“COMMUNIST PARTY BRIEF ON COLUMBIA SAYS:

re SN NE

‘Our needs must come first’

The Communist Party says
the time has come for an east-
west electrical power grid
across Canada. This would be
the alternative to north-south
power links now planned for the
Columbia River, in B.C. and the
Hamilton River in Newfoundland.

In a brief to the External Af-
fairs Committee's hearings on
the Columbia River last week
the party says: ‘‘As we pre-
pare to celebrate the 100th an-
niversary of Confederation we
should realize that the neces-
sity for railways which was de-
cisive in 1867 is duplicated to-
day by the necessity for a Can-
ada-wide grid as the vital power
basis for our economic inde-
pendence.” :

The Communist Party notes
that recent changes in federal
government power policy allow
the development of power sites
in Canada for the export of
power to the United States. This
is closely linked to the USA’s
desire to develop the Hamilton

River in Labrador to supply
electricity for New York.

“<Power contracted specifical-
ly from the Grand Falls will be
allowed to become indispens-
able to the normal operation of
the city of New York. That
would mean in effect that Can-
ada would lose control over the
biggest power site in the West-
ern Hemisphere.”’

The federal government’s de-
cision to license the export of
large blocks of power is ‘tan
endorsement of the U.S. govern-
ment’s plan to generate power
from a number of great Can-
adian rivers, transmit the power
directly to the U.S., and thereby
change the emphasis in Can-
ada‘’s economic development
from east-west for industrializa-
tion and economic independence,
to north-south for increasing de-
pendence upon export of ay
materials to the United States.’

The Communist Party wants
a new law to protect the inter-

DIVERSION OF THE COLUMBIA AT
‘SURPRISE RAPIDS TO THE NORTH
SASKATCHEWAN AT GLACIER LAKE,

This man from Engineering and Contract Record shows the vast
arid area which could be irrigated by diversion of Columbia
water which the present Columbia treaty virtually rules out.

eace and Canadian prosperif)

By BEN SWANKEY

Most Canadians would like to
see cuts in our huge defence
expenditures. They would like to
see this money spent instead on
socially useful undertakings.

At the same time there are
many Canadians who fear that
any drastic reduction in arma-
ments expenditures would harm
the economy, bring a loss of
jobs and perhaps bring about
an economic depression.

An outstanding Canadian eco-
nomist, E, G. Adams of Toronto,
in a prize winning essay, Dis-
armament and Prosperity for
Canada, prepared for the Inter-
national Institute for Peace,
Vienna, Austria, has now proved
conclusively that such fears are
groundless,

- Adams points out that our mil-
itary expenditures in the 16 year
period from 1946-61 amounted
to approximately $20.5 billion.
This is just slightly less than
Canada’s gross national debt of
$22.8 billion on March 31, 1962,
-and also nearly equal to the total
long term foreign investment in
Canada, totalling $23.3 billion at
the end of 1961.

About one third of our mili-
tary budget goes for military
material, one third for military
pay, allowances, and pensions,
and the remaining third for
civilian type services, goods and
construction. :

who benefits most from arma-
ments is shown by the fact that
23 large contractors, most of
them foreign, secured nearly half
of the dollar value of military
contracts.

It may be surprising to many
to learn that our huge military
budget of $1,600 million a year
provides only 120,000 civilian
jobs. Add to this the 120,000
members in the armed forces
and the total manpower em-
ployed by our military program
is still only 4.5 percent of the
employees in our labor force.

e

Adams points out how the
nature of our armaments drive
has caused overexpansion in
some industries (for example
the uranium industry and the
costly Avro CF-105 Arrow pro-
ject where $450 million was spent
on a plane that never left
the ground) how it has retarded
our manufacturing industries,
and how all this is connected
with growing U.S. control of our
economy.

‘¢ «the cold war policies
behind the military program,”
says economist Adams, ‘*have
worked to undermine Canada’s
independent status.

“Canadian government policy
has furthered US-Canadian in-
tegration and U.S... government
policy has forced Canadian de-
velopment in the direction of
producing raw materials for ex-

port and importing U.S, manu-

factured goods.

ests of the country, which would
state that:

e The government may au-
thorize the export of electrical
energy only by distributing sys-
tems which .combine the power
made available by several gen-
erating stations.

@ The amount of power for
export shall not at any time be
greater than the actual surplus
available to the system in ex-
cess of current demand, and
after allowance has been made
for forseeable growth of de-
mand in Canada.

* Every contract shall in-
clude provisions for the with-
drawal of power from export at
the end of any period contrac-
ted for.

@ Contracts for the export of
power shall be for periods up
to 15 years with renewal sub-
ject to above conditions.

@ Authority shall not be
granted for any single generat-
ing establishment to export its
power or part of it directly, Ex-
port shall be made by central
distributing systems only. No
contract for the export of power
from Canada may tie a specific
generating establishment to spe-
cified part of the energy gen-
erated in such an establishment
to a specific importer of power..

These same principles apply
also to natural gas, petroleum
and coal, and to uranium and
atomic or nuclear power in the
near future.

There is one type of power,
however, to which this prin-
ciple should not be applied: the

Ae

“The results show up in
mounting balance of payment
deficits and increased U.S. in-
vestments and control in Cana-
dian industries.’’

And he adds these significant
words:

‘¢Tf Canada had not been pour-
ing these billions down
drain in economically useless
military expenditures, there
would have been funds available
to carry on more and better eco-
nomic expansion without any im-
port of foreign capital,”’

He proposes that funds now

used for military purposes be .

the ~

TO FRASER

CANAL FLATS

CANADA \

U.S.A.

—

This illustration is from the current issue of Engineering and 5
tract Record, edited by James G. Ripley. Ripley writes that B.C- at
Rocky Mountain Trench is the world’s biggest treasure
hydro power with such systems as the Columbia,
Yukon rivers. “‘It could form the backbone of an in
pire.” The Communist Party says these systems should be ba 7
veloped and linked up with an east-west grid to serve Cane

needs first.

flow of rivers. This is illustra-
ted by the issue of the Columbia
River today.

“Tf all its power were gener-
ated in Canada and part of it”
exported to the U.S., such ex-
port might be stopped when it

diverted into the following pro-'
jects:

* 20 percent increase in family
allowances;

* subsidised housing program;

* construction of hospitals and
schools;

* building up Canadian indus-
tries — a chemical combine
in the Atlantic provinces
based on coal and salt; steel
mills on the lower St. Lawr-
ence and at the head of the
Great Lakes; a trans-Canada
electric power grid; construc-
tion of a Canadian merchant
fleet, building up a Canadian
manufacturing industry to
make many of the products
we now import;

* long term credits to develop
trade with underdeveloped
countries;

* cuts in income taxes.

Basing himself on the 1960
figures when military spending
was $1,550 million, which was
4.5 percent of the gross national
product, Adams suggests that
defence spending be limited to
one percent of the gross nation-
al product which would be ade-
quate for ‘‘the requirements of
home defence and UN contribu-
tions.’’

For 1960 this would mean a
cut of $1,200 million and he
suggests that this be done over
a three year period with a re-
duction of $500 million the first
year, $475 million the second
and $225 million the third,

_ Party Presidium and 9

Mey. 22, es CIS Tete

Con

re house? a
Peace and
dustrial ann :

can be used in Gogadane
the water is diverted and
generating plants in the
depend upon the increas
ume, Canada can never
ture that flow again.”’

sis ,
US
yo!

recaP”

He demonstrates peyond i o
that his program would ?
provide jobs for those who fe:
the armed forces and th0?
longer working on Wi fen
tracts; it would provide *
thousands of new jobs. ¢

Finally, Adams recognis?”
‘in public pressure 0D 8
ment to bring it (disar™

about,’? the key factor
activity of organized abe
—THE pSHEag

OTTO KUUSINEN, Finnis
member of the Soviet con

Communist of over 60 ¥®
last Sunday at the ag@ °
was the oldest member
sidium and had been inl
for some time. In 1917 he
direct the Finnish revolu!
was secretary of the °
from 1921 to 1939.