EDITORIAL

Tory arms aim dangerous

Bit by bit, the reactionary policies of the Tories, so
long kept from public view, are being unleashed.
Behind Mulroney’s posturing in the House of Com-
mons is a program that would push Canada backward
in time, towards even greater subservience to the
U.S. — and even towards nuclear war.

A recent revelation was Mulroney’s call in the House
of Commons for more squandering of tax dollars to
increase the conventional arms commitment to NATO.

With contorted logic, the Tory leader asserted that
building up the conventional arsenal and increasing the
number of troops is the way to diminish the threat of
war. “Efforts to improve the non-nuclear deterrent are
most urgently required. ..” he said Feb. 9.

Following the lead of his mentor, Ronald Reagan, -

Mulroney preached deterrence against a mythical
Soviet threat or, as he put it in his speech, “the need to
defend ourselves against attempts to impose alien and
odious systems on us through force or threats of force.”

But Mulroney was not the author of the call for more
conventional arms — that thesis has long been
advanced by U.S. Gen. Bernard Rogers, the NATO

Supreme Commander in Europe. He wants conven-.

tional arms spending increased by an estimated $10
(U.S.) per capita, a figure which Mulroney quoted i in
making his pitch to Parliament.

But no one in NATO — not General Rogers nor
anyone else — has offered to renounce the first use of
nuclear weapons if conventional arms are increased.
Indeed, Rogers’ argument is that an increased conven-
tional deterrent would merely extend the time before

NATO forces would resort to nuclear weapons in the
event of war. And as the NATO commander admitted
to reporters last November, all the while he was urging
more emphasis on conventional weapons, he had
commissioned his own study of nuclear arms deploy-
ment in which he stated that the number of cruise and
Pershing 2 missiles to be deployed — 572 — was “not
enough.”

Why did Mulroney not mention the NATO first
strike policy and its refusal to echo the Soviet Union in
renouncing first use of nuclear weapons? Why was he
silent on the NATO decision to move the world towards
nuclear war by deploying the cruise and Pershing mis-
siles? Why, instead of quoting Gen. Rogers, did he not
quote Canada’s own NATO commander Admiral
Robert Falls who stated last year that NATO could
reduce its nuclear arsenal in Europe without jeopardiz-

_ing deterrence?

Why? — because the policies of Mulroney and his
Tories are in lock step with those of the Reagan admin-
istration. They are policies which they want to unload
on the Canadian people. No cuts in nuclear arms, a
huge spiral of conventional arms Speadine a quick
march to nuclear war after all.

If there were members of the Tory caucus who
opposed cruise testing and expressed support for the
Minority Report on Security and Disarmament, they
have now been reined in by the Tory line. Despite
Mulroney’s feigned concern for “the ultimate count-
down”, his message Feb. 9 was ominously clear: his is
ae a of military confrontation, the party of nuclear

Yuri Andropov 1914-1984

In recent days the Soviet people, joined by people in
all parts of the world, have been paying their last
respects to Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, general
secretary of the central committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, and president of the Supreme
Soviet of the USSR, who died at age 69 on February 9.

“All our people have associated the name of Yuri
Andropov with the positive processes which have been
taking place in every area of Soviet life in recent times,”
wrote the distinguished Soviet commentator, S
Beglov. Communist Party resolutions of 1982-83, “and
the speeches and statements made by Yuri Andropov
carried forward and crystallized the strategy of advancing
developed socialism. The forces of the party and the
people have been concentrated on accelerating eco-
nomic growth, improving the administration of the
national economy, strengthening discipline, and prom-
oting the creative ability of the masses.’

Since taking office following the death of Leonid
Brezhnev in November 1982, Andropov’s voice has
been heard around the world in defence of peace, in
pursuit of honest negotiations for disarmament, and in

putting forward ever new prescriptions by which to
tackle the nuclear threat in a concrete way.

Andropov declared that the Soviet Union was com-
mitted with certainty and firmness to the principle of
ending the arms race, the nuclear arms race first and
foremost, and of reducing and ultimately removing the
threat of nuclear war.

All who want to understand this quality of Soviet
leaders, their continuity of policies of peace, the build-
ing of socialism and communism, and solidarity with
struggling people everywhere, can find their surest clues
in the resolutions of the CPSU congresses.

That Andropov carried those policies forward des-
pite illness and mounting imperialist provocation is a
tribute to his work over a relatively brief term in this
highest of posts in the USSR. He expressed the mandate
of the CPSU and the Soviet people that everything
possible be done to assure a peaceful environment for
their life and work, and preserving and consolidating
world peace and the security of peoples. The ending of
his contribution to these goals is the world’s loss.

There’s more brewing at Molson’s than meets the eye, whicll
accounts for an after-tax profit for nine months ended Dec. 31/82
of $65,372,000, up from $57,641,000 in the same period a yeat
earlier. That comes from breweries from Newfoundland to Cal
gary, plus Beaver Lumber, Wilson Office Supplies and the Cana"
diens hockey team.

TRIBUNE

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ou don’t often see it admitted in the
big business press — and it might not
be news to many in the labor and unem-
ployed movements — but nonetheless, it
has fallen to the Globe and Mail to.expose

People and issues

sement of the minority report of Parlia-
-ment’s Standing Committee on Security
and Disarmament. The report, written in |
1982 by six dissenting MPs from the three }
major political parties, called for a “stra-

the fallacy underlying tax giveaways to
corporations.

A recent analysis by Globe reporter
Linda McQuaig concludes that, contrary
to the corporate-inspired myth, the tax
breaks hungrily sought by corporations
during this depression do not a recovery
make.

The corporate sector, backed by
mouthpieces in the federal, and notably,
B.C.’s provincial government, claims tax
relief will free up funds which business
people will then apply to expansion, and
hence provide jobs for Canada’s almost
two million unemployed workers. But the
Globe article, based on interviews with
several leading Canadian economists,
notes: “...Although businessmen’s infa-
tuation with tax breaks is unquestioned.
there is little hard evidence to support their
contention that corporate tax breaks will
do much to revive the economy.

“Tn fact (the analysis states) there is sur-
prisingly widespread agreement. . that tax
breaks are an inefficient and costly way to
try to stimulate the economy.”

Quoting Douglas May, an economics
professor at Memorial University in St.

John’s, Nfld., the article notes that com-
panies which receive tax “incentives” to
purchase new equipment routinely elimi-
nate jobs in the process. Referring to his
1975 study on the supposed job-creating
incentives, May said he found “They gen-

erated a certain amount of unemploy-

ment.”

Meanwhile, tax breaks to business have
increased in complexity and magnitude
over the recent years. The net effect has
been to lower the official corporate rate of
50 per cent to an average 23 per cent by
1980. Another comparison shows that the
corporate share of government revenues
through taxation has fallen from 28 per
cent in 1951 to 17 per cent by 1981, while
individuals’ taxes have risen from 24 per
cent to 43 per cent during the same period.

The government has also moved to hide
the nature and extent of corporate tax
breaks, the article notes. It stopped pub-
lishing a document called the Tax Expen-
diture account, which, the Globe states,
revealed “a striking picture of how the
government gave up $6 billion that year
(1979) through tax breaks for business.”

Canadian Labor Congress researcher .

Bob Baldwin sums it up the best when he
connects the revenue shortfall caused by
tax breaks with the restraint imposed on
public sector wages and social services.
That observation goes a long way towards
explaining the B.C. situation in which the
added giveaways of privatization and
megaprojects are the real reasons for the
Socreds’ “restraint” program.

*x* *« xX

_s people and organizations gear up

for this year’s peace walk Apr. 28,
some are firming their resolve to pursue
the path of peace.

So it is with the B.C. acachor Federa-
tion, whose Representative Assembly at its
recent meeting adopted four resolutions to
guide the federation in its commitment to
disarmament and a nuclear-weapons free
Canada.

The assembly called on the federation
to support multilateral nuclear disarma-
ment and urged their national body, the
Canadian Teachers Federation, to lobby
Ottawa for nuclear disarmament. Particu-
larly significant were the resolutions sup-
porting the designation of Canada as a
nuclear weapons-free zone, and an endor-

tegy of suffocation” to end the arms race
and urged rejection of cruise missile testing
in Canada.
kk ee ,

number of readers will no doubt be

familiar with the name of Karl |
Kobylansky who has been variously the -
music director for the acclaimed Associa-
tion of United Ukrainian Canadians Folk
Orchestra, the music director for the folk
choir Union Train which performed for the
labor movement in the mid-70s, and a
member of the original group which
played for many a Tribune concert, the
Milestones. But he hasn’t been a familiar
name in the film world — at least not
until last week, when he was nominated
for an Academy of Canadian Cinema
Genie award.

Karl is one of five nominees for an
award for best music score. The film he
scored is Dead Wrong — apparently
about a drug bust in Tofino — produced

‘and directed by Len Kowalewich.

The final balloting for the awards —
there are some 16 categories — will be
completed next month. The winners are to
be announced Mar. 21 at a ceremony in
Toronto televised by CBC.

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 22, 1984