a By MEL DOIG The danger of fascism in North America today is not limited to George Wallace and his racist followers in the United States. Quebec now has its own ultra- reactionary, clerico - nationalist political party, the Parti nationa- liste chrétien (Christian Natio- nalist Party). Dr. Gaston Trem- blay, member for Monmorency of the Quebec Legislature, last week announced he had quit the Union Nationale party to repre- sent the P.N.C. “The call of my party,” he declared, “is to re- store peace, order and security.” This is the language of the Wal- lace movement. There was no public conven- tion, no congress to found the Parti nationaliste chrétien. It nevertheless has __ identifiable sources -of origin. Claiming a membership of 150,000, a figure no one in Quebec has yet dis- puted, it is the immediate out- growth of the “Common Front for Confessional Schools,” start- ed in 1967 and led by Léo Trem- blay (no relation to Dr. Gaston Tremblay), which claimed 100,- 000 signatures for its petition against Quebec’s bill 21 that created the non-confessional CEGESP’s, or junior colleges for pre-university and vocational education. The Common Front for Con- fessional Schools was able to finance a twenty-week series of television broadcasts on eight TV stations every Sunday throughout Quebec. It was on the last of this series of pro- grams, called the “Conference of Léo Tremblay,” that Doctor Ga- ston Tremblay, who is also mayor of the suburban Quebec City community of Beauport, si- multaneously announced his de- fection from the Union’ Natio- nale and his intention to sit in the Legislature as a member of the Christian Nationalist party. This was the first public indica- QUEBEC'S OWN t ULIRA-RIGHT PARTY tion of that party’s existence. The series of TV programs is to resume, according to Léo Tremblay, now secretary of the PNC, with the addition of four TV stations, for a total of twelve. The roots of the new, ultra- reactionary, Catholic-nationalist party extend beyond 1967 and the Common Front for Confes- sional Schools. Léo Tremblay first came to public attention in 1963 as the main spokesman and one of the founders of the secret society called “La Phalange,” with a name and an ideology borrowed from the fascists of Spain. As an extreme right-wing separatist movement, its call was for an independent catholic re- public of Quebec. With the for- mation of the Common Front for Confessional Schools in 1967, the secret society, La Phalange, disappeared from view. However, in his book, published in 1967 entitled Liberty, or Disgrace and Death, its cover portraying a cat-o’nine-tails, Léo Tremblay speaks of the “tens and tens of thousands of dollars” that the Phalange could make available. Anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-atheist, anti-Jewish (the above book contairis a chapter, The Jewish Octopus and Inde- pendence), whether as spokes- man for the Phalange, as chief organizer and spokesman for the Common Front for Confessional Schools, or now as secretary of the new Parti nationaliste chré- tien, Léo Tremblay has been and is today openly identified with the forces of extreme reaction in Quebec. His book, Liberty, or Disgrace and Death, invites the Jews to leave Quebec. It projects ‘“‘the Catholic sovereignty of the French-Canadian race.” It sup- ports the economic program of the Créditiste movement, and calls for the establishment of state corporations. It envisages an independent Quebec as a state based on the Church. Complete support for these ideas, with one temporary quali- fication, has been expressed by Dr. Gaston Tremblay, now Parti nationaliste chrétien member of Quebec’s legislature. In the ex- tremely wealthy doctor’s opin- ion, and in this he is joined by PNC secretary Léo Tremblay, his party will not call for Quebec’s independence until it has come to power. In a general election it will fight on two main imme- diate issues: “confessional schools and order.” The PNC claims it will soon hold the bal- ance of power in the legislature, as the result of what it antici- ‘pates will be further defections In West Germany neo-nazis advance By HANS-GEORG CANJO “The result of the elections has provided my Party with the ever so-important municipal basis.” These wofds were the comment made by Herr Gerhard Woitschel, member of the act- ing Provincial Presidium of the NPD (neo-nazi party) of Hesse, on the outcome of the municipal elections held on October 20, 1968 in Hesse, Baden-Wurttem- berg and the Saar. Indeed, he has every reason to be satisfied. After his party had already managed to get 61 deputies elected to the Provincial Diets of Hesse, Bavaria, Lower Sax- ony, Bremen, Rhineland-Pala- tine, Baden-Wurttemberg and Sleswick-Holstein, the NPD has now succeeded in penetrating into the town, district and vil- -lage councils of a further three important Federal Provinces. At the first go-off, the Party achieved strong representations, among other places, in Frank- fort/Main, Wiesbaden, Darm- stadt, Hanau and Giessen — meaning in five of the nine towns excepted from district administration — .as well as in 20 district.and a’ great» number of village councils. =. 22": 45 PACIFIC TRIBUNE maa In the nine Baden-Wurttem- berg towns, excepted from dis- trict administration, the neo- nazis succeeded in making gains of two percent. In the Saar they even managed to treble their votes compared with the 1965 general elections. It appears necessary to deal with the election results in the three Provinces in such detail, since after these elections the Bonn propagandists of the. Fe- deral Government tried to counter the increasing interna- tional concern over the upsurge of nazism by stating that the NPD was losing its punch. After election day, a CDU paper in Frankfort/Main even went as far as printing the headlines: “NPD Loses Election”. This is nothing but a deliber- ate deception of world public opinion. It is, however, a fact that in West Germany neo-naz- ism is on the up and up. Those who juggle with election results are insidiously keeping silent on the fact that the NPD took part in the elections not only with its own electoral lists, but also, in. hundreds of instances. _ by means of.so-called .free lists. . NOVEMBER 8, -1968Pagé 8°” in combination either with CDU or FDP candidates. Though these votes were not counted as NPD votes, they are significant for the fact that on October 20, the neo-nazis were actually able to consolidate their important municipal basis in three Federal Provinces. One can hardly overrate the significance of the election re- sults of October 20, in conjunc- tion with the outcome of the election in Lower Saxony where the NPD gained 117 seats in 75 town and district councils and a further 135 in village coun- cils. West German municipal- ities have always been domin- nated by the Social Democratic Party. And it is this very Party with its traditional majorities in most of the West German county councils which suffered once more heavy defeats. Signi- ficantly, this happened, above all, in working class areas. In the light of this develop- ment, the NPD leaders agree more than ever with the fore- cast published by “Balser Nach- richten” on the day after the elections.in Lower Saxony: “If the neo-nazis manage to repeat | ay. their. Lower Saxony result.on a-.,reaping’ ‘the. benefit from the” to it from the ranks of Union Nationale members. By the defection of Dr. Gaston Tremblay to the Parti nationa- liste chrétien, there is no doubt the Union Nationale is threaten- ed with the possibility it may - Jose its precarious majority of one in the legislature. Of the 108 members, the Union Nationale has 54, but one of these is the Speaker. who may not vote ex- cept in case of a tie. The Quebec Liberals have 48 members. There are four independent members including René Le- vesque of the Parti Québecois. On December 4 next there will be two by-elections, which will probably be split between the Union Nationale and the Liber- als. But underlying the numbers game of parties in the legislature is Dr. Gaston Tremblay’s charge that the Union Nationale was elected to power in 1966 largely on the basis, above all in the rural areas from which that party has traditionally drawn _ its strength, that it would oppose the Lesage Liberal government’s program for a new system of education that progressively re- duces control by the church. The cold facts are that this was so, and that the Union Nationale, led by the late Daniel Johnson, once in power continued thé educational policies in the mali of the previous Liberal régime: Numbers of former Union Na tionale rural voters, and it may be that this will include somé ultra-nationalist elements in that party’s legislature members, fee their party deserted its 1966 pro gram. They may be turning 1 the Parti nationaliste chrétie”, whose existence now raises thé possibility of a minority gover ment in Quebec. In addition to these possible adherents coming from among past supporters of the Uniol Nationale party, the Christia® Nationalist party consists of ele ments drawn from the Rallié ment Nationale (the reaction ary “‘indépendantiste” party which has been fused into thé new, white-collar, mainly urbal Parti Québecois), from the “cre ditiste” movement, as well a elements from sections of thé Catholic church, and right-win8 catholic nationalists, especially in rural areas. To underestimate’ the actual extent of support for this new party of extreme reaction Quebec, the Parti nationaliste chrétien, would be a serious mS take, above all for the democra- tic, Idbor forces of Quebec and of all Canada. Strong-armed “‘stewards” in S.S. style attack protesting citizens at a meeting of neo-nazis in Nuremberg. Federal scale they will enter the Bundestag as a parliamentary group next autumn.” Voices sounding the alarm over the upsurge of the NPD which, together with the no less fascist-riddled CDU, is today. stepped up expansionist drive of the Federal Government, de- serve even more attention that in former times. It is mainly due to these warnings, that Bonn is trying to play down the — forward march of the NPD... —P. anorama, GDR. a