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WILSON CUTS FAMILY ALLOWANCE BAILS OvT BANKS

Family allowance, equity
bills face tough challenge

When the House of Commons
reconvenes this week it will be
facing two large coalitions pro-
testing government attempts to
erode economic rights for
women.

Before the holiday recess the
Hill was swarming with women’s,
labor, anti-poverty and church
groups holding press con-
ferences, presenting briefs and
petitions in opposition to de-in-

Aid for

Vietnam

In September and October,
1985 the central part of Viet-
nam was severely hit by four
typhoons with a heavy toll of
lives and property. Hundreds
of thousands were made home-
less, schools, hospitals, roads,
bridges, dikes and power lines
destroyed and crops flooded.

Launching a campaign for
material support, the General
Union of Vietnamese in
Canada has set up a fund to
assist typhoon victims in Viet-
nam and urges full support.
Contributions may be sent to:
Fonds d’aide aux sinistres des
tyhons au Vietnam, Box 577,
Postal Station C, Montreal,
Quebec H2L 4K4.

dexing family allowances and Bill
C-62, the employment equity bill.
The groups are set to resume their
activities when the Commons
meets again.

Family Allowance cheques
mailed out for January already
bear the mark of de-indexing even
though Bill 70 has not yet become
law. The cheques were increased
by only 31 cents per child, from
$31.27 to $31.58, 97 cents short of
what they would have been with
full inflation protection.

The legislation permits an in-
crease in payments only by the
amount of inflation that rises
above 3 per cent. One brief, from
the National Action Committee on
the Status of Women points out
that de-indexing will reduce the
value of family allowances by half
in over the next 20 years.

The employment equity bill,
which is before legislative com-
mittee, and expected to be before
the House for third reading by the
end of the month, is to provide
affirmative action opportunities in
federally regulated businesses,
crown corporations and some
federal departments.

It has been criticized as grossly
inadequate and excludes such
large federal departments as de-
fence and public works, provides
for no enforcement mechanism

Canada-U.S. fish fight |

HALIFAX — In face of a 6.85 per cent import duty slapped on
Atlantic groundfish from Canada by the U.S. Commerce De-
partment, John Leefe, Nova Scotia’s minister of fisheries said
exporters have the upper hand. He said U.S. fish processing
would ‘grind to a halt”’ in two weeks without Canadian fish.

Canada exported about $1-billion worth of fish to the USA in
1984, about $60-million of it cod, haddock and halibut from

Atlantic Canada.

Last year the U.S. placed a tariff on salt fish. The new levy is a
countervailing duty imposed when a U.S. commission decided
Canadian fishermen were subsidized by the government.

Fishermen are not optimistic. If the tariff is made permanent at
the March 17 decision date, they say, survival will be that much

more difficult.

Aang cece enn
Fe , hs

es PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 15, 1986

and no contract compliance for
companies doing business with
the government.The bills raise
some fundamental questions as to
the future of Canadian social pol-
icy. Critics of de-indexing see it as
a first step in eroding the univer-
sality of social benefits and indeed
government spokespersons exp-
lain that their intention is to re-
route payments from middle in-
come earners to the poor.

The NAC brief charges how-
ever that the legislation will take
$90-million from the program an-
nually and pass only $40-million
of that onto low income families.

The employment equity bill, in-
tended to address systematic dis-
crimination against women,
minority groups and the disabled
in the workforce, lacks the teeth
to redress the injustice faced by
this core, which constitutes 60 per
cent of the population.

cause acid rain.

technology. :

While the U.S. side admits in the report that transboundary
pollution is a serious problem (a large percentage of the acid rain —
destruction in Canada is caused by U.S. coal-burning utilities) the —
authors admit they put nothing in the recommendations they
didn’t think President Reagan would approve. He has yet to ~
acknowledge that acid rain is a trans-boundary problem.

Haida back on Lyell Island

VANCOUVER — While waiting to hear the date of renewed
efforts at logging Lyell Island in the Queen Charlottes off the ©
British Columbia coast, four members of the Haida people made
a short-term visit to their protest camp on the island.

Frank Collison, administrator for the Council of the Haida
Nation, said the four had gone to check on the camp “and see that
everything is working’’. Since November, 72 Haida have been”
arrested for blocking a road and stopping work, which the con- —
tractor planst to start up on Jan. 20. The Haida whose traditional ©
homeland is in the coastal islands has land claims pending with -
the provincial government, which so far has refused to hold talks. —

Across Canada

A $5-billion umbrella?

OTTAWA — The joint Canada/U.S. report on acid rain, re-
leased Jan. 8, whatever merits it may have, drew criticism im-

- mediately for the fact that it sets no goals or timetables for
“* reducing the sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions which

The report, produced by William Davis, former Tory premier }
of Ontario and Drew Lewis, former secretary of transport in the —
Reagan Cabinet, recommends that the U.S. government and ~
industry spend $5-billion over five years to develop anti-pollution

VRS 1-85. mc

CPO celebrates 20 years:

Resolution adopted at the
November 30-December 1, 2
meeting.

This meeting of the Central
Committee of the Communist
Party of Canada greets the Parti
communiste du Québec on the
occasion of the celebration of the
20th anniversary of its foundation
in November 1965.

In April 1965 a meeting of the
Central Committee (then called
the National Committee) of the
Communist Party of Canada, fol-
lowing discussion of a report from
the NEC entitled ‘‘French
Canada and the Communist Par-
ty,’ adopted the report and a re-
solution whose main content was
as follows:

‘This meeting of the National
Committee expresses its agree-
ment with the proposals ad-
vanced by the communists of
Quebec that the party in Quebec
be recognized as a distinct entity
to be known as the Communist
Party of Quebec;

‘**A convention shall be held in
Quebec in the fall to give effect to
this decision;

“The NEC is instructed to

draw up amendments to the Party
Constitution which will be neces-
sary following the formation of
the Communist Party of Quebec
as a distinct entity, which will be
submitted to the National
Convention.”’

The National Convention, fol-
lowing the founding convention
of the PCQ in November 1965,
then adopted the amendments to
the Party Constitution proposed
by the NEC, to the effect that
“‘the Communist Party of Quebec
is a distinct entity within the
Communist Party of Canada hav-

ing complete control ofits policies.

and structure in Quebec.” A
member of the Communist Party
of Quebec by virtue of this fact, is
a member of the Communist
Party of Canada, with the same
rights and obligations.

From its very foundation the
PCQ strove to exercise an in-
fluence on the rising mass protest
movements on national, social
and economic questions, together
with all groups who sought to give
these movements a progressive,
pro-socialist direction and to op-
pose those who sought to mislead

Quebec. 4

them to the advantage —
monopoly capitalism or of na
row, exclusive nationalism. —

The PCQ advanced the idea
the creation of a mass federat
party of the working people, :
idea which is still gatherir
increasing acceptance in the trac
union movement and in tl
people’s movements, as t!
working people learn throu;
their own experience that th
cannot rely on petty bourgec
nationalist parties to defend th
interests, nor the interests of
nation. : ;

The work of the Party cor
muniste du Québec is a significa
contribution to the unity of th
working class and the progressiv
and national forces of Canada |
the struggle to stop U.S. if
perialism, for peace, jobs al
Canadian independence, to pul
Canada first.

This Central Committee mee
ing expresses its good wishes f
further successes and its con
fidence in the spirit of Marxisr
Leninism and proletarian inter
nationalism of our comrades ij