ERRTOCRIAL

; And the crisis continues

It might have been called a duuble bill

ut part was taking place in Ottawa and
Part in Toronto. In Ottawa the grand
Cabinet shuffle was the main attraction. In
Toronto, under the benevolent pipe smoke
of Premier Davis it was the meeting of 10
Premiers and the elected heads of the

ukon and North West Territories
governments.

For the people of Canada the outcome
Was less than mildly entertaining.

_ The cabinet shuffle presumably an-

hounces a federal election in 1984. It

achieves the political end of presenting

some new faces to try to overcome the Lib-

€rals’ serious misfortunes in places like
€tro Toronto.

For the west, Lloyd Axworthy, fresh
_ from leaving the ministry of employment
Ma rat’s nest of a state, has gone to Trans-
Port where he can woo western voters en
Masse.

Ordinary folks might be excused for

Suspecting the government’s motive of
_ S€ing presenting a moving target rather
than a sitting duck. If Axworthy’s recent
Job-sharing gimmick plummets, if Lamon-
lagne in Defence is getting endless flack for
his allegiance to every NATO and Penta-
§0n cough — just change their labels, and
the electorate won’t know where to aim.
_ And then there are the premiers. This
time they were more or less united in see-
Ing the trade bandwagon as the system’s
Salvation, but mostly it.was a nice social
event.

Credit should go to Manitoba’s New

emocrat Premier Howard Pawley who

More arms $$ -

According to the Conservative MP for
dmonton South, Douglas Roche, “the
Only way to maintain a reasonable note of
unity (in the Tory federal caucus) has been
'o avoid . ... saying anything meaningful.”
That seems to be the formula Tory
€ader Brian Mulroney is trying on the
€lectorate of Central Nova for the August
by-election vote, and on the people of
anada.
_ While Roche was referring only to the
area.of foreign policy, Mulroney has most
mes managed to avoid saying anything
Meaningful on any subject — particularly
as it applies to Tory federal policy. Com-
Plaints about the Liberals seem to be his
ultimate weapon.
On this latter, people across Canada
Were doing their own attacking of Liberal
Policies, in many ways and on issues not
S€neralities, well before Mulroney graced
the political arena, and was still owner of
the Iron Ore Co. of Canada.
On one issue, however, Mulroney comes
: rough loud and clear: more money for
the military. For the Canadian military
Program, tied hand and foot to NATO and

- All that counts

Royal Bank of Canada chairman Roland
Tazee makes it clear: “The first respon-
Sibility of a business is to survive. A business
Only survives if it’s profitable.” And that
Means jobs — right? Well, “many com-
Panies ... can do much more without
Tinging on the large numbers (of workers)
at they used to.” Is it clear now? Profits
are a responsibility; jobs are not.

tried in vain to make unemployment the
priority item at the premiers’ meeting.
That didn’t win approval.

However, it is not the Davis hard-nosed
Toryness, nor Levesque’s bluntness, nor
even Bennett’s far right posture — any
more than it is Trudeau’s arrogance — that
is responsible for the deep-going crisis in
Canada. It is the capitalist system.

The system has failed, not to make pro-
fit, but to do the job for the corporations
and still pretend to represent the people.
The two million unemployed are being
added to every day. (Statistics Canada had
to revise its July figure to 13.5% un-
employed to include many under-
employed.)

It is not cabinet shuffles or premiers’
meetings that are going to serve working
people, but programs based on policies of
full employment, rising living standards,
and guarantees of the future. While the
capitalist system moves from crisis to crisis,
its media-arm works overtime to slander
those who point the way by which workers
can free themselves of such crises.

First in line for such attacks is the Com-
munist Party of Canada which has clear-cut
policies to put Canada back to work, put

ople before profits, and subsequently,
establish a new kind of government. Work-
ers who reject the big business attacks on
them, increase their effectiveness when
they also reject the big business media’s
brainwashing, and fight for united action
by Communists, New Democrats, the trade
unions, farmers and their host of
supporters.

Mulroney

the U.S. military bosses, Mulroney would
hit the taxpayers for “years of large in-
creases” on top of the current $8-billion a
year for military purposes.

That alone is reason enough to rally
every possible vote against him and the
Conservative Party wherever they run.

In fact, Mulroney is all for testing the

U.S. Cruise nuclear missile in Canada be-.

cause, he says, in another statesmanlike ut-
terance: “I don’t trust the Russians ...”
And as Douglas Roche interprets the
Conservative right stance: “The possibility
of a limited nuclear war is not ruled out.”

This same far right sees Central Ameri-
can struggles against exploitation’ and
brutality as Communist plots, writes off aid
to impoverished countries, and cuddles up
to apartheid and other extremist regimes,
Roche indicates. His question is whether
Mulroney can manage a balance in caucus
between these and more progressive
Tories.

One wonders whether Mulroney would
even try. Perhaps that is why he has tried to
hide the real face of Toryism.

But it isn’t really hidden because his poli-
tical kith and kin in the provinces are busy
hammering down public service wages,
scrapping social services, widening the
rich-poor gap, and making the disadvan-
taged pay in suffering. Just think what
these provincial Tories could do with a col-
laborator in the-PM’s chair!

While Mulroney’s Tories may well soar
on anti-Liberal sentiment, the Canadian
electorate, looking ahead to the next fed-
eral election cannot, surely, be expected to
risk its future in this neoconservative

quagmire.

P= ULTRA-RIGHT

Flashbacks

25 years 50 years

FREDERIC
JOLIOT-CURIE

The world mourns the
death of one of France's
greatest sons, Professor Fre-
deric Joliot-Curie — Com-
munist, Nobel Prize winner
and a staunch fighter for
peace. He was 58.

Despite failing health in
recent years he devoted tre-
mendous energy to the work
of the World Peace Council
of which he was president.
He was a member of the
Central Committee of the
Communist Party of France
and at the same time con-
tinued his research into the
application of radioactive
tracer elements in the fight
against disease.

During the occupation he
was head of the National
Front organizing more than
a million people in the re-
sistance struggle against
fascism.

Tribune,
August 25, 1958.

Profiteer of the week

NAZI
PRISONS

BERLIN — Torture is to
be the regular practice in all
German jails according to a
new code of prison pro-
cedure announced by Pre-
mier Hermann Goering of
Prussia.

The official notice says: “It
is to be continually brought
to the attention of the pris-
oner that he has to atone for
his wickedness against the
legal order of the state. This
is to be brought home so
vividly by the nature of the
punishment inflicted that he
will feel an inhibition against
attempting to commit any
new crimes.”

Goering has also decided
that the beheading of Com-
munists is to be carried out
with medieval gruesomeness,
with a head block and a
hand-swung axe.

The Worker,
August 26, 1933

B.P. Resources Canada Ltd., Calgary is B.P. minus the refining
and marketing assets sold to Petro-Canada. The “natural re-
sources” B.P. had an after-tax profit in the first six months of 1983
of $13,300,000. Better than old B.P.s $8.3-million from its resources

sector a year earlier.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 26, 1983—Page 3