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A plane in
Red Square
and more
glasnost

June 17, 1987
40°

Vol. 50, No. 23

Fed launches
9-day petition
blitz on bills

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Labor protest dogs Vander Zalm

Nearly 150 trade unionists were on
hand in Prince Rupert Sunday to
confront Bill Vander Zalm over Bills
19 and 20 Sunday as the premier
arrived in the northern city to
attend the annual Seafest celebra-
tions. Organized by the Prince
Rupert Labor council together with
the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers
of Canada and the B.C. Teachers
Federation, the protest was the
third that Vander Zalm encoun-
tered in as many days. On Friday,
Unionists in Matsqui demonstrated
outside the hall where Vander Zalm
Was addressing a Social Credit
‘Meeting and on Saturday, some
150 unionists in Port McNeil

greeted the premier with placards
reiterating the labor movement's
demand to withdraw the anti-labor
legislation.

dh

By KERRY McCUAIG

Challenge and Commitment, the long
promised Tory white paper on defence,
brings with it a decidely Cold War chill.
Its first page sets the tone — detente is
dead; nuclear deterrence is the only
alternative; international arms control

| talks are not progressing and even if the
“utopian dream” of nuclear disarma-
ment is realized “‘a strong defence would
still be necessary.”

It is an argument for defence based on
ideology, giving the Reagan administra-
tion carte blanche to use Canada as an
adjunct to its military strategy. ;

Using conventional Pentagon misin-

formation, the paper states that the
Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies
have ‘ta decided edge” over NATO.
Without missing a beat “the principal
direct threat to Canada continues to bea
nuclear attack on North America from
the Soviet Union.” Absolutely no con-
cession or mention of Soviet arms con-
trol initiatives is made.

The solution offered is a $187-billion
shopping spree of nuclear-powered
submarines, frigates, fighter planes, sur-
veillance and radar systems, integrated
into a continental policy with the U.S.
that could march Canada into the Amer-
ican Strategic Defence Initiative, com-

The B.C. Federation of Labor last week
launched a province-wide open letter cam-
paign, calling on organizations around the
province to gather hundreds of thousands
of names in opposition to Bill 19 over a
one-week period.

The campaign, endorsed by the federa-
tion’s executive council June 10, will be
focussed on the period June 19-27 during
which time, local unions throughout the
province as wellas women’s groups, church
organizations, pensioners’ and community
groups will be asked to cover “every shop-
ping mall, doorstep and meeting... to allow
hundreds of thousands of people to register
their opposition to Bill 19.”

Many groups were just receiving the fed-
eration material at Tribune press time but
some unions and organizations were
already taking steps to get the campaign
into high gear.

The Carpenters Union moved early this
week to establish a co-ordinating committee
which is setting up schedules for petitioning
as well as arrangements for dispatching
volunteers. The Carpenters can be reached
at 437-0491 for further information.

Vancouver and District Labor Council
secretary Frank Kennedy said Tuesday that
the labor council was calling community
groups and local unions to a meeting June
17 in the Maritime Labor Centre to co-
ordinate the campaign. In Vancouver,
volunteers can call the labor council at
879-2421 to participate.

Kennedy said he hoped every trade unio-
nists and member of a community groups
would “sign the open letter and get their
families, their friends and their neighbors to
sign.”

The open letter to Premier Bill Vander

see UNIONS page 3

monly known as Star Wars.

The paper promotes the military use
of space. It calls for the establishment of
a national military space program and
pledges participation in the U.S. space-
based, infra-red surveillance, and SDI
component.

The most controversial of the report’s
recommendations is the purchase of 10-
12 nuclear-powered submarines. Osten-
sibly to protect the Canadian Arctic, the
subs will constitute an undersea compo-
nent of Star Wars. They could also draw
Canada into the U.S. maritime strategy
which will lead to nuclear destabiliza-

tion. see RESERVES page 6