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‘Not Carter country’, group
urges Canada foreign policy

TORONTO — An Ad Hoc
Committee of Canadian and
American War resisters has been
set Up In response to the renewed
cold war and the threats. by the
former Tory government to pre-
vent U.S. citizens who resist the
draft from entering Canada.

At a press conference Feb. 15,
the group stressed that ‘‘Cana-
dians must not be whipped into
the rigid cold war reactions being
pushed by U.S. President Carter
and his National Security Adviser
Brzezinski.”’ In a prepared state-
ment, they pointed to the past
where “manufactured incidents”
in the Tonkin Gulf led to years of
war against Vietnam.

“We feel that Canada has its
own goals which should be ex-
pressed by a Canadian foreign
policy not tied to U.S. political
and economic interests. It is in
Canada’s best interests to enun-
ciate a foreign policy that aids the
development of world peace,
fruitful and equitable commerce
between nations, and a reduction
of tensions. ...”’ :

The statement, read by Charles
Stimac, a former U.S. draft re-
sister, recalled that 100,000 Viet-
nam war resisters came to Canada
seeking refuge. “A large number
have stayed to live and work
here,”’ he said.

Stimac pointed out that Cana-
da’s immigration policy, as it
exists today, can be used to selec-
tively discriminate against those
who resist oppression in their
own countries. He cited cases
where this has been used against

Haitian and Chilean citizens seek-
ing political asylum.

‘Canadians should realize that
tens of thousands of young
Americans are once more de-
monstrating for peace, opposing
U.S. intervention in the Third
World, and resisting registration

for the draft,’’ he said. ‘‘Those of

us who resisted the unjust war in

Indochina are in full solidarity

with the present movement of

_American youth against war. We

believe Canada would be acting
as a good neighbor if it too sup-
ported this struggle for peace.”
Backing Stimac’s charge of
discrimination against political re-

- fugees, Allison Acker, a represen-

tative of Toronto Committee for
Solidarity with Democratic Chile,
said there is a definite trend and
hardening of the lines towards re-
fugees. She spoke about changes
in Canada’s immigration laws
which effectively bar Chileans
from seeking asylum here.

Toronto lawyer Paul Copeland
said that prior to 1972 it was rela-
tively easy for persons to seek re-
fuge in Canada. ‘‘Now it’s very
hard to come here — unless
they're entrepreneurs,”’ he said.
*‘We must remember that Ottawa
was dragged kicking and scream-
ing to open the border to war re-
sisters during the Vietnam war.”

_ Ray Stevenson, a representa-
tive of the World Peace Council,
told the press that Canada’s séc-
urity lies in peace, not jumping on
Carter’s cold war chariot.

“Canadians must make the

point that this is not Carter coun-
try,” said Katie McGovern, an
active participant in the anti-war
movement. ‘‘We want to see a
foreign policy made in Canada,
not in Washington: We’ve been
through that.”

The ad hoc group announced
they will organize a teach-in at the
University of Toronto the second
weekend in March to examine
Canada’s foreign policy and its
discriminatory immigration poli-
cy. The teach-in will coincide
with anti-draft events being plan-
ned throughout the U.S.

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Charlie Stimac (L) and Katie McGovern urge a foreign policy made in
Canada including asylum for U.S. war resisters.

Blames medical care lack in
high Inuit infant death rate

OTTAWA — A study which
shows Inuit babies die at five
times the national rate is ‘“‘out of
date and inaccurate’’, said
Michael Amarook, President of
Inuit Tapirisat of Canada Feb. 1.

“It gives a very false idea about
health care for Inuit, and the qual-
ity of their health. Also, the study
is based on data gathered nearly
six years ago,’ Amarook said.
The ITC President was respond-
ingtoa report published that day in
the Globe and Mail.

The joint study prepared by
National Health and Welfare and
co-authored by Dr. Donald Spady
of the University of Alberta,
blames cultural change as the
main culprit for peor Inuit infant
health. But it also says a main
cause is that Inuit mothers re-
duced breast feeding to ‘‘imitate
the whites’’. The Spady study
ruled out inadequate medical care
as a factor in poor infant health.
Amarook maintains that poor
medical services is a crucial factor
and that Health and Welfare of-
ficials used to urge Inuit mothers
not to breast feed their babies.

‘‘T was an interpreter in the six-
ties for the nurses and doctors
who came to my community of

Baker Lake. That’s what they ‘

told the Inuit to do. Inuit mothers
weren’t imitating the whites by
choice; the government used to
say that unless we learned to do
things the southern way, we had
no future.”

Inadequate medical care is
considered to be one factor exp-
laining the poor Inuit infant
health. ‘ITC met with Health and
Welfare officials just last month to
discuss guidelines for a possible
study of health care services in
the Keewatin region of
Nunavut,”’ Amarook said. ‘‘One
of the factors that will be
examined is the adequacy of
health care delivery, and . its
relationship to the quality of
health in Keewatin.”’

The Keewatin study, still in the
planning stages, was NHW’’s re-
sponse to the ITC President’s call
last November for a full inquiry
into Inuit health care services in
Nunavut (Our Land).

‘In a region such as the
Keewatin where there are about
5,000 people, there is not one doc-
tor and the closest hospital is 400
air miles away in Churchill, Man-
itoba. Weather conditions in the
Arctic often cause lengthy delays

in times of emergency,’’
Amarook said. ‘‘The only way
Inuit living in the Keewatin can
see a doctor is to fly to Churchill
or wait for one to come to their
community. Without doctors, the
nurses must shoulder respon-
sibilities and make decisiors that
are Carried out by doctors in other
parts of Canada. How can this be
called satisfactory health care?’’
Amarook also said some health
care problems are the result of
language differences. “There are
no Inuit nurses in the entire
Northwest Territories and some
Inuit speak only Inuktitut. We
also feel we have a right to-com-
municate directly with nurses in
our language, but-this is presently
impossible.”

Amarook says that the results
of the Spady study are inadequate
because only a partial and selec-
tive view of Inuit infant health
care has been obtained. ‘‘The
forthcoming Keewatin Health
Study will look at a wide range of
factors to discover how Inuit
health can be improved, and what

are the weaknesses of the health

delivery system in Keewatin’’.

The Inuit Tapirisat plans to do
a full reviéw of the report when a
copy is received.

Our shrinking forests

We recently learned first-hand
about a value which forests have
besides timber and paper. It in-
volves shade for salmon eggs.
When the forests of Vancouver
Island are cleared by the powerful
lumber companies, they use a
system which clears all the trees
from the timber berth. This sys-
tem is used in our forests because
it is economically desirable.

The creeks and rivers which
flow through such forests have
gravel bottoms, cleaned through

decades of river washing. Salmon .

lay their eggs in this gravel on the
shady side of the- stream. The
timber regulations require a nar-
row fringe of trees to be left stand-
ing along such streams to main-
tain shade. Unfortunately, the
first south-easter blows many of
them down because forest trees
tend to be spindly and tall, not
able to take high winds without
the support and protection of the
surrounding forest.

The newly cleared ground, torn
and gouged by machinery, also

silts up the stream and fouls the
clean gravel so essential to the
salmon. This is one of several
prices we pay in western Canada
as we exploit a precious natural
resource. An article by Erik Eck-
holm in Development Direc-
tions, October edition, em-
phasizes the point in other lands.

“Stick by stick, tree by tree,
the world’s forest wealth is dis-
sipating. Now covering about
one-fifth of the earth’s land sur-
face, forests are shrinking by ...
more than 50 acres for every mi-
nute of every day. ‘The main
causes of deforestation are the
spread of agriculture, the gather-
ing of firewood, and irresponsible
logging.

‘Meanwhile, the real prices of
forest products — and hence of
new housing, furniture, paper,
and countless other wood-based
goods — are already rising
worldwide, increasing inflation
ratessi.:

‘‘The most severe effects, of

course, will be felt by those who

-live in, around, and downstream

from the denuded lands.
**Forests also affect food pros-
pects through their ecological
roles. As the Himalayan hills are
stripped bare, the incidence of
disastrous floods downstream in
India is rising because monsoon

rains rush furiously off deforested —

slopes. Soil washed off denuded
hills is rapidly filling in valuable
reservoirs as well. -

‘‘By any account, a stupendous
number of trees must be planted
over the next two decades if mas-
sive economic and environmental
disruptions are to be avoided.
John Spears of the World Bank
calculates that at least 50 million
acres of plantations must be
established by the century’s end
in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America just to meet projected
firewood needs. Yet, at current
rates, only five million acres,
one-tenth of the requirement, will
be planted by then.

— Wheat Pool Budget

Stick by stick, tree by tree, the world’s forest wealth is dissipating ... .

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forests are shrinking more than 50 acres every minute, every day.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— FEBRUARY 29, 1980—Page 9