EDITORIAL

Power in labor-farmer unity

Labor-farmer unity is a time-honored call,
and more valid today than ever in our history.
The same multi-nationals, governments and
corporate interests which are downgrading
workers, throwing them on the street and
slashing their social benefits, are attacking the
family farm, the small business farm (like
small businesses in the cities), undermining
their incomes, ensuring that the monopolies
get the gravy while their victims go bankrupt.

Canadian Pacific Railways as a privately-
owned operation is an anachronism — obso-
lete! The railway networks across Canada, if

they are to serve the country, including its .

farmers, must be publicly-owned, and under
democratic control, not placed in the de-
mands of the same capitalists who have raped
the country to the tune of billions of dollars.

Every effort is made by the monopoly cor-
porations and their controlled governments
to drive spikes of hatred between workers
and farmers, to brew blame for each side to
pour on the other. In fact, workers and farm-
ers are fighting the same economic enemy

Canada-USSR

Recently a Canadian delegation headed by
de Montigny Marchand, Canada’s deputy ex-
ternal affairs minister, had talks with Soviet
counterparts in Moscow to explore relations
between the two countries. It’s a welcome
development and one which was agreed
upon before the death of Leonid Brezhnev
but carried forward under the new Soviet
leadership headed by Yuri Andropov.

A variety of exchange and trade pos-
sibilities exist and have always existed bet-
ween the two countries. They make up the
kind of relationship which is conducive to

ace — not war. And they hold great bene-
fits for Canada, as for the USSR.

There is no future for Canada tied to the
war chariot of U.S. imperialism and_ its
ludicrous “punishments” for socialist coun-
tries and allies alike. The new moves indicate
that the Liberals after wallowing for three
years in boycotts from.the short-lived Tory
government of Joe Clark are showing some
sense of proportion. The Clark group fool-
ishly followed the U.S. command to punish
the Soviet Union for its response to a call for
help from the young government of Af-
ghanistan.

What the present Canadian Government
would like to see, according to reports, is ex-

Flashbacks

EMERGENCY OR NOT?

Claude Jodoin, spokesman for one million trade
unionists says unemployment is a national emergency.

Tory Finance Minister Fleming says it isn’t. Who is
right?

Ask the 350,000 jobless Canadians and their
families. They know it’s an emergency. Thousands
have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are
going hungry. Workers again face evictions and in
Windsor school children are being sent home hungry.

Social workers are urging municipal governments to
take action to feed families and city councils are calling
on Ottawa to act.

Labor demands increased UIC benefits extending
for 52 weeks, public works, including low-cost housing
‘to create jobs. It demands city councils be given the
funds to assist public welfare and that trade be ex-

nded to get le back to work.
pa get peop aibwiee:

December 2, 1957
PACIFIC TRIBUNE— DECEMBER 3, 1982—Page 4

who is out to ruin them in the interests of
maximum profits. __

This is a time for worker-farmer unity. As
the recession deepens — in fact a crisis of the
capitalist system — it is the workers, it is the
farmers who are made to pay, deprived of the
amenities this country can provide.

Workers and farmers united are a poweér-
ful force that can change this country, can
make it a place fit for their families, and fit for
future generations to develop in a land of
plenty. It depends upon unflinching unity.

Pension fight

The federal government's dirty attack on
pensioners — starting with public service
workers and moving to strike at every senior
citizen — is a despicable action. Pensioners
earned their pensions; they’re not taking
them out of the bloated pays of Members of
Parliament or Senators. If that were so the
pensions would stink of corruption and
greed.

talks welcome

change in the scientific, educational and
technological field, for example on northern
development. That is a field in which the
Soviet Union has vast experience both

sociological in terms of the northern peoples,

and technological, building on perma-frost
for example. Canada also wants re-activiza-
tion of the joint economic commission set up
in 1976 with a goal of increasing two-way
commerce by exchanging information on
business opportunities.

Canada’s dependence on the USA for
trade is stupid. The USA registered in
November the fact that its steel industry is
operating at 35.7% of capacity. Is Canada
supposed to follow* that example? Soviet
industry is going full steam, hampered only
by a labor shortage, because they have full
employment.

Canada’s future lies in developing a heal-
thy and independent economy, benefiting
from full exchanges and trade with the social-
ist community, and in the first place with the
USSR. There is no future in the war-oriented
policies of the USA.

The recent talks are an encouraging and
overdue development, which need to be built

upon.

SOLDIER-SETTLERS

Many soldier-settlers who have been rewarded for
their war efforts by being placed in the wilderness to
eke a hard living out of the soil are in dire distress
according to facts released in the House of Commons.

The Soldier-Settlement Board is forcing veterans to
give up to the Board one-third of their crop toward
repayment of advances made. In many cases this
leaves the veteran and his family without sufficient to
exist on and drastic hardship prevails among them. |

Typical of the cases cited is that of J.A. Brown of

- Westlock, Alta., whose total crop for the year consisted

of 828 bushels of wheat and 870 bushels of oats. Atter
one-third is deducted, and after paying seed and
elevator dockage, Brown’s income for the year
amounts to $163.30. After taxes and threshing bills,
Brown has $19.25 for the year.

The Worker,
December 3, 1932

,

The ‘American Way’ — Reagan style!

Reagan’s hypocritical thrusting of the MX |
missile onto humanity’s shoulders is the |
reversal of everything achieved in the multt |
farious efforts and achievements toward
arms reduction. More than condemnation of |
this extreme, immoral regime is called for.
All actions to thwart the number one wal-
monger are called for. Reagan’s phoney smile
of death should be met with a vow to protect
the earth’s children from this nuclear moles-

ter.

Profiteer of the week |

Canadian Pacific Ltd., Montreal managed to eke out 4
nine month after-tax profit of $153.5-million for perio? |
ended Sept. 30. CP means rail, truck, airline and shiP |
transport and telecommunications. Through CP Enter
prises it also means oil, gas, mines, minerals, forests:
hotels, finance, etc.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON

Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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FASCISTI SCOURGE

In no country does reaction reign as supreme as in
Italy. By its openly murderous actions, Italian fascis™
has revealed itself as a movement pledged to the d&
struction by violence and terrorism of all working cla!
and political groups who oppose the Italian capital
class.

Atthe end of the war the tottering Italian state fact
a revolutionary working class. The Italian Socialis
Party was numerically strong. . . the trade unions we
leading mass strikes.

The state, using gangs of Fascisti, immediatel! :
began their terror program, hunting out and killin’
revolutionary workers, burning union halls, destroy”
ing printing plants and exacting promises at gue
point. Since then the gangs have grown into an arm)
under Mussolini whose first goal is to exterminate &™
Communist Party of Italy. ‘

The Worke®
December 1, 194