ass EDITORIAL Spying on citizens Last week Justice Minister Ray Hnatyshyn announced his government intends to amend and limit the Access to Information Act, claiming people are making “trivial and frivolous” requests for information. This week a Winnipeg resident, Nick Ternette, became the first Cana- dian to receive a partial file — one that the RCMP has kept on him since 1966. To get a look at police records about himself, Ternette had to hire a lawyer and engage in a four-year court battle which finally succeeded in getting him 159 pages of RCMP materials covering his political activities between 1966.and 1980. And he says he will keep pressing to see what has been gathered on him in the past eight years. - The Toronto Globe and Mail story on the Ternette episode puts the ’ bigger picture into sharp focus this way: “The RCMP has kept files on an estimated 800,000 Canadians.” It doesn’t venture a guessonhowmanyof 4 these files the RCMP’s clone, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), has kept active or added on its own. But if one Canadian out of every 30 (including babies and children!) is being watched, we’re a prime candidate for police state status. What Ternette discovered was hardly “trivial and frivolous.” Docu- ments showed the RCMP spied on him since his college student days. Then they tracked him into the New Democratic Party and the 1971 RCMP report described him as “a card-carrying NDP member” — clear proof of subversion! : By 1978 they had trailed him into Saskatchewan Association of Metis and Non-Status Indians where he was employed. RCMP documents talk about his “subversive activities among the Indians.” Another showed the cops found he had mentioned “Marxism” during a television interview. Ternette’s file was kept in an RCMP bank for terrorists, subversives and threats to national security. The 159 pages released included data on his residences and employment as well as his political activities. They clearly show police infiltration ‘and surveillance of a mass of community, ~ labour, Native people’s, political and peace groups — all of them legal. What is showm is that bonafide political activity in itself is grounds for _ police attention and an extensive personal file, phone taps, mail snooping and whatever else these people do to spy on citizens. Justice Minister Hnatyshyn has a problem all right — but it isn’t with “trivial and frivolous” request for personal information. It’s with a huge police spy apparatus which can’t tell subversion from dissent or terrorism from political activism. Just changing flags On Nov. 1, the French Communist Party newspaper L’Humanite published the results of a IFOP poll which showed 61 per cent of the people in favour of the U.S.-USSR agreement to abolish medium and short-range missiles, with only 11 per cent opposed. __ The poll further found a convincing 85 per cent in favour of elimination - of all nuclear and chemical weapons and 81 per cent wanted France to play an active role in the disarmament process. : But in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies Nov. 11 (Remembrance | Day), French Defence Minister Andre Giraud said that France will speed up development in 1988 of a new S-4 medium-range, land-based nuclear missile. And the reason Giraud gave for the accelerated development of the missile — which is equivalent to the U.S. Pershing 2 — is that the U.S.-USSR agreement eliminating intermediate nuclear forces will make it “essential” for France to fill the gap. : Not only is the French government flying in the face of its own public opinion (like Canada’s Tories), it is undercutting the intent of the INF pact by replacing U.S. missiles with those of France. One might be excused for thinking that this may have been the reason Reagan, Thatcher and Mitterand refused to include French nuclear forces in disarmament talks. And the Soviets may be excused for reminding the world that it matters little what flag an incoming missile is flying. Removal of Euromissiles, not replacement, France should understand, is what the INF agreement is all about. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 18, 1987 193, our Canadian SS Ny iT? identity with AN < | a free trade YG, = agreement. PD A « = —_— Sip AS) S/ Ne he IN / = = a : | | sirdohn A\ a ‘MeDonalds | fia ee ee ! ; aes +e : of Corporate Ae RS SeTN ( ree aan, > Mulroney did say | | ae ara Interests IV aay we'd get to keep _ at Ww FIRIBONE EDITOR Published weekly at Sea taal 2681 East Hastings Street 2 Griffin Vancouver, B.C. ASSISTANT EDITOR V5K41Z5. Dan Keeton Phone (604) 251-1186 MANAG Subscription Rate: BUSINESS Mike Pra = ‘A Canada @ $16 one year @ $10 six ike niu months ® Foreign @ $25 one year GRAPHICS Second class mail Angela Kenyon registration number 1560 People and Issues t’s nice to see sometimes that our millions lined up to buy undervalued comments are echoed in unusual pla- shares ina rising market. But now, when ces. the market is going down and would-be We remarked two weeks ago on the _ investors are heading for the nearest exit, double standard of those advocates of _ Thatcher is calling in the enforcers. the “free market” in the financial com- There are reportedly 5,000 people who - munity who were quick to flee the relent- made out share applications before the less “market forces” and seek a market crash — including some stu- government bailout when that market dents and pensioners, it seems — who went down instead of up. The remarks now want to back out. Not so fast, says were in reference to the privatization of _ Maggie. They’ll all be getting nasty let- British Petroleum which left three Cana- _ ters warning them to pay up or face legal dian investment houses with losses when proceedings. Like everything else in Bri- the BP shares which they were commit- tain, “popular capitalism” has a price. ted to buy nosedived on stock markets. #7 oko Ae And just last week, Financial Post or decades, Jack Treliving, one of the columnist Peter Foster made much the Tribune’s pioneer supporters, has same observation in the issue of Nov.9. maintained his old place in the Fraser “Finance Minister Michael Wilson is Valley’s Walnut Grove, spurning rede- reported to have intervened with British velopment of the land or subdivision, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Law- despite the commercial benefits that son, to withdraw the BP issue ...,” he would have been available. Even when wrote. his wife, Pearl, passed away a few years “This seems to be yet anotherexample _ ago, he stayed on. of business’s tendency to spout the joys But his 91 years have caught up even of the free market when things are going with him and long-time friend Craig well, but to run to the government when _ Pritchett tells us that Jack has been com- the share certificates look as if they might pelled to forsake the homestead to go hit the fan,” he said. : into hospital to undergo treatment for The BP share fiasco should also point cancer. But despite the change in loca- up Margaret Thatcher’s much-vaunted _ tion, he’d be happy to receive visitors as “popular capitalism” for the Tory per- he always has. He’s in the Maple Lodge version that it really is. The British extended care facility at Langley Hospi- government revelled in the glory when _ tal. /