WORTHWHILE CENTENNIAL PROJECT

ancouver City Council has
requested a $10 million Fed-
eral Grant for erection of a

AV anc

Centennial Pacific Trade Cei-

tre. It would, as the name in-
dicates, mark Canada’s Cen-
tennial in 1967, and couid
Materially help in stimulating
trade between Canada and ike
Pacific Rim countries and
provide jobs and markets for
Canadian products.

The Pacific Tribune thinks
it fitting in this Canada Day
edition to reprint some of the
most meaningful parts of the
application presented in the
Name of the Mayor and City
Council Vancouver to the Na-
tional Centennial Adminstra-
tion.

We think they speak for
themselves without any add-
€d comment from us.

@

“The City of Vancouver be-
lieves the most fitting project
to mark Canada’s Centennial
in 1967 is one conceived in
the grand spirit of Confeder-
ation. Like Confederation, it
should be a living, growing
thing of vision and daring
and containing within it seeds
which, with care and encour-
agement, will produce a giant.

“To this end the City of
Vancouver respectfully re-
quests from the Federal Gov-
ernment a grant of $10 mil-
lion for the erection, in the
business centre of Canada’s
second seaport and third city,
of a project to be known as
the Centennial Pacific Trade
Centre. ©

“Tt believes the Centennial
Pacific Trade Centre is in the
National interest, would stim-
ulate the national economy,
Increase national employ-

ment, bring in millions in na-
tional revenue, and enhance
the Canadian image before
the world.

“Countries abutting the
Pacific Ocean offer Canada
her most dramatic prospects
of increased international
trade.

“There is reason to expect
Canada’s exports to northeast
and southeast Asia, Australia
and the west coast of the Am-
ericas will flow through Bri-
tish Columbia ports at the
rate of more than $2 billion a
year a decade from now (this
compares to less than $1 bil-
lion at present).

“To secure this trebled in-
crease and to improve upon
it, and in so doing help cor-
rect Canada’s urgent imbal-
ance in world trade, requires
bold, new fashioned formu-
las. to withstand competition
from agressive new Europe
and the United States.

“The Pacific Centennial
Trade Centre is proposed as
one such bold, new-fashioned
formula.

“Jt is planned as a multi-
purpose structure in the heart
of | Vancouver’s downtown
trading area. Its core will be
an arena seating from 12,000
to 14,000, high of beam and
clear of columns, capable of
displaying the largest equip-
ment produced by Canadian
industry. It will contain up to
150,000 square feet of general
exhibition space, mee ting
halls seating up to 1,000.

“That Vancouver is unique-
ly endowed for the site of a
Pacific trading art is beyond

question.
“Vancouver is Canada’s
doorway to the U.S. west

coast, to Mexico, Guatemala,

iets Pa cgieiae 91 cs salt

2

&

THIS IS AN AERIAL VIEW OF THE PROPOSED CENTENNIAL PACIFIC TRADE CENTRE SHOW-

ouver Pacific Trade entre

ING ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE DOWNTOWN AREA OF VANCOUVER.

E] Salvador, Costa Rica, Pan-
ama, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, Chile, Hawaii, Fijis.
New Guinea, the Phillippines.

Australia, New Zealand, In- _

donesia, Malaya, Formosa,
Korea, Japan and the masses
of mainland China.

“A pillion potential cus-
tomers on our. threshold
would be brought into the
Canadian trading orbit by a
bold, new-fashioned form-
ula.

“Tt is the contention of the
City of Vancouver that the
Centennial Pacific Trade Cen-
tre, bringing together under
a common roof all traders
with Pacific interests, not on-
ly will meet the forseeable
demand but, more, will be the
prime agent in creating it.

“It would be nothing less

than the Pacific’s marketplace
for Canada’s forest products,
coke, iron, lead, aluminum,
petroleum, .chemicals.

“Here Canada’s traders
would promote new markets:
canned milk, meat, medical
supplies in Japan; chain saws,
sawmills, woodworking
equipment, trucks, bush
planes in mainland China;
crude sulphur in Formosa.

“Fishing gear, boats,
bestos in the Phillippines.

“Bottling equipment, cr a-
mercial refrigerators through-
out southeast Asia.

&é

The centre, as can be seen
by the above picture, would
be connected to the Queen
Elizabeth Theatre by an_
overpass. It would have a
sports arena, for ice hockey

as-

and other sports,: auditorium
facilities for conventions and
cultural facilities.

The Vancouver appeal to
the Centennial Administra-
tion winds yp as follows:

“This Spring the chairman
of the National Centennial
Adminstration told Canadians
to think big.

“We think this should be
the biggest thing in the his-
tory of Canada,” he said of
the country’s 100th birthday
celebrations in 1967. “If we
don’t think big then there’s
no sense in having it.

“In seeking a $10 million
grant from the federal gov-
ernment for the most dynamic
of projects, the City of Van-
couver wholeheartedly con-
curs.”

French-Canada and Confederation today

By SAM WALSH

ANADA DAY 1963, and only
four more years to go to
Celebrate the hundredth annivers-

ary of our country.
_But we have come on troubled
times. For all the vast develop-
Ment of our country, our highly
Productive agriculture, our mod-
ern transportation, for all the
Skills that seem to come so nat-
Urally to Canadian working men
and women — despite all this
bounty and more, no thoughtful
Student of Canada is sanguine
about the next four years of
Confederation. No one is really
Sure how we will be marking its
Centenary — whether it will be
& song of rebirth or a requiem!
There are not a few who are
already tolling the knell. In
French Canada for many thou-
Sands the words “la confedera-
tion” are pronounced now like a
Malediction whereas not so long
480 they seemed to signify pro-
tection of French-Canadian na-
tional heritage. Opposition ‘to
Continuation in Confederation as

it is presently constructed goes -

all the way from those who pro-
Pose bilingualism and bicultural-
‘sm across the country as a mild,
harmless sort of constitutional,
to proposals to re-negotiate and
Teconstruct a new  confederal
Pact, to outright separatism —
Some expressing separatist senti-
Ments in melodramatic, _bomb-
throwing form.

These remedies are put for-
ward, particularly in French Can-
ada ,because there exists real

Mequality between the two na-_

Can our two nation state survive?

tions in Canada politically, social-
ly and economically. Politically

“ French Canada is granted under

the BNA Act the kind of rights
granted in a democratic state to
a national minority, but not the
kind of rights accorded to a sov-
ereign nation joined with another
nation voluntarily in a confederal
state.

Socially French Canadians have
been denied equal access to pro-
motion in the civil services and
in private industry even in Que-
bee. They have had lower stand-
ards of health, education and
social welfare. Economically
French Canadians have been hew-
ers of wood and drawers of water,
have worked at lower wages and
aries than English Canadians,

sal
ad a higher level of unem-

have h

ployment.
e

Not all these things can be
remedied by changing the consti-
tution, and certainly not by sep-
aration. But they go into making
up the fast-growing conviction that
there must be radical changes. 1n
all these spheres if the two na-
tions are to remain joined to-

gether in one state even only:

four years from now.

Some prominent spokesmen In
French Canada consider that the
main problems of inequality are
entirely within the competence of
French Canada to solve. Hence
there is no need at this time for
a change in the constitution to

change the relations between the

two nations.

For instance Mr. Gerard Pelle- .

tier, editor-in-chief of La Presse
has the following to say: ‘For
a century we have had the com-
plete freedom to organize oup
educational system and we
haven’t done it. It is evident that
a people progresses to the extent
that it has a high level of educa-
tion, which is impossible without
bringing into being an efficient
educational system . . . We shall
make a big mistake if we at-
tribute to others the whole re-
sponsibility for our economic in-
feriority . . . Our complaints on
economic matters are well-found-
ed. We want equality of property,
equal rank in the economy.”
Mr. Jean Marchand, President
of the Confederation of National
Trade Unions, puts the question
this way. “Personally I am con.
vinced that if we assume all our
rights and responsibilities, we
will quickly perceive that our
biggest problems are not consti-
tutional . . . In other words, if
we don’t find here risk capital
massively invested in secondary

industry, if we don’t find the
.means to develop rapidly our in-
dustrial technology, if our trade
schools do not produce a_ suf-
ficient number of skilled laborers,
‘if planning only comes about by
and to the benefit of the big in-
terests, then I don’t believe that
the alteration of our juridical
status in Confederation will per-
mit us to achieve the objectives
proposed .. .”
e

The proposals on biculturalism
and bilingualism contained in the
terms of reference of the Royal
Commission and by others are
ocasioned by the fact that some
of the problems of discrimination
against French Canada are ex-
pressed in the unequal treatment
of those who speak only French,
compared to those who speak
only English. As Maurice Allard,
former M:P. from Sherbrooke
pointed out recently, ‘“‘among the
federal civil servants receiving an
annual -salary of $5,000 or more,
French Canadians have a_ rep-
resentation of only 10%. They are
practically absent from all com.
missions and departments deal-
ing with finance, industry and
commerce.”’

It would take relatively simple
democratic measures to remove
such grievances. But if they are
treated as though they constitute
the main problems as suggested
in the terms of reference of the
Royal Commission, and in par-
ticular if the idea is pursued of

spreading bilingualism and bi-
culturalism to each citizen, then
the Royal Commision will not
only beg the question, but in so
doing sharpen it.

But a revolution has taken place
in the thinking of French Canada
with respect to the Constitution—
the BNA Act—in the last few
years. A vast number of French-
Canadians have come to look upon
it not as a shield against English
Canada as was the former view,
but on the contrary, as the main
constitutional weapon for main.
taining French Canada in a state
of perpetual inequality—political-
ly, economically, socially.

Secondly the significant eco-
nomic, political and even quasi-
diplomatic measures taken by the
Quebec Government under the
Liberal regime of Premier Le-
sage have filled French-Cana-
dians with a new-born confidence
in their ability to manage their
own affairs.

All the avowed separatists are
united on the following proposi-
tions: That before any important

‘social changes can be brought

about there must be a “‘national
revolution”’ transferring all state
power to the State of Quebec, or
Laurentia or some other variant.
The main immediate ‘“‘enemy’”’ of
French Canada is Ottawa.

On the other extreme of the sep-
aratist movement there are a
significant number of people —
intellectuals, students, young
workers, active trade unionists,
journalists, entertainers, who con-

See FR.-CANADA, Pg. 10

June 28, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7