Parag,

N.D.P. CONVENTION REPORT

By WILLIAM BEECHING
' REGINA—At its first convention
after the founding convention, the
New Democratic Party took a
number of steps to prepare it-
self for the next federal election,
to unite itself, to overcome a dis-
cernable mood of pessimism and
questioning, to extend its organ-

ization in Quebec and to estab-

lish in the eyes of Canadians a
more distinct up-to-date image of
the N.D.P.

As a first step, the convention
took action to deal with Canada’s
number one domestic issue: Que-
bec. Profesor Oliver, N.D.P. Na-
tional President, called the state-
ment adepted on Quebec the
“most exciting’? discussion and
decision he has ever been in-
volved in.

The resolution the convention
adopted, entitled ‘Federalism and
Biculturalism”’, says in part:

‘The New Democratic Party re-
affirms its conviction that the
welfare of Canada as a whole
and of the two nations which cre-
ate it lies within a federal sys-
tem renewed and reformed in the
spirit of cooperative federalism.

‘The New Democratic Party at
its founding convention greeted
with respect the proud confidence
with which French Canada assert-
ed its role in Canada. It recog-
nized the fact of a French Can-
adian Nation, and outlined a new
theory of co-operative federal-
ISM: 3. j
TWO NATION STATE

“We can be satisfied with noth-
ing short of a complete rethink-
ing of our federal system and of
the relations between the two
nations which established Cana-
da. We must modify our consti-
tution, our legislation and political
practices, in the light of present-
day Canadian realities.

“Our constitution must recog-
nize the equal status of the French
Canadian nation and the English
Canadian nation...”

The resolution then goes on to
state that within the Federal
Civil Service, equality of both
cultures should be established,
and outlines three main steps in
this direction which call for ‘‘bi-
lingualism to be a qualification of
appointment of promotion to
higher posts of the federal civil
service’, for a language school
to be set up for federal civil serv-
ants who wish to become biling-
ual, and thirdly ‘‘both French and
English would be recognized as
working languages of the federal
civil service ... Ss

The resolution spells out what
it means by “Co-operative Feder-
alism and Constitutional Chang-
es’, does not state in detail the
changes required, but lists these
3, among 5 points, as principles
which should be observed. In
part these are:

® “National and minority rights
related to religion, language and
education, should be stated ex-
plicitly and be capable of being
changed only by the unanimous
consent of the legislature of
Canada. 2

e@ “The rights of individuals
such as the rights of freedom of
speech, religion, association, as-
sembly and freedom from dis-
crimination in employment hous.
ing and service should alsa be
capable of being changed only by
the unanimous consent of the leg-
islature of Canada.

¢ Amond the pressing tasks
which Canada is facing are the
provision of housing, recreational,
and cultural facilities, urban re-
newal, expanded cducation and
social services...”
WEAKNESSES IN STAND |

It will readily be seen from a
persual of what could be classified
as one of the most important doc-
uments the convention brought

» forth, that the N.D.P. attempted

(ta cape in #\ positive; ways with the |

“The overriding aim of foreign policy today is to secure world peace.”
This is the opening line of the declaration on World Peace adopted by the
national NDP parley which met in Regina last week. Top issues debated were
peace and biculturalism. In the following abridged article PT correspondent,
William Beeching, gives an eye-witness account of what happened at the con-

vention.

question of Canada as a two.
nation state.

It would be an error to overlook
certain weaknesses in the resolu-
tion. It begins by stating that it
reeognizes the two-nation status
of Canada. But then it does not
draw the logical conclusion that
federalism in Canada means that
two states—French Canada and
English Canada—are joined into
a federation by mutual consent
in which each nation has equality
of statehood. This is not ‘equal-
ity’’” between a federal govern-
ment with supreme powers and a
province with subordinate powers.

This retreats from the rights of
two nations within a single feder-
ation—particularly the right of
Quebec as a state to self determi-
nation—to some semantic distor-
tion of the meaning of “‘state”’
and “‘prevince’’ so they become
both interchangeable.

Statehood involves more than
language and culture. It involves
sovereignty on all external and
internal questions.

Nontheless in the distinct link-
ing of the genuine aspirations of
French Canadians with the gen-
eral democratic tasks, the NDP
made some advance. The content
of this resolution will be enriched
to the degree that the N.D.P.
makes the resolution, not a wea-
pon to simply gain electoral ad-
vantage, but a means of resolv-
ing what it, itself, characterized
as a growing serious crisis in
Canadian internal life.

INDEPENDENCE ISSUE
Among the major decisions of
the convention, it also signalized
a further advance in which the
N.D.P. began to recognize Can-

adian independence as one of the

elements of the crisis shaping up
in Canada, and which underlay
the last federal election. _

The resolution the convention
passed, entitled ‘“‘Foreign Owner-
ship and Control’, in substance
recognized the degree of USS.
monopoly control over much of
our industry. These are some of
its proposals.

dt . a planning process
which would channel Canadian
funds into key sectors of the
economy.

© “Because the private busi-
ness community in Canada is in-
capable of producing the neces-
sary Canadian capital, the gov-
ernment should not only under-
take large-scale construction of

social capital but should also mo.’

bilize financial resources through
a Canadian development fund to
encourage public, private, and
joint Canadian enterprise in a
variety of fields...

e “. .. a fund should be set
aside for the selective repatria-
tion of foreign-owned industries in
which foreign ownership is proven
to be restrictive and contrary to
the best interest of the Canad-
jan economy.”

NDP AIMS

The Next, or rather another, of
the major steps taken by the 2nd
N.D.P. Convention was the adopt-
ion of a statement of ‘“‘Aims and
Purposes’’ now generally refer.
red to as the 1963 ‘‘Regina Princi-
ples’”’ of the N.D.P.

Some of the most heated contro-
versy at the convention (with the
exception of peace) took place, for

it involved placing into a single

short statement the purpose of
the N.D.P.

- This resolution was challenged.
by some genuinely socialist-mind-
ed ymembers for not including

_ big countries and

forthright statements regarding
the replacement of capitalism by
socialism. One delegate rose and
spoke from the other point of
view, stating that he fully en.
dorsed the statement as a person
desirous of seeing reforms and
changes—but not as a socialist.
The new statement substantial-
ly provides a broad basis for the
party to include as its members
all reform-minded, anti-monopoly,
peace-minded people in Canada.
It helps it to be, if it will, the
united expresion for social re-
form of all people’s organizations

in the nation. This won’t come
about automatically because the
convention adopted such a state-
ment—nor will it come about if
the N.D.P. limits itself to becom-
ing an electoral machine.
PEACE PROMINENT

What will be considered as an
important contribution ‘to peace
was made at the convention. In
his acceptance speech, Douglas
gave the peace question a prom-
inent place. He said, in part:

“.. . The winter of the cold
war is beginning to show the
first signs of a spring thaw. The

warm winds of tolerance
understanding are beginning “
blow across the frozen wastes ®
hatred and suspicion.

“This hour in the world’s hi
ory calls for statesmanship of
high order. The partial test D
needs to be followed by a fi
test ban. The next logical step
a nuclear disarmament treaty
be followed by general disa
ment under international insp'
tion and control. Before such
gigantic step can be _ taken,
non-aggression pact between
NATO nations and the Warsa@
Pact powers is a prime necessi

“Here Canada can play 4
effective role. Some of the w
ern nations are afraid of a no
aggression pact on the groun
that it may involve the rec ;
nition of East Germany. It’s time
for Canada to speak out and sé
that we are not prepared to ris

See NDP PARLEY pg. 8

Victory for peaceful coexistence
will be defeat for imperialism

By LESLIE MORRIS

While they are very long and —

not easy for working people to
study, especially after a day’s
work, a reading of the letters of
the Communist parties of the
Soviet Union and China is well
worth while because they deal
with the critical times in which
we live and above all with war
and peace.

The Pacific Tribune was wise in
publishing them.

Some may say this is a dis-
pute between two parties in two
“they’’ must
thresh it out; others might think
it is something ‘‘too big for
them to concern themselves
with; still others might exclaim,
impatiently, ‘“‘A plague on both
their houses!”

While such sentiments can
arise out of sorrow and regret
that two great Communist par-
ties who together. are respons-
ible for the fates of almost one
billion people found it necessary
to speak such harsh words in
public, to the joy of the capi-
talists, unfortunately it is not. a
‘matter of a dispvte between
these parties alone, least of all
one of sentiment; nor can sen-
timent or impatience heal the
dispute.

TWO VIEWS :

‘What is involved here are two
views of the present-day world
which affect every human being
— not passive, academic, disin-
terested views, but views which
determine pclicy and state ac-
tions. In short, two different
courses of action on which the

- fate of humanity could well de.

pend. Such is the power of Marx-
ism in the world of today.

The differences in views have
already led to different courses
of action: the Chinese attitude
to the Indian border dispute and
that of the Soviet Union and the
majority of Communist parties:
the differences which have aris-
en in the werld peace movement,
the World Federation of Trade
Unions, and in other bodies; and
now, in the sharpest disagree-
ment hitherto: the Chinese con-
demnation on the ban on nuclear
tests in the air and water in face
of the approval given to the par.
tial ban by most Communist
parties and almost every goy-
ernment except China and France
— not to speak of the vast ma-
jority of mankind who see in it
a step in the direction of a com-
plete ban on nuclear weapons
and disarmament.

REJECT PEACE, FIGHT | :

nists, naturally say they are for
peace, they reject the practical
struggle for it in the real world
of today. A reading of their 25.
point letter shows that while
they come out in favor of peace-
ful coexistence and disarm.
ament they reject exactly those
policies of compromise and step-
by-step struggle (as in the case
of the partial test ban) which
alone can make these things
realizable.

What werker does not know
from his own experience that
the struggle for a better life is
a long, complex and_ painful
one? That there are nc~ short
cuts to the stars?

In fact, to dedicate oneself to
a noble aim and then in the
same breath to reject the stony
path tc that aim, actually means
to reject the aim itself and tc
indulge in phrasemongering. As

-
LESLIE MORRIS
. . . National Leader of the
Communist Party, who dis-
cusses the ideological differ-

ences in the world Commun-
ist movement in this article.

Marx wrote, there is no “royal
road’’ to knowledge. The end in-
cludes the means to achieve it.

In their last letter and in all
their many documents, although
the letter sums it all up ina
programmatic way, the Chinese
separate the struggle for peace
and the struggle for socialism,
as they do the struggle for ,peace-
ful coexistence and the colonial
revolutions. ~

They do not see that the strug-
gle for peace, for the defeat of
any atterapt by imperialism to
express its bestial, warlike na-
ture, is the very kernel of the
class struggle to transform so-
ciety into a socialist socicty and

While the Chinese Commu-' “to Yehiove ‘dredér® the! &duse lot

disputes at all either betwee?

-s» « sSee: MORRIS, «pg. 6°”

war, imperialism. And it is
most all-embracing world - wi
struggle.
If imperialism can be PF
vented from expressing its tl
nature; if it can no longer ma
war as a means of settling
counts with its socialist ene?
for fear of its own destruct
in the very process of mak
war — would not that be the
greatest world - wide, univers@
defeat that it possibly could suffe
WAR DIFFERENT te
Here the Chinese do not a
cept the fact that. war as at
means of settling disputes, a5 * |
continuation of politics by other
means, now has a fundament#™
ly different character than [©
merly. : a
In the first world war the Ges
man imperialist threat to Brit®
imperialism was temporarily ee
moved by war. i
In the second world war th
same German imperialist thré
renewed under Hitler, was a8®
averted; and the concurrent §
tempt in that war to destroy #
Soviet Union not only failed, DY
brought into being a world sy*
tem of socialist states, includi®
the Chinese People’s (Republi
itself. a
Will a third world war tel
porarily or partially settle ©

the capitalist states themselv
or between capitalism and a
alism —the main dispute in
world today? Not likely. TM
monuclear war is not tanks,
chine guns, or even poison
It is all-pervasive, all_destructi

This latter fact — the quali
tively new nature of war, pu”
its stamp on all the events
our time: on imperialist policy,
on socialist policy, on the mee
peace movement (which com
not have reached its pres€
power unless it was The Be"
that was its target, because a
threat of conventional war COU”
possibly have produced the Pr©
ent peace movement), and
the colonial revolution also,
cause here too, the ability
the imperialists to intervene
the ‘classical’ way has be®,
curbed by the modern nature ©
war. :

Is not Cuba a brilliant pr
of this? Would the U.S, hesil@
for a moment to destroy |
Cuban revolution as it did
Guatemalan and Nicaraguan
it were not for the fact that *
socialist world, in the perso”
the USSR, which acts and spe4

‘a

__ August 16, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Pas