;

The Constitutional Conference

tc wel NELSON CLARKE
S the writing of a new con-

* should it be urgently pushed?

My havi

| ti

iJ

th

5 Stitution for Canada a dead issue,
|

pee press and the politicians
I big business seemed to be
4 ing trouble making up their
acs during and after last
Week’s Constitutional confer-
ence,

Why all the waffling? :

Basically, as the Tribune has

punted out time and again over
he last half decade, the corpor-

te interests which rule Canada
Bat Want any major changes
A he 103-year-old British North
~“Iherica Act. They don’t want to

} (cognize the national rights of

Tench Canada and thus weaken

© oppression of Quebec by the
a ~Anglo-Canadian trusts. Be-
aie in these days of world-

€ revojutionary change, it is
Mgerous for any capitalist
seermment to open up its con-
hs ution for review. There are
ig Many democratic ideas be-
& seized upon by the people.
a at the provincial premiers
Ott Want is more money from
a awa so they don’t have to

ake themselves too unpopular
. Taising provincial taxes too
ae They figure that that
C€sn’t require much constitu-
nal change, and they want to
‘e left with the powers to carry
“ae Sales of natural resources,
Crack down on labor.

‘Ne noisiest exponents of this
eo” are Thatcher of Saskat-
-“€wan and Bennett of BC, and
) Ottawa last week they ran
Te to form.
rhe Smoother gentleman; but no
oe dangerous than the hard-

a€ -merchants from Moose
’W and Kelowna, is Ontario
'emier John Robarts. He_ be-
poaned the “great trend to-
ards centralization in govern-
Ment in Canada.” What has
then much more noticeable is
le “great trend” organized by
Mself and other premiers to
a their provinces into little
hires which would be happy
Unting grounds for the anti-
aNadian, anti-labor monopolies.
j © only centralization is the
€ntralization of more power and

creat
4ce in recent years in the econ-
ae. of collective farms and
Ber farms. The working peo-
Sid I the countryside have con-
pe cbly stepped up the rate of
fo vth of agricultural produc-

changes have taken

10n,

: The annual gross grain har-

®st today amounts to approxi-
ately 162 million tons or 32
rion tons more than in the
Oe ne five-year period. The
ih Put of livestock produce has
i Creased. The financial-econom-
* Position of the farms has
°wn stronger. During the past
vere years of the current five-
@r period the average annual
ae income of the collective
Weg amounted to 20,000 mil-
ae roubles—5,800 million rou-
®s‘more than in the 1962-1965
Nod. The economic indices of
. Working people engaged in
bee farming and in animal hus-
dry have increased.
come’ State will allocate in the
thane five-year period more
ie 77,000 million roubles for
Purchase of machines and

Che :
chemical fertilizers, for land im-

"ovement, for building produc-

wealth in the hands of these
monopolies.
This is one side of the coin,

and it represents those who
want to bury. constitutional
change.

But the other side of the coin
is that represented by the con-
tinuing rejection by the French
Canadian people of the domina-
tion and inequality built into the
British North America Act.

No matter how much he
might personally like to sweep
these questions under the rug,
Quebec’s new Liberal premier,
Robert Bourassa cannot afford
to appear indifferent to the ur-
gency of constitutional change.

Nor can his boss, Pierre Eliott
Trudeau who needs massive Que-
bec support if his Liberal govern-
ment is to hold its parliamentary
majority. Besides, didn’t he set
himself up in English Canada
back in the 1968 election es the
man who could put Quebec “in
its place’?

So nervous as they are, these

two great apostles of Liberalism

have little alternative but to con-
tinue to go through the motions
of constitutional review.

Mr. Bourassa who prides him-
self as being a great pragmatic
economist tried to manoeuvre
around the basic issues with a
plea that the federal government

turn over half a billion dollars to .

provinces with high unemploy-
ment—like Quebec.

But that formula didn’t please
the other premiers, especially

Ross Thatcher. (Saskatchewan

has the lowest unemployment
rate in the country because
thousands of those without jobs
especially young people, have
simply given up and moved out
to other provinces.) Thus Mr.
Bourassa trying to present him-
self as a nice, reasonable federal-
ist got no place.

Indeed, he landed in more
trouble, because Robarts won
acceptance for the proposition
that what is needed is a renewed
search for a formula for amend-

ing the British North America |

Act.
It is of course ridiculous that

this act, which is all we present-
&

tion premises, housing, cultural
and public service establish-
ments. This is 70 per cent more
than was invested during the
current five-year period. Besides
this the collective farms are in
a position of additionally spend-
ing some 43,000 million roubles
of their own funds for these
purposes. Thus total capital in-
vestments in agriculture in the
new five-year period will be the
highest in the entire history of
its development.

- Within the next few years a
considerable share of the funds
will be spent for the further de-
velopment of grain growing, the
expansion of fodder production
as well as for building livestock
premises and poultry factories,
for the mechanization of the
work of livestock breeders, for
developing enterprises of an: in-
dustrial type. Recently the de-
cision of the CPSU Central
Committee and the USSR Coun-
il of Ministers on improving the
material incentives of collective
farms and state farms in step-
ping up the output of livestock
products was published.

Premiers waffle as crisis grows

of

ly have in the way of a constitu-
tion, can only be amended by the
British Parliament at Westmin-
ster. What a relic of Canada’s
colonial past!

But every formula so far
worked out for amendment of
this undemocratic and outworn
act has placed Quebec even more
at the mercy of the English
speaking majority in Canada.

The last effort was the device
developed by the Tory and then
the Liberal governments in the
early sixties, known as the Ful-

ton-Favreau formula. This was

endorsed by all nine English
speaking provinces, and had the
blessing of Bourassa’s Liberal
predecessor — Jean Lesage. But
Lesage was compelled by mas-
sive pressure from the people of
Quebec to back track and finally
declare the formula to be a
“dead duck.”

As Robert McKenzie of the
Toronto Star put it: “The ques-
tion of an amending formula is
a potential hornet’s nest for the
Quebec premier.

“Any new amending formula
would be certain to arouse the
same passions in Quebec if it
appeared to freeze the province’s
future chances of winning new
powers under the constitution.”

So this is where the confer-
ence ended—again with no an-
swers, but more trouble building
up.

Lewis Seale of the Toronto
Globe and Mail concluded his
analysis: “Constitutional review
is obviously no longer inevitable
at least not for the foreseeable
future: Whether it is even pos-
sible in the absence of some ma-
jor crisis is doubtful.”

What Mr. Seale and most of
his fellow journalists and politi-
cians in English Canada fail to
take into account is that a major
crisis is inevitable despite Bou-
rassa, despite Trudeau, as long
as the French Canadian nation
is denied its full right of self
determination, a right which
must be expressed in a new pact
of Confederation negotiated on
the basis of complete equality
between our two nations, if
Canada is to survive.

As of May 1, 1970 purchasing
prices were increased on cattle,
milk, sweet cream and other
products. Besides this collective

farms and state farms will re--

ceive bonuses amounting to
50% of the purchasing prices

for cattle, poultry, milk, wool.

and eggs sold to the state over
and above the annual plan. Other
incentives have also been intro-
duced as a result of which col-
lective farms and state farms are
now in a position to sharply im-
prove their profitableness and
to step up the output of live-
stock products.

While allocating large funds
for the development of agricul-
ture the Party and the Govern-
ment have called upon the
executives of corresponding

‘ministries and administrations,

collective farms and state farms,

on Party organizations and on:

all the working people in the
countryside to economically
spend each rouble, to achieve
maximum returns. The rate of
the further upsurge of agricul-
ture depends on this to a great
degree. —

- October 14 protest
to stop Bill 167

Wednesday, October 14 at
eleven in the morning is the
time set for the mass demon-
stration at Queen’s Park to stop
dead in its tracks the Robarts
government Bill 167 with its
anti-labor amendments to On-
tario’s Labor Relations Act.

Called by the Provincial
Building Trades Council, repre-
senting 75,000 Ontario building
and construction workers who
aim to stop work that day, the
October 14 demonstration is .a
vital action in the defense of
the rights of all organized
workers — building and con-
struction trades, and industrial
workers.

The Ontario Federation of
Labor is late in getting into
action against the highly-dan-
gerous Bill 167. In spite of calls
to it from many labor councils,
including those of the Toronto
and Hamilton areas, for action
to mobilize organized labor
against the bill, the OFL leader-
ship has been largely passive.

Now, with announcement of
the October 14 demonstration
date, the OFL, as its secretary-
treasurer Terry Meagher in-
formed the Canadian Tribune,
has invited the Provincial
Building Trades Council to meet
with it on Thursday, Septem-
ber 24, It has been known since
Bill 167’s introduction in the
Ontario Legislature, at the end
of last June, that it would come
up for second and final readings
in the next session which opens
early next month.

“We have invited the leaders
of the Provincial Building
Trades Council to meet with
us this Thursday,” said Meag-
her, “to work out details of
supporting action. We will ask
all workers who can be avail-
able,” he added, “to take part.
This will, we hope, include the
striking GM workers.”

Speaking for the Toronto
Building Trades Council, Clive

Rank and file seeking

Ballantine told the Canadian
Tribune the Toronto area build-
ing and construction workers
are “in full solidarity” with the
work stoppage and demonstra-
tion of October 14. He reported
that the Labor Council of Metro
Toronto has joined with the
Building Trades Council in in-
viting all Toronto area MLAs
to a meeting on October 7 to
discuss the proposed anti-labor
legislation.

The urgent need is for all
union locals and labor councils
to join on October 14 in the
great demonstration to prevent
passage of the anti-strike, un-
ion-busting Bill 167. This, and
militant actions before the
demonstration takes place are
needed to block the bill’s attack
on the trade union movement:
militant actions like those in
Windsor and London.

There, on August 28 and Sep-
tember 10 respectively, con-
struction and building workers
(3,000 in Windsor and 1,500 in
London) staged work stoppages
to attend “study sessions” to
protest the bill.

Rank and file pressure is
mounting, with the result that
certain New Democratic Party
spokesmen, like Stephen Lewis
who is seeking the Ontario NDP
leadership, have commenced to
speak out against the proposed
Labor Relations Act amend-
ments.

The Ontario Executive Com-
mittee of the Communist Party
of Canada has denounced Bill’
167 since its introduction. Its
statement exposing the bill’s
anti-labor content was distrib-
uted to thousands of Toronto
Labor Day marchers.

The United Electrical and
Radio Workers (UE) is actively
campaigning to mobilize all its
members against the bill, and
has expressed solidarity with
the building and construction
workers.

Militancy in GM strike

The massive strike of 365,000
General Motors auto workers—
23,000 of them at seven GM
Canadian plants in Ontario and
Quebec—is now in its second
week. ‘

In Canada, there are signs
that rank and file members are
becoming impatient with the
lack of direct communication by
UAW leadership with them.

Here, as in the USA, there is
deep hatred for GM, hatred caus-
ed by the company’s practised
disregard of local job grievances,
as well as by its profit-hungry
refusal to meet the wage and
other demands of the auto work-
ers.

Canadian GM_ strikers are
mindful of the fact the UAW
_regional leadership in Canada
has not effectively engaged the
members, not only of GM but
also of Ford and Chrysler, in
full and open discussion of Can-
adian auto workers’ needs.

They are recalling the confer-
ence last March in St. Cathar-
ines called by the Canadian GM
Intra Corporation Council, at-

tended as well by a number of
Ford and Chrysler workers. That
conference spoke for the rank
and file. It formulated the con-
crete demand for a $5 minimum
hourly rate for the first year
of the new agreement.

The struggle for higher wages
is at the very heart of the strike
against General Motors.

Along with the major demands
of the UAW for “30 and out”
with a $500 monthly pension,
for no cap on the cost of living
escalator clause, the fight for
higher wages goes hand in hand
with the rank and file’s deter-
mination, here and in the US,
that there’ll be no return to
work until GM settles the thou-
sands of accumulated local
grievances.

The GM strikers expect UAW
leaders to hold firm to the
stated aim of a “substantial”
wage increase. Many rank and
file GM Canadian auto workers
are indicating they want the $5
minimum hourly rate to be the
“must” for any wage settlement
ee the giant US auto corpora-
tion.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1970—PAGE 5