- Canadian

TRUTH ABOUT CRIMINAL CODE REVISION

Bill H-8 hides legal dynamite

to blow’ up democratic rights

: la majority of the Canadian

people want a Bill of Rights. .

During the past few years they
have made this desire well-known.

The Conservative MP from
Lake Centre. Saskatchewan, J. <c.
Diefenbaker, speaking in the
House of Commons in March of
this year in support of a resolu-
tion submitted by him favoring a
Bill of Rights, pointed out that
1,100,000 Canadians had_ petition-
ed parliament for legislation to
‘guarantee rights and freedoms in
Canada.

In May 1951 representatives of
50 major national organizations
visited the prime minister to urge
immediate action by the govern-
ment on this important matter.

In 1950 a Special Senate Com-
mittee, chaired by Hon. Arthur
W. Roebuck, after studying briefs
from many organizations, recom-
mended that as an immediate,
though interim measure parlia-
ment adopt a Declaration of
Rights and at the same time the
necessary action be started to pro-
vide a Bill of Rights.

The government has failed to
act on this majority demand. Con-
trariwise, during the last three
years, it has introduced and ‘push-
ed through laws which are Op-
posed to the spirit and intent of
a Bill of Rights. wee

In 1950, and again in 1951, the
Citizenship Act was
amended in such a way as to limit
and restrict the right to citizen-
ship. The Emergency Powers Act
of 1951, which was renewed in
1952, smacks more of dictator-
ship that of democracy—and as
the Toronto Globe and Mail point-
ed out editorially on November
18 regarding a recent cabinet or-
der passed under this act: go
looks much more as though we had
adopted an American institution
known as McCarthyism. .. .” :

The new Immigration Act
(June, 1952) is more autocratic
‘and anti-democratic than the old
one. Serious restrictions on free-
dom of thought and speech, and
dangerous and unjustifiable eurbs
on the right to strike were placed
in the Criminal Code in June,
1951, when a handful of MP’s
(there were less than half the total
membership of 262 present) ad-
opted amendments introduced by

_ Justice Minister S. S. Garson.

Gea, hg le

Continuing this repressive trend,

and going from bad-to worse, are _

some of the proposed sections in
Bill H-8, the complete revision of
the Criminal Code, which Garson
presented in the Senate in May
of this year.

endment to the code the Montreal

Referring to Garson’s 1951 am-

Gazette said, “The new legislation
...is being introduced here at the
request of the U.S. government.

. .? That statement which has
been given considerable promin-
ence has never been denied. There
are certainly many startling simi-
larities between the Smith, Taft-
Hartley and McCarran Acts of
the United States which have cre-
ated panic, hysteria and “police-
state conformity” there to such an

alarming extent and the repressive |

laws passed or pending here.

The U.S. Civil Rights Congress
after a study of the worst sections
of Bill H-8 stated that the govern-

ment of Canada appeared to “be’

seeking to surpass reaction in the
United States.” .

The approach of our govern-

ment is significantly different. In
the U-S., as in South Africa and
Australia, the legislative attacks

‘on democratic rights were con-

tained in. specific acts which were
loudly acclaimed as being delib-
erately designed to restrict civil
liberties for the “security of the
state.’ They. were ballyhooed as
measures which would only affect
a few, a minority. In each coun-
try a few months’ experience has
proven, as Hitler proved to the
hilt, that laws supposedly aimed
only at a particular minority never
stop at that indefinable limit.

Garson, it is true, also refers
to the “security of the state” and
endeavors to create the impres-
sion that no rights, and only a

few people will be affected — but —

even this is done quietly and un-
obtrusively. In every case the
recent Canadian laws, both passed
and pending. which are a danger
to democratic rights, are buried
in apparently innocuous bills and
everything possible has been done
to get them passed without bene-
fit of publicity of general know-
ledge. :

Bill H-8 is the prime example.
It is a large bill containing 448
sections. Only about 25 of these
are of concern to upholders of
democratic rights. The dangerous
dynamite which could blast some
of our precious liberties to bits is

submerged in a vast quantity of.

unobjectionable, necessary and

purely formal provisions.

Bill H-8 has received little pub-

licity. Contrary to usual practice
it was introduced to parliament
by way of the Senate rather than
the House of Commons—and: the
deliberations of the Senate are
seldom as publicized as those of
the Commans.

An attempt was made to push
the bill through before parliament

E witch-hunting of the
notorious Un - American
Activities Committee in the
U.S. is condemned in an

Weekly, the religious jour-
nal

Calling the committee a
“black magic body,” it de-
clares that “it must’ be dealt
with by the United Nations
—out loud and in the open.”

“When the committee, un-
der its chairman, who lurks
like a menacing shadow over
the decencies and freedom
of American life, began its
long series of public perse-
cutions of American citiz-

Is UN un-American?

article published by British —

ens, it was possible for for-
eigners to be offended and
to register their sense of un-
easiness.

“When this blot on what
is best in the American
tradition moved into United
Nations : . . it ceased to be
a matter only for Americans
and became an arrogant and
sinister piece of witch-doc-
tory, creating disgust in the
minds of the best friends of
UN and U.S.”

The article asks: “Exact-
ly what is happening be-
cause of the activities of
this vulgar and un-Ameri-

can eruption?”

adjourned in June despite the size

of it and the fact that it was not
brought in until May 12.

The government knows that the
Canadian people want a Bill of
Rights—not repressive legislation,
not the abolition of rights. It
knows too that most Canadians
are shocked, disgusted and oppos-
ed to the hysterical witchhunting
prevalent in the United States to-
day. Perhaps it also remembers
that it has been in office continu-
ously since 1935 when one of the
main planks in the platform which
elected it was the promise to re-
peal the notorious Section 98.

Recently the National. Council

of Civil Liberties of the United _

Kingdom produced a memoran-
dum setting forth recent repres-
sive legislation enacted or pending
in Canada, Australia, New Zeal-
and and South Africa. They point-
ed out that Britain itself, fortun-
ately, has not embarked on such
a downward and _ retrograde
course. The memorandum con-
cludes with what might be term-
ed both a hope, or a prayer, and
a warning:

“It is to be hoped that the
future will show that the pro-
pounding of unreasonable and
intolerant laws, the’ abuse of
authority, the most distant hint
of the advent of the police state
will be enough to arouse a great
body of critical, informed and
pugnacious opinion, so that the
most illiberal legislator, the

This truck carrying a mock jail attracted wide attention on
November 15 when it toured the streets of Ottawa to protest
anti-democratic clauses of Bill H-8. :

most autocratic bureaucrat and
the most officious policeman
will be all alike fearful of the
storm-~ which will be raised if
they transgress the limits pre-
scribed for them by convention
or law.”

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN KENYA?

Mau-Mau provides pretex} for
imperialists to repress Africans

HAT is the Mau Mau? A so-

ciety calling itself by that

name may exist in the Kikuyu
reserve in Kenya.

That would be nothing out of
the ordinary. The Kikuyu have
had secret societies in the past.

They usually sprang up when
the tribe was in danger as, for
instance, when they were driven
into the forests by the war-like
Masai.

The purpose of these societies
was to enable the Kikuyu people
‘to defend themselves against spies
and saboteurs in, the forest fast-
nesses.

By secret signs, marks and
other means they were able to
identify each other and to expose
enemies.

Now the Mau Mau is being used
by the British imperialists as a
pretext for carrying out a cam-
paign of violent repression against
all forms of popular expression in
Kenya.

Trade union organization, al-
ready hamstrung by the Trade
Union Ordinance last April, has
been made well-nigh impossible by
the recent emergency laws. -

Yhe African press has been
muzzled and public meetings ban-
neds: ‘

The whole Kikuyu reserve, 2,000
square miles in extent, has become
a vast concentration camp and
people are being rounded up like
cattle and placed behind barbed
wire. :

Mau Mau provides a very trans-
parent cloak for the acts of im-

perialist frightfulness against the —

Kenya Africans

The sending of British regi-

_ ments from the Suez areas to Ken-

ya was not done on the spur of
the moment. Nor was the dis-
patch of a cruiser from 3,000
miles distant done overnight.

This is an attack which was
‘planned long ago. Only the pre-
text for launching it was lacking.

‘Small arms and. machine-guns

_were sent recently by air from

South Africa for arming the white
settlers. .

This was done in accordance
with decisions reached at the so-
called defense. conference held in
Nairobi in August, 1951. ;

The conference was attended by
representatives of all the colonial

“powers with territories in Africa.

Cleariy this conference worked
out plans for the coordination of
imperialist measures against the
African national movements.

Since 1947, when the construc-
tion of the MacKinnon Road arms
depot was begun, Kenya has had a
position of great strategic impor-
tance to Anglo-American imperi-
alism.

Apart from this project, Mom-
basa has bee developed as a mod-
ern naval base.

Airfields and strategic roads
‘are being built at a cost of be-
tween $6 and $8 million, spread
over ten years from 1947.

In view of their war prepara-
tions the imperialists are not will-
ing to tolerate even the mildest

PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

© This is one of a series of ar”

ticles on Bill H-8, the proposed

revision of the Criminal Code

_ of Canada, written by Thomas

C. Roberts, national executive

secretary of the League for
Democratic Rights.

manifestation of the desire of the
African people for justice and
democracy.

Perhaps the most shameful of
the present actions of the impert —
alists is the closing down of
schools run by. the Kenya Inde
pendent School Association. This
is a Kikuyu organization founded —
largely by the pennies subscribed
by poor peasants,

The association controlled neat
ly 400 schools, attended by some
62,000 children. No doubt the
closing down of the schools
please white settlers who have
protested that the iAfricans are
receiving too much education.

The settlers will thus have
labor-power to add to that re~
stored to them by the rounding-UP
of their escaped slaves in
Aberdare mountains.

The Kenya African Unio?
speaks in the name of all the
Africans and the attacks noW
being made against it are attac®
against the whole people and 10° —
merely against the Mau Mau ie
the Kikuyu. :

These attacks will meet with i”
creasing resistance. :

The imperialist demonstratio? —
of force in Kenya is designed
impress the Africans of oth
territories — particularly those
Central Africa, where the impe!
alists plan to impose federa

The imperialists can achieve —
nothing by intimidation and
frightfulness. ‘Their actions will

only stiffen the determination ° |
the peuple of all Africa to throw
off the yoke of the hated syste?
of oppression and exploitation.

NOVEMBER 28, 1952 — PAGE *