ORLD Peace was’ the pri-
_ Mary concern of delegates
Hon — third federal con-
y i, the New Democratic
i ‘se in Toronto recently,
os falt with in every major

S at the convention.

r ae Up time and again in
Most °ns from the floor on
aed Other topic. More

of the 800 delegates
€enly about it that they

Onsty ™promptu noon-hour
Shite eon in front of the
lates consulate to pro-

™ 88gression in Vietnam.

Bee..Of th,

rq € most strongly-
. “solutions passed by the
iene 2 Were on the war in
Minin ¢ the situation in the
m @0 Republic,

8 eR leader T. C. Doug-
: * tone with a ,passion-
i S0ro
is report. us plea for peace

beigieht of self-determina-

Weg : r
Presiden beaker Claude Jodoin,
Ot the Canadian Labor

Nest Teceived loudest and.

eq: ug Plause when he de-
Rte ee States may want
le op Sabre . . . but the

€ world want peace.”

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"ed out Of the convention but

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l ty ping wide press, radio
_ “OVerage, :

en w° Of on the: third day,

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 fop ye
top; eOOtenay West, took the.
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. during a discussion

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8Xpr, ‘ction what. they

Seq, peed mm the resolutions

le :
th ny €ntion’s resolution on
vot, yn tOduced by Andrew
—"C, Wwae . oF Toronto-Green-
assed unanimously.

It demanded ‘the immediate ces-
sation” of bombings of North
Vietnam and called on “all in-
terested parties including the
Viet Cong to enter into negotia-
tions based on the Geneva Agree-
ment without imposing difficult
or impossible preconditions.”

Such negotiations, it said,
“must provide (a) for the unity
of Vietnam. through free elec-
tions, (b) for the withdrawal of
all foreign military forces from
Vietnam, (c) for the employ-
ment of U.N. or: international
force to keep the peace until
unity is achieved, (d) for inter-
national action to rehabilitate the
war-torn country of Vietnam.”

The resolution condemned the
Canadian government “for its
support of the dangerous and
disastrous course pursued by the
government of the United States,
and its failure to use its position
on the International Control
Commission to insist that the
governments of the United
States, North Vietnam and South
Vietnam honor the obligation of
the Geneva agreement.”

Another resolution condemned
the intervention of the United
States military forces in the
Dominican Republic.

Recalling that the intervention
was being justified “because
Communists were alleged to
have supported the forces under
Col. Cammano”, the resolution
stated: “This is an extremely
dangerous doctrine. It could be
used by great powers to justify
on ideological grounds, interven-
tion to suppress any form of
internal revolution and to main-
tain puppet regimes in power by
force in any part of the world.”

- Douglas directed the attention
of delegates to three. goals,
which he said the NDP “must
set for the people of Canada.’

-The first is national unity,
which he said is Canada’s No. 1
problem. ;

“We must begin by recogniz-
ing the fact of the ‘quiet revolu-
tion’ in Quebec and the desire
of French Canada to retain and
develop their national and cul-
tural identity.”

Douglas condemned the Ful-

ton-Favreau Formula as an at-
tempt to put Confederation in a
strait-jacket. “It is not enough
that Canadians have the right to
amend their own constitution,”
he declared. “They must also
have the right to draft. a new
constitution in keeping with the
needs of our times. We are not

going to get that kind of consti-'

tution by giving every province
in Canada the right to veto.”

The second goal, Douglas de-
clared, is “the building of social
democracy in Canada”. By this,
he explained, he meant “a dy-

namic society in which all the.

resources of the country and its
people are developéd and utilized
to provide equality of opportun-
ity for every citizen.”

More than one-quarter of all
the incomes of Canada, he said,
are Jess than $2,000 a year and
over 50 percent are less than
$4,000 a year. “One-fifth of our
population lives in a state of

poverty and another fifth in a

state of deprivation. A quarter
of our population live in slums
and another quarter are slaves
of the mortgage companies.”

He blamed this state of affairs
on the fact that “ours is a society
dominated by a corporate elite
who exercise tremendous econ-
omic power by virtue of the
growing concentration of in-
creasing wealth in relatively
fewer hands.”

- Because this elite has controll-
ed both the Liberal and Conser-
vative parties, neither party has
ever dared to curb its power or
to challenge its authority. “We

‘are often warned of the danger

that under socialism the state
will dominate business,” said
Douglas, “but the unpalatable
truth is that we live in a country
where Big Business dominates
the state.”

The third goal, he said, is
Canada’s contribution to peace.

“The threat to world peace is
no longer the cold war in Europe
but the growing demand of the
emerging nations for the right
to work out their own destiny
and control their own affairs.
Many of these nations have
thrown off the yoke of political
imperialism and are equally de-

termined to free themselves
from the bondage of economic
colonialism.”

Douglas spoke again in the
closing session following his ac-
clamation as federal leader for
another two-year term. He an-
nounced he was leaving next day
as a member of a Canadian par-
liamentary delegation to the So-
viet Union and Czechoslovakia,
after which he and Mrs. Douglas
would accept an invitation to
visit Yugoslavia.

“When I get back,” he told
the delegates, “I will throw my-
self into the task of mobilizing
our movement into the toughest,
most effective and most aggres-
sive campaign ever put on by
our party.”

A lively convention debate
preceded passage of resolutions
on the Canadian Constitution
and rights of the French-speak-
ing minorities across Canada.

The former called for the re-
placement of the British North
America Act with a Canadian
constitution expressing the re-
quirements. of a modern federa-
tion which would, “recognize,
clarify and define the special
status of Quebec as the guardian
of the French language, tradition
and culture” and which would
include a bill of rights and with
an amending procedure “en-
trenching basic rights but reject-
the freezing Of legislative powers
within a constitutional strait-
jacket as proposed by the Ful-
ton-Favreau Formula.”

The other resolution called for
“a full system of schooling in
the French language where a suf-
ficient number of French-speak-
ing Canadians exist”, for the
Atlantic provinces to cooperate
in the establishment of a French
language normal school and en-
dorsing the position of the NDP
Council in New Brunswick in

calling for “the establishment of .

French as an official language in
that province, and therefore for
a fully bilingual legislature and
government service.”

Foreign ownership of Canada’s
industry and resources was dealt
with in a resolution which set
forth the proposition that a NDP

| Some want fo rattle the sabre — but the people

government would set up a
Canada Development Fund under
government control to reverse
the trend to foreign control by
“steadily increasing the relative
weight of the Canadian compon-
ent of our economy.”

In another resolution on the
Canada-United States Automo-
tive Trade Agreement the con-
vention demanded, “that the
government take energetic ac-
tion to force prices down to U.S.
levels, adequate financial assis-
tance for dislocated workers,
and advance planning to help
provide new jobs for them” and
opposing the extension of simi-
lar agreements in other indus-
tries until legislation has been
passed to protect the interests
of both workers and consumers.

Policy statements on manpow-
er, full employment, planned
immigration and automation,
technical change and leisure
were adopted. In the policy for
manpower (a new section of
the NDP policy) the need for a
planned program of utilization,
training and retraining, financial
assistance for geographic mobil-
ity, etc., was stressed to be
“consistent with Canada’s needs
in an age of rapid technological
and economic changes.”

Resolutions on control over
Canada’s natural and water re-
sources, for a system of federal-
provincial planning to “preserve,
develop and use them in an
orderly manner,” were also
passed.

A resolution on the Dorion
Report called for “effective le-
gislation providing for full dis-
closure of campaign and party
funds to prevent the buying of
political influence.” |

The convention ‘also called
upon the federal government to
develop direct and normal diplo-
matic relations with the People’s

Republic of China and to end
its opposition to the entry of
China to the. U.N. In the discus-
sion on this resolution the pro-
position. was also made to ask
that. the People’s. Republic of
China be. invited to take part
in Expo ’67,

want peace’

July 30, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3