- Alsands collapse scuttles
3 Liberal economic strategy —

‘*The Canadian economy has received a serious
body blow as a result of the collapse of the Al-
sands oil sand project and a further two year delay
in the Alaska Highway natural gas pipeline,” said
the Communist Party commenting on the April 30
scuttling of the projects.

These were two of the Trudeau Government’s
projects, part of its industrial strategy which was
to have taken Canada out of adeepening crisis and
on the road to economic recovery.

This industrial strategy based on resource
development at the expense of all sided economic
development based on secondary industry has
now been shot to pieces. It must be replaced by
new economic policies which could put Canada
back to work.

- The Trudeau and Lougheed governments did
everything in their power to save the Alsands.
_ They offered to put up half the money for the oil
sands plants. They also offered Government
guarantees of loans for 68% of the remainder of
the Alsands project estimated to have cost $13.5
billion. Included in the package was a guaranteed
20% return on the investment. In total Ottawa and
Edmonton would account for 48% of the project.
_ But that was not enough for the multi-national
corporations in face of a glut of oil and declining
oil prices. What they were and are after is an end
to the National Energy Policy and the limited
Canadianization program undertaken by the Tru-
deau Government.

This is made evident in the demagogic cam-

paign presently underway and sparked by the
» Tory press and Tory party.

Their aims and that of the multi-nationals and
the Reagan Administration meet. The Reagan
Administration wants a completely free hand to
control and exploit Canada’s energy resources in
its interests and at the expense of the real national
interests of Canada.

‘‘Canadians should not permit the sabotaging of
the Canadianization program limited as it may
be,”’ the party charged. ‘‘It is multi-national con-
trol of energy resources aided and abetted by
government policies and those of the Tories
which has brought on the present energy crisis
and more of the same will further accentuate that
crisis.”” :

Handing over resources to the provinces as the
Constitutional agreement did, will further com-
pound the problem. Canadianization cannot be
achieved on that basis. 4S

The party outlined its alternative saying, Te
real national interest calls for 100% public owner-
ship of energy resources. This is the only way to
ensure that these resources will serve the public
interest and not corporate interests. If the
Government can find billions of dollars to help the
corporations out, it should also find the billions to
ensure 100% public ownership and energy self-
sufficiency within the foreseeable future.”

~~ Manitoba sales tax hike

comes under fire from CP

Special to the Tribune

_ WINNIPEG — The Manitoba
- Committee of the Communist
Party said last week that any in-
crease in the provincial sales tax,
as suggested by Premier Howard
Pawley} would be yet another
blow at working people, the poor
and the unemployed of the
vince.

“The sales tax is a regressive
and undemocratic tax aimed
.primarily at low income groups no
matter what cushions or exemp-
tions are provided,’’ said Com-
munist Party leader Paula
- Fletcher.

‘The premier has blamed Sterl-
ing Lyon and the Conservatives
for helping to create a financial
mess in Manitoba, but now he’s
turned around and offered a typi-
cally Tory solution for cleaning it
up,” she charged. hts

_‘*Tt’?s working people who are
the main victims of the current

Manitoba Premier
Howard Pawley

‘economic crisis causes by giant

corporations and governments
acting in the interests of monopo-
ly,’’ said Fletcher, ‘‘and now it is
those who are feeling the pinch
the worst who may be asked to
tighten their belts again. Why
should working people continue
to be victimized?”’

The Communist Party said that
the Premier’s statement that the
government had little choice but
to raise the sales tax shows that
the NDP, which opposed the
sales tax more than two decades
ago when the Conservatives were
in power under Duff Roblin, has
not seriously considered taxing
wealthy corporations and

monopolies to increase its re-
venue.

‘‘There are options,”’’ Fletcher
said. ‘‘The NDP could re-intro-
duce succession duties and min-
ing production royalties which
existed under former Premier

Manitoba CPC leader
Paula Fletcher

Schreyer, but which were later
removed.”

She argued that the current sys-
tem of taxing net profits of Man-
itoba’s prosperous mining cor-
porations is a farce. ‘‘We all know
how financial statements can be
manipulated to disguise or hide
super-profits.”’

The Communist Party says
there are also new steps which
could be taken to recover part of
the millions of dollars in profits
taken out of Manitoba by

monopoly. For example: stiff

taxes on the excess profits of
supermarket chains and the char-

tered banks could be introduced ,

this month in the government’s
first budget.

Communists say no govern-
ment can afford to ignore the im-
pact the higher sales tax would
have on thousands of small busi-
nesses where bankruptcy is al-
ready a day-to-day threat because
of slumping sales and rising costs.
‘‘That’s just what the big
monopolies would like to see,”’
Fletcher said.

The Communist Party is calling ~

for immediate and strong protests
to Pawley’s suggestion from farm,
labor, consumer and small busi-
ness organizations and from the
people of northern Manitoba who
are already suffering from ex-
tremely high retail prices.
Fletcher says, instead of con-

sidering a sales-tax increase, the

NDP should be taking steps to
remove the tax from many goods
to which it now applies. Numer-
ous essential items, like common

household goods, are now taxed

but should be exempt.

She said that hundreds of -

thousands of Manitobans clearly
demonstrated their wishes for
positive changes to the taxation

‘system when they voted last

November to throw the

Conservatives out of office.

z

Peaceful origins
of Mothers’ Day

By KERRY McCUAIG

Everybody’s remembering their mom. It’s unavoidable, you
can’t pass a florist shop, candy store or lingerie section in a
department store without some cupid reminding you of your duty
in this regard. Not that moms shouldn’t be remembered and
thanked at least once a year for all the effort they put into raising
and nurturing that motley crew which becomes the next genera-
tion. And most moms will smile graciously as they're presented
with those chocolates (even though they don’t eat chocolates) or
that night gown that they will definitely never wear in front of the
children. .

Actually Mothers’ Day isn’t an invention of the world’s
florists. It had a more noble birth than the tackiness of today’s
operations would suggest. An American woman, Julia Ward
Howe, after herexperiences tending the wounded during the U.S.
Civil War, began a crusade to have a day set aside known as
Mothers’ Day for Peace.

* * * Fs

In 1870 she sent out an appeal to the world’s women. ““Women
need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe
with grief and horror. Arise, all women who have hearts, say
firmly, we will not have great questions decided by irrelevant
agencies. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate posses-
sion.” ;

The appeal brought together women from Europe and North
America to a World Congress of Women on behalf of inter-
national peace on December 23, 1870 in the Union League Hall
on Madison Avenue and 26th Street in New York. Two years
later a similar congress was held in London, England.

In 1876 a great peace meeting was held in Philadelphia with
delegates from Germany, France and Italy in attendance. The
day continued to be celebrated quite extensively in many North
American and European centres. It survived longest in
Philadelphia.

Following World War II the idea was revived. Here the Cana-
dian Mothers’ Committee renewed her appeal to make Mothers’
Day a day of prayer and work for peace. It held rallies in Toronto
protesting the testing of the H-bomb.

Overseas, a British woman, Nora Russell, secretary of the
International Mothers’ Committee became involved in organiz-
ing a ‘‘Mothers’ Caravan for Peace’’. It left Britain in 1956 and
travelled through Europe to the Soviet Union. Its aim was to
build friendship among all women and work for the end of
H-bomb testing.

Although Julia Ward Howe isn’t a household name, she should
be recognized as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, a
song she penned travelling back from the Civil War lines. She was
also an abolitionist and saw the need for working people of all
nationalities to unite against those who make war: Her appeal for
a world congress insists on non-segregated participation: “Arise,
all women who have hearts ... Say firmly: We women of one
country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our
sons to injure theirs. In the name of womanhood and of humanity,
I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of
nationality .. . promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and
general interests of peace.”

* * *

This Mothers’ Day the urgency of Howe’s appeal is all that
much more pressing. The young mothers of today have spent
their lives under the shadow of nuclear weapons. Along with their
primary readers they learned to recognize the sound of a nuclear
attack warning siren. As a cruel joke they were coached to dive
under their desks for protection, and promotional talks and films
in the classroom sent them scurrying home to urge their parents .
to build bomb shelters.

If nothing else, a Cold War education left them with a resolve
that their own children should never have to experience that fear.
Many of these young women will be using this day to ask for the
best gift to themselves and their children, an end to the arms race
and freedom from the threat of a nuclear holocaust. ,

Across the country women will be out on street corners chil-
dren in hand collecting signatures on the ‘*Peace is Everybody's
Business’ petition, a very concrete action urging the beginning of
serious arms talks, and dismantling of military pacts. Through the
Congress of Canadian Women, rallies and meetings are
scheduled to mark the day as one of peace and calling attention to
parents’ need for quality child care and maternity leave.

* * *

Several years ago when in the Soviet Union, I had the opportu-
nity to visit a primary school where a classroom of five year olds
sang a little song, expressing a big wish. May there always be
sunshine|may there always be blue skies/may there always be
mommy/may there always be me. ee

Nothing would end blue skies, mommies and children like a
nuclear war.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 14, 1982—Page 3