FLASHBACKS FROM
THE COMMUNIST PRESS

25 years ago...

A DEATH BOMB AT

A CHILDREN’S CONCERT
“TORONTO — One child is in
hospital, nine others are painfully
wounded — all missing death by
inches as a bomb exploded dur-
ing a children’s concert being
put on here by’ the AUUC. Five
hundred people sat in the hall
and 400 others were downstairs
at a teen-age dance.

Thirty children were onstage
when the bomb went off with an
ear-splitting roar driving heavy
railway spikes into the walls and
ceiling. The force smashed 52
windows in the house next door,
storefront and automobile glass a
block away was shattered. The
sound was heard for 15 blocks
and an estimated $10,000 damage

was done to the progressive Uk- ,

rainian hall.

And, although the’ police .have
records of every former nazi who
are here disguised as displaced
persons, no arrests have yet been
made.

The Tribune,
Oct. 16, 1950

50 years ago...

CHILD IMMIGRANTS
DRIVEN TO DEATH

VANCOUVER — During the
past year there were five cases
of suicides among child immig-
rants to Canada. Brought to this
country under the ‘auspices of
charitable groups, children have
become stranded and are forced
to accept employment under the
most degrading conditions, and
sometimes treated in such a bru-
tal manner, suicide is taken as the
only means of .escape.

Children as young as five years
have been sent here, while tots
ranging from seven to ten years
are quite common. Many, osten-
sibly brought for adoption, are
really for cheap labor.

Child immigrants are taken for
farms and sweatshop industries
where they are given a low wage
and compelled to pay back their
passage money, which keeps them
in the grip of their exploiters for
years.

The Worker,
Oct. 11, 1925

| Urge condemnation of

Tsrael-Egyptian deal

TORONTO — The Canadian >

Arab Federation is urging Cana-
dians to condemn the Israeli-
Egyptian-U.S. ‘agreement of
Sept. 1, which, the CAF states,
conspires against the interests of
Arabs and the Palestinians in
particular.

A statement circulated by CAF
on Sept. 25, which Canadians
are urged to endorse and for-
ward ‘to both President Sadat
and the Egyptian Ambassador
at 454 Laurier St. E., Ottawa,
reads as follows:

“The new interim peace agree-
ment reached on September 1
between your government and
the Zionist enemy under the
supervision of U.S. Secretary of
State, Henry Kissinger, is de-
signed to liquidate the Arab peo-

2

ple’s struggle and _ increase
American imperialist influence
in the Arab World.

“TJ denounce your government
for serving the American inter-
ests in the Middle East; for un-
dermining the unity of the Arab
Confrontation Front; for betray-
ing its own people and the Arab
people; and for working against
the Rabat Arab Summit decision
of October 29, 1974 — which
clearly condemned the step-by-
step policy and called for an
overall settlement that would
secure the national rights of the
Palestinian people.

“J demand that your govern-
ment rescind the treasonable
agreement with the Zionist
enemy, and- stop conspiring
against the struggling Palestin-
ian people.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 10, 1975—Page 4

Editorial Comment...

Danger for labor in Ottawa plan

Capitalist politicians are consistent in
denying, right down to the wire, any
unpopular, anti-working-class moves
they plan.

So when the Toronto Globe and Mail
declared, “Trudeau rejects wage-price
controls,” it was expressing what he
wanted before the public. After all, he
has to pretend to represent “all” the
people.

The G&M’s own opinion, ventrilo-

quized by its big business backers, was
“that income and price controls are
needed to jar all Canadians back to
sanity.”

With prices and profits at history’s
all-time high, with confidence in their
own ability to find loopholes, and with
the long-awaited “anti-profiteering” bill
promising to punish only for those pro-
fits which are not “reasonable,” the
corporation - directed crack- down on
wages, can afford to have “prices”
thrown in as a sop.

Leaks about the federal govern-
ment’s new plan to solve the economic
crisis on behalf of its patrons, are both
revealing and ominous.

What is in the works, to be unveiled
after a federal-provincial economic

summit, when parliament opens on Oct. .
14, looks like a mailed fist in simulated

velvet. It looms as a threat to Canada’s
working people — those at jobs, unem-
ployed, existing on inadequate pensions,
or being strong-armed by compensation
boards.

The now public portions of the Ot-

tawa plan point to a New Economic

Team (NET), headed by half a dozen

cabinet ministers, and empowered to
monitor prices and wages.

In the new scheme, with all the ob-
jectivity of an opulent multi-national,
both. companies and unions would be
publicly chastised and asked to roll
back inflationary increases. What an
opportunity for the government, its ad-

- vertising agencies, the media and other

big business outlets to attack labor,
while the price gougers continue to rob
the public. This is far from the wide-
spread demand of ordinary people that

prices be rolled back at the expense of -

soaring profits.

When Prime Minister Trudeau an-
nounced his Sept. 26 cabinet shuffle ap-
pointing Finance Minister Donald
Macdonald to replace John Turner, who
resigned, he said tluntly that he had
not rejected controls. “It’s just that we
have not come to that yet.”

The moves toward wage controls,
both open and disguised, go along with
inflation “solutions” such as demands
for slashing government spending on
health, housing and other necessities,
while larger and larger sums are drain-
ed away into military spending. It adds
up to an anti-people program for pro-
tecting monopoly power and profits.

There is a serious danger for labor in
any scheme which. makes labor the
scanegoat for inflation by lumping: to-
gether extortionate corporate profits
with the legitimate wage demands of
the workers. Compulsion and wage
freeze lurk near bv.

This gathering threat calls for unity

of action of all labor, democratic and
progressive forces to compel a genuine

program — for people’s needs, a roll}

back of prices of food, housing and
other basics, and rejection of both wagé
controls and intimidation. :

Governments ignoring |

workers’ basic needs

At its 21st Convention in Novembelm

1971, and again at the 22nd Conventiol |

in May 1974, the Communist Party of
Canada, laid down its policy of fighting
for a guaranteed annual income. .

The policy resolution of the 1974 meet |

now in pamphlet form, includes a 1+

point “minimum program” for “defend: |
ing working people from the effects of |

the present crisis.”

The resolution, now timelier thal
ever, says that “. . . in comformity with
the right to a job, an education, decent
housing, health, leisure, a guarantee?
annual income, the Communist Party
works for the following policies:

“1. A job or an adequate income for

“every Canadian as a right; a 32-houl

work week with no reduction in take:
home pay; a monthly basic pension 0
$250 at the age of 60 adjusted periodic

ally in accordance with cost of living |

increases.

“2. Unemployment insurance bene
fits at 80% of wages for the full pericd
of unemployment; a $3.50 minimul™
wage.

pensions, with a... Guaranteed Annua
Income to be adjusted periodically
accordance with cost of living i
creases...” —
In the same document, the CPC called
for a Bill of Rights for Labor, “to 1”
clude the right of workers and thel!

unions to havea say in the introduc

tion of automation and technologica
change”, as postal workers are deman@
ing, in “the moving and closing of fac
tories ... and protection of health an

safety” the latter the purpose of a re
cent conference sponsored by the Can#
dian Labor Congress. y

Parts of the “minimum program

were called to mind when the Metr? |
Toronto social services department de

cided recently on a trial welfare supple
ment for the working poor (people
with jobs who don’t earn enough to livé
on, or keep a family on).

The proposal is meant as an incentivé —

pYoviding slightly more for the work
ing poor than for those totally on wel
fare. It also allows sweatshop bosses 1
be subsidized by the municipality fot
paying the inadequate minimum wage
The fact is that besides a minimu”
wage of $3.50 there must be resolve
the difference between a single wag?
earner and say, a single breadwinner 14
a family of six. An adequate annual 1”
come is a necessity, and the responsibl®
ity must be shouldered by the senior
governments. ;
Billions of dollars are there, being
squandered on arms, or buying more
corporate power. The message to bé?

driven -home to big business gover?”

ments — at the federal-provincial ec?
nomic summit, and at all times—is tha

these billions have to be directed to thé |

real needs of the people of Canada .

“3. Income security and adequate