i (avapa Day 1951, the 84th
: anniversary of Confederation,
418 marked by the most serious in-
- tetnal threat against Canadian de-
mocracy that has so far arisen.

e threat j is the more grave be-
Cause it is an integral part of the
-anti-Canadian scheme by which
Rational independece of our
i Country is being destroyed to make
' Canada economically and politic-
es ally subservient to the United

rates. It is the more criminal
: cause it is part of the cunningly
fonceived and unscrupulously pur-
sued plan to plunge Canada into

le

— Us

Profit and aggrandizement of
: Imperialism.

oo administration in the
a the St, Laurent government

LS introduceq amendments to
Ae Criminal Code which change

N Canada.

es ae government has uaaertne!
: - stitat abolish the traditional con-
fas onal right of citizens to
“pub 88 freely every question of
a ic interest, to advocate op-
2 Rane to government. policies
ae ae the government’s atti-
. meat Owards questions involving
site or war up to the moment
‘clan Parliament approves a de-
‘ation of war.
ee changes in the cous would,
mak Certain _ circumstances,
co it iMegal for a citizen of
Nada to offer public opposition

Nepernment—even if those acts
e
lament. en authorized “hy: par.
sisuge €xample, had the changes
0 the Criminal Code been made
zeanths ago, it would have
} isa teal for a Canadian citi-
- endi ie) have _publicly opposed the
4, ine of Canadian naval units
ae under Yankee orders
5 St the Korean people, or
ier Sovernment’s assurance to.

bia ex

beiea force would ibe
Canada.
Saat. opposition to these anti-

adian ‘actions would “have
1 illegal, in spite of the fact

ate t war against the Korean peo-
: uken without a declaration
: eat Without even limited par-
: te authorization

Pa inetioa by which the St,

Ve itself of the traditional
ocratic obligation | to justify
; of 5 Actions in
a6 Public discussion ig unscrupu-
With and ‘completely at variance
bay ey what have_ hitherto been
as capitan established principles of
‘elati list law and of Canada’ Ss.
va °nship to the British crown.
ing ae change in the word-
hag is, € law the government
of ‘eason, —

langed ‘Canada’s definition
the ee € essential relevant pioras of
a Criminal Code is as fol-
my 5 5 ‘sisting: any public ene-
“hus ch g War with His ‘Majesty in
Sevep, sits sh by any means what
The government pro-
at those words be replac-
ae following: _ “assisting,
n or out of. Canada, any
War with Canada, or
San Adian i _forces against whom
stitit ae @n forces ; are engaged in
War Whether or not a state
ay exists between Canada

vee Country wheee forces

: id toe can use the
on 9 Nition to justify prohibi-
at sec, Public. ‘advocacy in fayor

“Bnition of People’s China.
any reader imagines the
Shae government would
ethog ae Be Such unscrupulous
eae must emphasize one
pact aapertant differences

an aggressive imperialist war for —

‘Under direct pressure from the

® legal basis of all civil rights _

Oo
Certain types, of action by the -

‘Truman administration that —

ey were: aggressive acts ©

for

i ent government. proposes to .

the heat and light

* Present definition of treason —

an offense is pene committed

ai

ee
* Rte

(EUBLL

CUTE TEE TT tt TE}

TE TE Et

’ Their viciousness
shows their fear

*

te Tt Tet Te TE I

- Justice Minister Garson’s ‘treason’

amendments must

be repealed, says

TIM BUCK

i
gia imi

between the two definitions of _
treason quoted above. The one
in force now relates \treason to
the person and policies of His
Majesty. The words in the new
law does not even mention His
Majesty. The special signifi-
cance of that proposed change is
revealed by the fact that, if it is
made law, it will make it illegal
to advocate that Candda should
“ adopt the same policy towards
People’s China as is being pur-

_ sued by the British government.

The element of unprincipled
chicanery ‘in the government’s
action is emphasized by the fact
that in March, when it changed
the basis of Camadian citizenship
(also to satisfy the U.S.), it put
the title of His Majesty into the
Canadian Citizenship Act where

previously it had not been, thus,

‘in certain circumstances, trans-
forming “citizens” of ‘Canada, in-
to. “subjects” of the King.

Corresponding with the above-
described drastic changes, the
government has introduced .ad- «
ditional changes which author-
izes it to prohibit (even without
Canada being at war) advocacy e

\

of policies _ basically other than

the ones it is pursuing—or even,
and significantly, of criticism of
the RCMP as such. ees
Using the, ill-defined un-
limited character of those fascist
measures as justification, the gov-
ernment then adds the most
astounding fascist proposal of
all: namely, to abolish the tradi-

_tional fundamental right of the

citizen. to demand that a warrant
-be produced or that a charge be
laid before the police have a
legal right to search his premises
or his person.

“The essential relevant words of
these amendments provide that
everyone is guilty of an indict-

able offense if he or she inter-

feres with or influences the loyal-
ty or discipline’ of any. member
of the RCMP, the /Canadian
forces, or the naval, army or air
forces of a state other than Can-
ada that are lawfully present in
Canada.

Definition of the means, among
others, by which the amendment
proposes to forbid communica-

tion of ideas or opinions, any-

where or to anybody, which, the

government of the day might ©
declare likely to have the above, —
prohibited effect, include: prohi- —
bition of editing, p publishing, is-

suing, circulating, distributing,

any such writing on pain of

liability to imprisonment for five

years, :

That evil proposal will eyeter S
certainly be quoted in govern-

mental attempts to “justify” the

brazen proposal to abolish legal”
protection for ‘the individual

which, in other days, the bour-
geoisie fought bitter and bloody

civil wars to establish:
“Whereas a police officer - be-
lieves on reasonable grounds that

PEE Te TE mei

or has been committed , . . he
may search without warrant a
person, or vehicle, or premises
other than a dwelling-house, and

_ may seize anything by means of

or in relation to which he reas-
onably believes the offense is be-
ing committed or has been com-
mitted.”

In the light of the facts illus-
trated earlier, it is clear that if
the government gets its way,
“an offense’ might be the dis-
tribution of a leaflet, calling upon
the people to press by all demo-
cratic methods available to them
for a change in Canada’s official
policy towards His Majesty’s
government of the United King-
dom. The governmént wants
such a demand to be an indict-
able offense and it wants to
clothe every policeman, munici-
pal, provincial, RCMP, etc., with
the right to stop anybody on the

"street or enter any premises ex-

cept a dwelling, and search them
without a warrant and without
preferring a charge.

That one proposal is a direct
threat to every ‘advocate™ of peace
to; every opponent of conscrip-
tion, to. every, ‘opponent of the |
‘Yankee. occupation of our coun-
try, ta every devoted fighter for
peace. :

® t

The amendments dealt with
above aré the background for
another set aimed specifically at
industrial workers. They are
calculated to make strike action,
protection of workers on the job,
or even, in certain circumstances, |
the organization or unorganized
workers, impossible in any place
of work or ‘industry which the
government of the day declares
to be essential to the satety or
interests of Canada.

‘By providing a penalty of im-
prisonment for 10 years for any
person “who does a prohibited
act,” then explaining that “in this*
section ‘prohibited act’ means any
act or omission . . .” which pro-
duces the results usually pro-
duced by a work stoppage, by

organizing unorganized workers,

by tensions generated ‘as a result
of speedup, discrimination
against individual workers, etc.,
the government has formulated a
set of, proposals of which the
evident and essential spirit is |
pure anti-union viciousness.

e % a at
The question arises as to why
the St, Laurent government

should, introduce such viciously
anti-democratic legislation — so

' at variance with its protestations
of democratic spirit and desire

for peace. The answer is evi-
dent in events.
The warmongering Gite pnolints

and the St. Laurent government

are bent upon war. They want
to suppress all public opposition
to the scheme by which they are
selling Canada to the United
States and committing them-

: selves in advance to plunge the

workers, farmers and urban mid-
dle class people into a predatory
world war of imperialist aggres-
sion if the U.S, succeeds in its
drive to get one started.

But, while determined upon
their cynical plans, they are in-

, creasingly afraid’ of the tremen-

dous growth of the great demo-
cratic movement for peace all

_ over the world and in Canada.

Because of that it would be a
serious mistake to see only one
side of the government’s demand

_ for changes ~ in the law. The
-amendments make far-reaching ~
: changes of a> fascist! character

in the law; they , take Canada a
“dangerous step along the road
to open fascism.

‘The fact that they are intro-

duced emphasizes the readiness

of the St. Laurent government to
discard the pretense of democ-
racy when that suits its purpose,

and yet, the amendments and the.

manner in which they are intro-
duced are each clear signs of

‘the historical, fundamental weak-.

ness of the capitalist system and
the crisis which besets the capi-
talist class.
@ a :

A new situation is being cre-
ated by the rising and extending

‘struggles of the workers and

‘their democratic allies in all
countries for peace and national
independence. For the first time
in the history of mankind the

. democratic masses of the people

are demonstrating united inter-

‘national determination to prevent _

a world war by action in advance
to stay the hands of the would
be ‘instigators of such a war.

' Nearly 500 million people, near-
ly half of all adults in the world,
signed the famous “ban the
bomb” Stockholm Appeal — and

: stayed the nat of President Tru-
_ man,

Already, more than 300 million
people have signed the Petition
for the Five-Power Peace Pact;
200,000 Canadians have endorsed
it. Before the end of the cam-
paign half a million individual
Canadians will have signed that
petition as well as the officers
of hundreds of organizations.
More than half a billion people
in every country in the world
will sign the demand that the

five great powers meet to con- q

clude a pact of peace.
That is the sort of thing the
warmongers are afraid of, ‘they

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 6, 1951— PAGES

_and widest popular —

fear it because it is awakening,
crystallizing and organizing the
peace consciousness of the masses
of .the people. A

The popular votes in the re-
cent elections in Italy and France
showed conclusively that the war-
mongering U.S. imperialists and

‘their agents are losing the battle

of ideas in those countries. The
St. ‘Laurent government is afraid
to allow the issue to be settled
by the battle of ideas in Canada,

_ it has chosen | to. resort. to. the
desperate fascist fascist technique of

outlawing ideas inethae. It paste
td make peace subversiv
advocacy of peace illegal, servil- —
ity to U.S. interests and arro-
gance, the legal mark of citiz-
enship.

Those facts illustrate the ‘tan:
damental moral weakness of St.
Laurent’s position, they testify
that the democratic forces of
the ‘Canadian People can defeat
the government’s attack upon
our democratic rights if they un-
ite and act,

The tactics used by the gov-

_ ernment, introducing the amend-

ments only 10 days before the
House adjourned, Were an ex-
ample of both its unscrupulous-
ness and its fear of democratic
public opinion. Despite the fact
that members of the government
ave referred to these amend-
ments for months past, they were _

“kept secret until it was too late

for democratic public discussion

_or even adequate parliamentary

discussion, before parliament ad-
journs. That fact alone should
have caused every rank-and-file.
member of the House of Com-
mons to speak out against such
outrageous defiance of even ele-
mentary democracy.

That the members of parlia-
ment permitted such a crime,
should evoke such a storm of
protest that the government will —
be compelled to repeal the chan-_

-ges when the ‘House re-assembles

in the fall. The workers, farm-

ers, urban middle class people,

French and English all over Can-—
ada must develop the greatest

campaign ©
ever known in the history of. our

country under the slogan:

~ ‘Repeal qhe government's
amendments! ; :
Hands oft Canadian democ- ;

racy! ‘ : ; Ri ie aay

No more war!