soualiaieminemnaaimmmineiantieee mening 4 os emerematattnnmeerttrn mOS : a

eighty sielecaeaientcetenie ass ET

* Sawin tkegeanr tig AS

_ By BRUCE YORKE

pees month, at the age of 79,

One of the foremost Cana-

dians of this century pass-

ed away quietly at his summer
home in Montebello, Quebec.

General A. G, L. McNaughton
had a lifetime of public service
to his credit, including’ com-
mander-in-chief of the Canadian
Army in World War Il, minister -

I defense, chairman of the Na-
tional Research Council, Cana-
dian ambassador to the United.
ations, and Canadian chairman
of the International Joint Com-
mission for Boundary Waters.

McNaughton was also an out-
Standing electrical engineer, the
only Canadian so far honored
with membership in the top in-
ternational organization in this
Profession,

The daily press and the nation

as a whole have paid tribute to
his many accomplishments and I
will not repeat them ‘here. In-
stead I will tell how the general
fought to prevent the sellout of
Canadian interests involved in
the Columbia River Treaty with
the United States.

_ It was my fortune as a mem-
ber of the Columbia River for
Canada Committee to come into
contact with the general, start-
ing in October 1962. From the
very . beginning he was com-
pletely aware of the big differ-
ences in our political viewpoints,
but in no way was this an ob-
stacle to the closest cooperation.

Oct. 4, 1962 he wrote us: “It
seems to me the only difference
between us is as to procedure,
as to whether I should make my
primary endeavor in the Exter-

7
a

> How Gen. McNaughton
fought for Canada

His very presence made you feel
proud to be called a Canadian’

nal Affairs Committee or alter-

natively undertake a speaking

campaign across Canada. My
own conviction is, that for me,
the External Affairs Committee
is the essential contribution
which I must make, but I do not
exclude speaking also when this
has been done and right up to
the limit of my physical capa-
city.”

From time to time we re-
ceived letters from the general
in response to our efforts to get
him to come to Vancouver on a
speaking tour. Despite our
pleading we never did succeed
in arranging this, even after the
External Affairs Committee
hearings had been completed.

The general was appreciative
of the role of the labor movemen*
in the anti-Columbia struggle

In one of his letters he said: “I
am very happy at your account
of the progress being -made by
your committee and most pafti-
cularly at the action of the Van-
eouver Labor Council. They are
showing great foresight in op-
posing the . . . Treaty, for if it
is ratified we will still find our
employment, more particularly
in the secondary industries, be-
ing drained off to the USA.”
John Hayward of the Amalga-
mated Transit Union, Bill Ken-
nedy of the Mine Mill and
Smelter Workers, Tom Parkins
of the United Fisherman and
myself first met the general in
his modest house in Ottawa in
early May 1964. We had come
to testify before the External
Affairs Committee. The general
himself had previously testified:

and was busy preparing for a
second presentation.

All of us were impressed by
the warm, democratic and cul-
tured surroundings of his home.
The atmosphere was anything
but “military”. In no time at all
we were all “buddies.” We
spent many hours with the
general listening to his ideas on
the Columbia fight, _ drinking
beer in his pleasant. garden, and
generally getting a first-hand ac-
count of Canadian history from
a man who had made a good
deal of it.

He told us how he first pe-
came involved in the Colampia
in the early 50’s. As Cgnadian —

chairman of the IJC he was in-

vited by his Americay counter-
Part to attend a ceremony in

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Six weeks of Daniel Johnsen

TIME of writing (July 19),

T
A some six weeks after the

: Union Nationale victory
in the last provincial elections,
the realities of class and political
conflict are already putting Pre-
mier Daniel Johnson to the test

_ —and, as expected, he has been

found Woefully wanting.

Johnson had more than five
Weeks to prevent the province-
Wide strike of hospital workers,
because wages and working con-
ditions are to a very large extent
determined by government
rants to these institutions.

Some daily newspapers in
Montreal and elsewhere in Que-
bec have tried to, work up hys-
teria, screaming that these 32,-
000 employees have very grave
responsibilities in helping to
look after the sick. Therefore,
they reason, the government
Should immediately secure an
Injunction ordering them back to
work and then in the first ses-
Sion of fthe new Legislative As-
sembly, deprive them of the
Tight to strike which they have
Just won, :

‘These workers certainly have
very important responsibilities,
and often very difficult and ar-
duos work. But their salaries
have not been commensurate
with these responsibilities — in-
deed, they have been so abys-

mally low that their demand of —

an $8 per week raise is very
modest.
As the strikers suggest, the

government should “nationalize” _

the hospitals and settle the
strike on the basis of the work-
ers’ demands.

As to Mr. Johnson’s “national-
ism”, it is clearly the hand-
maiden to his bourgeois convic-
tions. In an interview with the
Toronto Globe and Mail on July
4 he is quoted as follows:

“I believe that American Ca-
pital and other foreign capital,

_ which is badly needed — every-

body recognizes it (not every-
body, Mr. Johnson, even in your
own bourgeois circles!) — is

Quebec
by
SAM WALSH

‘ld, le

ready to abide by Canadian, and
by Quebec legislation. There-
fore we have come out, very
bluntly and clearly, in favor of
free enterprise and we have ad-

vocated means to encourage in-.

vestment”’. A:
_ As to “national rights,” which

are clothed in the garb of “pro-
vincial rights,” Mr. Johnson is
already beginning to show in
whose interests he tends to use
them. He was asked by the same
newspaper what he was going to
do about medicare which has
_been promised for July 1, 1967.

“But are we ready for health
insurance?” Mr. Johnson said,
“are we in a position to pay? I
do not think so, right away.
Anyway we have to look at it.
This is of prowngial jurisdiction
and we won’t be pushed around
by anybody...”

Oh yes you will, Mr. Johnson!
You were elected by a minority
of the population and with the
barest majority of seats.

The organs of big business,
like the Montreal Star and the
Gazette, are trying to find you
a place.in -the hearts of the
English-speaking upper classes
by encouraging you to move
more boldly in the direction of
reaction. But the masses of
working people will remind you
that you can’t win their support
by going back to the policies of
Duplessis—that is a “strong”,
well worked-out stance on the
national rights of the French
Canadian nation, behind which
the interests. of the common peo-
ple are sold out to American,
French Canadian and = even
English-Canadian monopolists.

CE

DANIEL JOHNSON

Six weeks of Daniel Johnson
are already enough to show
that Jean-Paul Ménard, presi-
dent of the Montreal labor coun-
cil, was dead wrong when he de-
clared that the election of the
Union Nationale _ government
was “a very great Victory”.

Brother Ménard is trying to
prevent implementation ‘of the
decision of the last convention
of the Quebec Federation of
Labor to encourage the founda-
tion of a mass party of the
working people as opposed to
‘the bourgeois parties.

With every week that passes,
with every turn in the class
struggle, the evidence mounts
that there is no other way but
the one indicated in the QFL re-
solution and proposed consis-
tently by the Communist Party
of Quebec to the whole Left.
This is the development of unit-
ed labor independent -politica]
action in alliance with the or-
ganized farmers, students anc
other progressive sections of th:
population in an electoral bloc—.

a national democratic front.

The rather childish effort of
the Parti Socialiste du Québec
to substitute themselves for this
genuine mass line came to a
swift end in the last elections.
Any efforts to substitute petty
bourgeois nationalism through

-the RIN will meet with a far

worse disaster—for it will divide
the working class further.

What is proposed by the Com-
munist Party of Quebec must be
argued and fought for in every
trade union local, in every plant,
shop, mine and mill, as well as

in the universities and in the
farm unions. This is the only
real alternative. There are no
short cuts—only short circuits,
which will burn up the Left,
whose task it is to spark the
whole movement. for a national
and democratic front.

August 5, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3