Demand on Quebec's Premier Johnson:

‘Speak out on Vietnam’

The Montreal Committee for Peace and Self-Deter-
mination in Vietnam took a small delegation with a
brief to Quebec City last week to meet with the gov-
ernment and with the opposition. Included in the dele-
gation were representatives of the student organiza-
tions at the University of Montreal and Laval Univer-
sity, the Montreal Peace Council and the Communist
Party of Quebec.

The delegation met with Prime Minister Daniel
Johnson, who promised to study the brief. Johnson
suggested that he didn’t want to impinge on federal
jurisdiction, although as the brief points out there
are many precedents in which the Quebec government
has taken initiatives in foreign affairs.

The delegation also met with Francois Aquin, for-
mer president of the Liberal Party of Quebec, who
was enthusiastically in. agreement with the brief. He
added that if the committee wished-to organize a pub-
fic meeting in Montreal he would be very glad to come
down to address it.

The brief sets forth the views of the committee on
the need for Canadian action to assist in ending the
war and allowing the Vietnamese people the right of
self-determination.

The committee calls upon the Gushes government
to take a stand on this question:

“The population of Quebec is implicated in the war
in Vietnam to the extent of the complicity of the Can-
adian government in the American war in Vietnam
and since the government of Quebec is the political
expression ofthe Quebec people it must pronounce
on the questions of interest to its people. Carrying the
germ of a third world nuclear war, the war in Viet-
nam affects the Quebecois to the extent of it being a
measure of the survival of humanity.”

The brief states that there are certain imperatives,

general and strictly Quebec, which work in favor of
intervention by the government of the state of Quebec.

These include the moral imperatives, that peace is
a universal value, that the escalation by the Ameri-
cans, the use of Vietnam as a laboratory for exper-
iment with new weapons, and so on, is incompatible
with moral principles and therefore for this general
perspective the government of Quebec has the right
to itself pronounce on the Vietnamese question to the
extent that it is speaking of the moral concepts of the
Quebec nation.

Secondly, it deals with historic imperatives, such
as the fact.that the government of Quebec exists in’a
zone of territorial jurisdiction where there is one na-
tion, a nation which has the inalienable right-to self-
determination, and the recognition of this. right car-
ries with it the right to denounce the American war
against Vietnam. This is added to because this war is
itself a violation of the right to self-determination for
the Vietnamese people.

The third imperatives deal with the activity of the .

government of Quebec in foreign affairs: cultural,
commercial, economic, educational: The brief reminds

‘Premier Johnson of the visit of a peace delegation on

July 5, 1965, when he was the leader of the opposi-
tion. The next day he moved in the House that there
should be a discussion on the question of the war in
Vietnam and that this debate was refused by the then
government party, the Quebec Liberal Party. -

It goes on to say: “Finally the legal and constitu-
tionai restrictions are false problems. It is true that
the constitution actually forbids the Quebec govern-
ment to act as an autonomous centre in international
politics, to take decisions in this matter and to put
them into execution. But it does not forbid the leaders
of the provincial governments, in particular the state

A READER DISCUSSES

of Quebec, to express its opinions and its cri
upon world affairs in general.”

The brief then deals with economic imp
which it says are of two orders:

“First, the necessity to invest each day mo
more of production in armaments for the purs
the military operation in Vietnam by the United
implies a substantial reduction in the investmet
economic regions where the economic health of
ada is associated with that of the United States,
promising dangerously the economic developm
these regions, such as is the case for Quebec. |

“Second, the change to a war economy implies
out any doubt stagnation of -production which
bring about increase in prices, a tendency towa
flation which is aiready affecting Quebec.”

For these reasons, the brief asks that the sp
man for the French-Canadian nation, the prime
ister, be heard speaking in favor of the followi

e The immediate end of the aerial bombardmé
Vietnam by the Americans.

e The immediate withdrawal of American
from Vietnamese territory in conformity wi
Geneva agreements. .

e Formal recognition of the right of self-deter
tion for the Vietnamese people.

e Immediate negotiations and the recogniti
the National Liberation Front as a spokesmen Bs!
Vietnamese.

e Demand that the government of Canada
sociate itself from the policies of the U.S. goveld
in the war in Vietnam.

e@ Condemn and denounce the objectives of the
by the government and its actual complicity whi
incompatible with the aspirations for self-deter
tion of the Vietnamese people.

The fight for

By E. ROGERS
(Moose Jaw)

OOKING back over the his-
tory of democratic strug-
gles one finds that Canadian

Communists have played a vital-
ly important role not only in
helping to halt the desighs of
reaction, tyranny and war but
also in winning safeguards to
civil liberties, civil rights, exten-
sions of citizenship rights to
minority groups and ethnic com-
munities, gaining releases for
political prisoners, breaking
down color barriers, fighting
against poverty and sweat labor
conditions and for the right to
exercise religious freedom.

There can be little doubt that
it is in the general field of strug-
gle directed toward maintaining
and extending every vestige of
democracy, as we understand it
to be under state monopoly capi-
talism, that the widest sections
of people are activated and the
broadest and closest ties with
the masses are cemented. It is
an area where “free-reign” ac-
tivities are not likely to result
in errors of dogmatism or sec-
tarianism.

Left-wing people should never
hesitate about being involved
with the people in struggles or
demonstrations which look to
safeguarding, maintaining or ex-
tending all the ordinary hard-
won rights contained in bour-
geois democracy.

Many writers will find it diffi-
cult to. deal with this subject
without lengthy reference to or

a tracing of the outstanding his-
torical battles waged by workers
and people both in French and
English Canada around the fun-
damental issues and principles
of democracy, battles for rights
in hunger marches, in the mines
and quarries, in the bush and
timber lands, on the docks and
on the railroads, in the unions,
in the partiaments, councils and
legislatures.

Marxism-Leninism exerts a
continuous influence on the de-
mocratic processes and will al-
ways participate fully in the
extension of democratic princi-
ples with furtherance of human
rights and liberties both in the
countries of monopoly rule and
in the lands of socialism.

The need to be very conscious
of the continued erosion of de-
mocracy in the period since the
ending of the hot war in 1945
is urgent.

After the war was over, the
forces of reaction in various
parts of the world began at
once to regroup their shattered
forces, recoup their losses, and
change the new frontiers and
borders born in the flames of
battle.

We are entering a vital period
of our history. The increasing
antagonisms reflected in the
conflict of interests between the
capitalist and the workers is
expressed in ever increasing
clashes of class and class inter-
ests. This renders constant vigi-
lance a prime need of the hour.

The fight for democratic rights
is inseparable from progress in

_ prohibiting

the new conditions of technolo-
gical advance with automated
methods. Monopoly and its state
power of police and courts have
taken anti-democratic measures
against the workers and unions
in the form of court injunctions
striking in legal
strikes, imposing compulsory ar-
bitration, freezing wages or ty-
ing wages to productivity when
wages are a long ways behind.

While the modes of produc-
tion are remaining basically the
same, the impact of automation
has compelled a widening of the
democratic process to some
plants and industries, an area
where, I think, the democratic
process is most vital, if progress
is to continue in the economic
sphere. Increasing democratiza-
tion of industries, yielding a
greater share to workers in their
operation and control so as to
gain a share of the automation
benefits, is essential but only

_a beginning.

I don’t think we know at the

‘moment the precise course that

will lead to socialism in Canada
but many of us think in terms
of the possibilities present for
advances through a greater unity
in the ranks of the workers, in
much more organization of the
unorganized, in the fashioning
of a better alliance between the
workers, farmers and consumers
directed against their common

enemy—monopoly and war. The -

actions we undertake to uphold
the democratic rights of the
people in this period will play
an important part in the process

_of changes,

er democratic
the industries. All this would be

in the winning of
peace, in full employment with
still higher living standards.

‘With the right to political action

we have the strong possibility
of the coming to power of a
people’s government represent-

“ing diverse sections of the whole

economy which could break the
monopoly hold on our country
by a program of selective nation-

alization.

Economic democracy would
advance in all sectors of the
economy, including agriculture,
which would be freed from the

_ vise grip of monopoly and given

state assistance for the opera-
tion of implements manufactur-
ing plants in each area for oc-
operative distribution at cost.
Removing the fetters imposed
by state monopoly capitalism
would free the workers for great-
participation in

part of a democratic surge in
the country, a revolutionary pro-
cess in which social relations
would move gradually closer to
complete harmony with social
production.

I would not attempt to set a
precise course precisely because
the scientific principles of Marx-
ism-Leninism guide the werking
class constantly from one suc-
cess to another in helping hu-
manity to find the path forward
and to seize on those issues
which at a given moment enable
them to move forward.

Reference to Tim Buck’s book
“Put Monopoly Under Control!”:
automation is the culmination

democracy and for the future

of more than a century of
opment. It is a product of

ty, not of any one pers

corporation. Benefits sec
automation must belong
people as a whole”... *
ans are determined that th
achievements of scientaam
try and technique shall leé
better life for all instead 4
ing used for war and the €
ment of a few.” :
Reference to Marxist Qu
ly No. II, 1964. The cha

_ structure of the Working

and the Technological
tion, by William Kashl4
(the trade union mo
must take an unalterabl
in defense of the right to
the right to bargain colle
tied in with the advance

a program whose essence
the curbing of monopoly.
situation now developin
is required above all is a co!
linking up of. the strugg!®
immediate demands with Pf
als for deep-going reform?
character whose essenc
fundamental attack on
ism itself”. .. . “it is né
to advance and develop Pp
which take up the two S$
the question (automation
grams directed to pro
workers against the col
ces of automation in its i
ale sense and program?
curb monopoly, extend
mocratic rights of the
class and the people ane.
achievement of basic
transformations.”

December 23, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE