of their income by the em-
ployed workers to cover the un-
employed (Everyone would be on
part time. That would be ‘full
employment’.); raiding the Un-
employment Insurance fund and
redistributing it among the
monopolies in the guise of make
work projects.””

The Communist position is that
‘*modern technological develop-
ments make it possible to cover
the needs of all people while de-

creasing the hours of work,”’ i.e.;
a shorter work week with no cut
in pay, and, absorbing all the un-
employed in productive work,
‘*But the aim of our capitalist sys-
tem is not the satisfaction of
people’s needs. The aim is pro-
fits.””

It attacks talk of “‘recovery”’

based on huge profit gains with no |

change in the 12 per cent jobless
figure. This figure will run into the
next crisis and then go higher.
Unemployment ‘‘will go much
higher in the next cyclical
economic crisis”, the Communist
statement warns. It goes on:
‘*To forestall the impending so-
cial upheavals, the working
people are asked to ‘lower their
expectations’ in a hurry, in order
to ‘compete in the world market’.
That includes lowering wages and
living standards to those of South
Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
‘*To share the work and wages
with the unemployed workers
would make the new, lower level,
the ‘accepted’ standard level
throughout the country.

“The present wage pool plus
the Unemployment Insurance
(Commission) payments to the
unemployed is the total buying
power of the working people. To
eliminate the UIC is to lower the
purchasing capacity of the work-
ing people, thus intensifying the
economic crisis.

‘By divorcing the unemployed
from the UIC the funds would be
available to big capital to pad its
profits. The so-called work
scheme to be produced by UIC
funds would really be a subsidy to
big capital. The government

‘ would use the funds to pay part of

the wages of private industry

while all the profit would go to big.

business.”

The Communist Party declares
that, ‘‘The workers did not create
the crisis. Monopoly capital did.
It should pay the shot. The labor
movement is correct in rejecting
the Axworthy proposals — all of
them — as untenable,” the state-
ment concludes, and demands
that the government Put People
Before Profits!

sorts at only nominal prices.

break.

In the socialist economy of the GDR, the
trade union centre (FDGB) has in the past de-
cade built 70 new holiday ‘‘heime”’ or hotels all
over the country. Every plant of any importance
has also built, is building or has acquired a vaca-
tion resort. On the average, workers granted
reservations to these hotels pay only one-
quarter of what their bed and board costs. The
FDGB or the individual plant pays the rest.

Working people with large families get special
dispensation. For a two-week holiday at FDGB
or plant resorts, they pay about $15 for each
child. In addition, almost ail children spend
some time at summer camps during the school

Workers and their children who will enjoy
such holidays at nominal prices will total close
to five million before the end of the year. The
number of vacationers benefitting from this fea-
ture of socialist society has increased 22 times

Vacations for GDR’s workers:

By FILS DELISLE
Tribune Berlin Correspondent
BERLIN — While mass unemployment con-
tinues in the leading capitalist countries, mil-
lions of working people here have been enjoying
holidays at trade union and individual plant re-

Affordable holidays for ail.
since the creation of the GDR in 1949.

The FDGB hotels do not offer only bed and
board at one-quarter of cost. The programs they
organize for their guests include top cultural
events such as symphony concerts, sports,
handicrafts and games for the whole family.

There are also, of course, other resorts and
hotels for anyone who prefers them, plus trips to
the other socialist countries, Black Sea and
Volga cruises, and spas that one were reserved
(and priced) for the rich.

Across Canada

Mayor, ex-minister oppose nukes

TORONTO — Former Finance Minister Walter Gordon
and Toronte’s Mayor Art Eggleton made strong points on
Canada’s need to shun nuclear weapons participation when

they spoke at a Hiroshima-Nagasaki Relived event, Aug. 9.

Canada ‘‘should declare itself to be a nuclear-free country,
and foreswear the use and storage of nuclear weapons,” said
Gordon, contending that Canada should show other countries
the way.

The Toronto mayor recommended a country-wide referen-
dum on Cruise missile tests to convince Ottawa to refuse the
testing. q

‘‘People of this country will say no’’ to testing, Eggleton told
the audience. “‘They want to continue our role as peace-
keepers, not contribute to nuclear build-up in this world.”

Manitoba protests Bill C-155

WINNIPEG — In presentations to the House of Commons
Standing Committee on Transportation, which is holding hear-
ings on Bill C-155, two ministers of the New Democratic
provincial government said August 4 that the Bill would do
nothing but harm to Manitoba farmers and their ability to
market grain. Bill C-155 would eliminate the statutory
Crowsnest Pass rail freight rate for grain and make changes in
transportation, shipping and handling of western grain.

Agriculture Minister Bill Uruski charged that, ‘* Additional
payments by Manitoba grain producers will be $500-million —
over the next 10 years .. . and by 1993 the cost would be some
$100-million more per year than at the Crow rate.” ||

He said that while Canadian farmers receive a subsidy offs
$6.35 a metric tonne ‘‘including the implied subsidy of the
Crow rate,” subsidies for wheat (1972-81) in the USA aver-
aged $11.41 a tonne and in the European Economic Market,
$19.96 a tonne.

Highways and Transportation Minister Samuel Uskiw, said
that government subsidies to railways for grain shipment
should be paid only on actual losses, not on the formula of the
(Carl M.) Snavely report which in 10 years would raise grain |)
shipping costs by $10 to $20 a tonne. |

Lake Ontario pollution peak

TORONTO — An 80-km (50-mile) stretch of Lake Ontario |
shoreline has taken a pollution beating this summer to set |
records. The area between Pickering and Mississauga includes
Metro Toronto, where nine of 11 bathing beaches were closed.
Antiquated sewage systems which counted on good luck and
the movement of lake waters to hide their condition, aggra-
vated by a deluge of filth from storm sewers, failed this year in
part because of a long very hot spell, Toronto’s public works —
commissioner said. |,

In these days of big spending, the Province of Ontario
refuses to come to the municipalities’ aid; and Toronto will
scrape up $120,000 for inspection and some special treatment |
along the shoreline. an

To add to the mess the nuclear generator at Pickering leaked |
radioactive tritium into the lake. (This was one of a series OF
problems at the plant resulting in the shutdown of three of the |
five active reactors.) a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— AUGUST 19, 1983— Page 6