Vancouver rally participants link arms in
Solidarity against cruise tests, while war
veteran and peace activist “Giff” Gifford
(inset) urges other vets to join the anti-
Cruise campaign.

Vets’ group
to spread
Campaign

Continued from page 1

almost non-existant coverage from the daily
Media prior to the event — a marked con-
tfast to the weeks of coverage that preceded
the Apr. 23 Walk for Peace, which drew
80,000.
The march, sponsored by End the Arms
ce, moved in orderly fashion along West
Fourth Avenue, MacDonald Street and
Cornwall Avenue to a rally at Vanier Park.
€ trade unionists, church people, com-
Munity representatives and individuals were
quiet, but various musicians spaced
throughout the march kept things lively with
4 Steady selection of marching music, ethnic
tunes and peace songs.
.fit_the rally guest speaker Cuthbert
Giff’ Gifford, a founder of the Veterans
for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament, urg-
other veterans to become involved in the
fight for peace and against cruise missile
testing in Canada.

“Do you want to add fuel to the nuclear
arms race?’’ Gifford asked the audience, his
(See answered with a voluminous

0. ”

Well, that is what our government is do-
Ing by allowing the testing of the cruise

’ Mussile in Canada,”’ he said, going on to pro-

Vide a basic description of the first-strike
Weapon.
Noting that several retired U.S. and
ladian military leaders had spoken

-88ainst the arms race, and the cruise missile

n Particular, Gifford said his Halifax-based
Soup was attempting to “bring the issue
Ore some of the most unlikely groups’’
Ch as the Naval Officers Association and
the Board of Trade. The holder of the
ished Flying Cross called the Van-
Souver assembly ‘the front line troops of a
8towing army of people who have finally ab-
Sorbed the truth about the danger of the
ams race,”?

Like world War II veterans, those in the
dunn. movement “have signed up for the
i On of the struggle for peace. No matter
Ww W many obstacles are placed in our way,
om persevere until we reach victory,’’ he

lared, to cheers from the audience.

_., With prolo ed applause, the rally also
Signal] ng PP: ’ y

Bi led its approval of Vancouver city

~Uncil’s decision that week amending ex-

ae bylaws to prohibit nuclear weapons

toe mponents within city boundaries, and

city Signs around the city and a plaque at

Ww hall proclaiming Vancouver's nuclear-
“Apons free status.

a Ald. Libby Davies told the crowd that
Canada has a choice — we can have a
World that stands for peace around the
hast OF on have a re = that ;
: More than a puppet for Reagan an

his Warmongers.”?

Davies said the peace marches that day
were sending a message to Ottawa: ‘‘For
once in your lives, stick up for something —
cancel the cruise tests.’’

NDP external affairs critic Pauline Jewett
said peace marches must ‘‘make the prime
minister consistent. He is a peacemaker one
day, and a powder-monkey the next.

“T’m often asked if telegrams, peace mar-
ches and meetings with the prime minister
makea difference, and believe me, they do,”’
she asserted.

EAR president Frank Kennedy between
speakers announced that greetings had been
sent to the rally from the Solidarity Coali-
tion, whose leaders were involved in a
weekend planning meeting, and the conven-
tion of the B.C. Provincial Council of
Carpenters.

Cheers rang out when Kennedy announc-
ed that more than half amillionhad marched
in Bonn, the capital of West Germany, and
one-quarter million had assembled in Lon-
don’s Hyde Park that day.

In Toronto, upwards of 20,000 people
marched from University Avenue along
Queen, Jarvis and College streets to a rally at
Queen’s Park, the provincial legislature.

At the rally, retiring president of the
Canadian Union of Public Employees Grace
Hartman urged Canadians ‘‘to renew our
resolve to end the obscene waste and
madness of the nuclear arms buildup.”

“The worldwide rallies will slow the
nuclear arms race. We act in solidarity with
our friends in Europe who have escalated
their resistance to the weapons of mass
destruction,” said Robert Penner, a leader
of the Toronto Disarmament Network.

Stathis Stathopoulos, Metro organizer of
the Communist Party of Canada, told the
assembled trade unionists, church people
and community, ethnic and Native represen-
tatives that the cruise tests will make Canada
a “launching pad’’ in the U.S. military’s
plans for a first-strike nuclear war.

In Montreal, some 20,000 participated in
two peace marches, while 4,000
demonstrated in Ottawa.

In Victoria, 500 marched from the
municipal hall in Saanich, which has been
declared a nuclear-weapons free zone, to
Victoria city hall, where council has so far re-
jected requests to debate the issue.

In Courtenay, 250 rallied at the cour-
thouse to hear the guest speaker, Vancouver
alderman Harry Rankin, call for cancella-
tion of the cruise ns Later, a par-
ticipants staged a five-minute “‘die-in”’ in
Hie ares the Armed Forces base where
nuclear weapons are stored, at nearby Com-
ox. Aggie Jukaubska, a representative of the
Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Com-
mon, England, gave a brief address.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Coalition promises
continued struggle
against Socred bills

Whatever happens with negotiations
between the government and the B.C.
Government Employees Oct. 31, the
Social Credit government will face con-
tinued opposition to its legislative
package — and for some time to come.

Some 240 delegates representing 30
regional Solidarity coalitions around the
province spent the weekend in con-
ference, working out strategy in the three-
month-old campaign against the Socreds’
budget and legislation, shaping an alter-
native economic program to counter the
Socreds so-called restraint and affirming
their continued existence os a broad
movement.

The conference was closed to reporters
but Solidarity Coalition co-chair Renate
Shearer and steering committee member,
B.C. Teachers’ Federation president
Larry Kuehn told a press conference
Monday that delegates had ‘‘reaffirmed
their unified determination to oppose of-
fensive provincial legislation.”’

They also emphasized that delegates
voted unanimously to give “‘unqualified
support’’ to Operation Solidarity, for job
action up to and including a general
strike, in the fight against the legislation.
The motion echoed earlier votes in a
smaller Solidarity Coalition meeting in
Vancouver last month as well as a
meeting Oct. 17 of the Lower Mainland
Solidarity Coalition.

The conference was the first ‘major
forum at which constituent members of
the Coalition could frame a response to
Premier Bennett’s speech Oct. 20.

In his television address, Bennett an-
nounced that the legislature would be ad-
journed to an unspecified date and
negotiations would re-open between. the
BCGEU and the government opening the
way to a possible agreement on layoffs.

Clearly under pressure from an impen-
ding public sector strike and the possibili-
ty of wider job action, Bennett moved to
diffuse the immediate crisis. With the ad-
journment of the legislature he also

’ hinted at some amendments to legislation

not yet passed, including the bills

abolishing the Human Rights Code and
Seep er ae and the Rentalsman’s of-
ice.

Commentators immediately dubbed it
an olive branch, although it was a branch
offered in a clenched fist since Bennett
waited to make his offer until after Bill 3
was passed. And the day followed his ad-
dress, he moved swiftly to proclaim eight
bills, including Bill 3, before the
legislature was adjourned.

Delegates endorsed a detailed short-
term plan of action that was reportedly
similar to that adopted by the Lower
Mainland Solidarity Coalition last week.
It includes support for Operation
Solidarity job action, and continuing op-
position to the legislation notwithstan-
ding passage and proclamation (details
page 12).

The conference did agree to instruct a
representative committee to meet with
some government ministers in Victoria to

COALITION CO-CHAIRS JIM ROBE

RTS (i), ART KUBE, RENATE SHEARER .. .

reiterate the points made in the
Coalition’s brief on the legislation — a
change from the earlier position to meet
only with Bennett.

It will, however, be a committee of
Coalition, rather than separate groups
which will meet with the ministers.

An additional part of the short-term
program reportedly gave the steering
committee a mandate to develop a fur-
ther plan of action to escalate the fight
against the legislation.

That point was apparently considered
particularly critical by many delegates to
ensure that the campaign against the
legislation continues to mount even if job
action over Bill 3 does not take place Nov.

1 because of an agreement on firings.

Solidarity Coalition co-chair Art Kube
had earlier indicated at a press conference
immediately following Bennett’s address,
that even an agreement to amend the
BCGEU firings would not end the Coali-
tion’s opposition. ‘‘We’re committed to
the goals of the Coalition and to a great
many people,” he told reporters.

Following the conference the steering
committee was given a mandate to
develop .a further campaign against the
government’s legislation. That was to be
on the agenda of the committee meeting

At the press conference Monday,
Kuehn noted that if there was some agree-
ment reached on the layoffs issue, the
“situation will have changed and the
steering committee will have to go back
and re-evaluate.

“*We’ll have to work out the most ef-
fective plan to fight the legislation,’’ he
said.

Kuehn also outlined plans that the
Coalition has to develop a long term
economic strategy, one of the aims of
which will be to challenge the ideology
which underlies the Social Credit govern-
ment’s policies.

Coalitions in various communities
around the province are to work out
economic programs for their areas
following which the Coalition will set up
a ‘‘people’s commission’’ which will tour
the province hearing submissions from
the various areas.

The hearings will culminate some time
next spring in a provincial conference
which will finalize a popular alternative
economic program.

Shearer also told reporters that the
Coalition had adopted several principles
affirming its existence as a broadly-based
movement over the next few years.
Above all, the movement will continue to
benon-partisan, she said, and will not run
or endorse candidates.

It will continue to “monitor govern-
ment activities”’ and will mobilize people
whenever rights of social services are
threatened.

The conference also reaffirmed the
charter of rights adopted at the mass
Coalition rally Oct. 15.

‘still committed to the goals of the Coalition.’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 26, 1983—Page 3