OEMANDING FULLER EQUALITY

Canadian women stirred
by ‘winds of change’

By ANNIE S. BULLER

Tne Canadian scene - fresh
breezes are adding vigor to the
ever-growing movement of wo-
men for equal opportunity inem-
ployment, education, in the pro-

 fessions andin society as a whole.

Many women are entering in-
dustry, constituting 28 percent
of Canada’s labor force. For
most of these women, work in
industry is a necessity.

But what is equally important
is the fact that women’s partici-
pation in~ production opens up
avenues leading toward their
freedom and equality.

The voice of Canada’s women
was heard at the World Congress
of Women held in Moscow last
June, The delegates and the ob-
servers from Canada represent-
ed cultural groups, housewifes,
professional women, working wo-
men - all of them champions of
peace,

For their consistent work in
the movement for peace, disar-
mament and against nuclear wea-
pons, Canadian women have earn-
ed an honorable place among the

peace - loving women of the

world,

Those from Canada at the con-’

gress in Moscow, coming from
all walks of life and holding dif-
ferent political and religious
views, were able to work together
and be united in presenting their
position.
Their role was constructive
and helped to cement the unity
of all delegates at the Congress
that was so necessary to streng-
then the peace forces and advance
the cause of world peace,
_ Some 113 countries were re-
presented at that historic gather-

ing by close to 1,500 delegates.

and many observers, Theissues

discussed were (and remain)

close tothe hearts of the women of
the whole world - peace, disar-
mament, national independence,
women’s proper place in society,
democratic liberties, and a

_ splendid future for their children,
The Canadian women can re-

joice in the knowledge that they
made a worthy contribution to-
ward the great achievements of
the congress and helped to cement
friendship among the women of
the world. :

All this became possible be-
cause within the last few years
Canadian women, with great ini-
tiative, undertook things of na-
tional and international signifi-
cance - a conference in the pro-
vince. of Quebec of representati-
ves of East and West which
brought better understanding be-
tween women of different count-
ries and continents and enhanced
the world-wide movement of wo-
men for peace, and seminars on
problems facing women from all
walks of life.

The women made the press
and radio - with the CBC organi-
zing a public affairs conderence
where women spoke their piece.

Now we read in the press (Globe

~& Mail, Sept. 28, 1963) that a
group of six from the Voice of
Women have gone to the Soviet
Union for three weeks as guests
of the Soviet Women’s Commit-
tee, The invitation to visit the
Soviet Union + was extended to

VOW following the visit a year
ago of five Soviet women to the
VOW-sponsored conference in
Montreal,

The group includes Nancy
Meek, president of the Toronto
VOW; Therese Casgrain of Mon-
treal, head of VOW’s public af-
fairs committee; Jeanne Duval,
a medical technician and vice-
president of La Confederation
des Syndicats Nationaux; Helen
Howse, a high school teacher of
history; Martha Friesen of Van-
couver, a teacher of Spanish at
the University of British Colum-
bia, and Beatrice Brigden of
Winnipeg, a social worker. They
all intend to acquaint themselves,
with life in the Soviet Union as it
concerns their particular field

of interest.
* * *

Such exchange of visits along
with cultural exchanges help to
bring about a meeting of minds:
in the effort to advance the cause
of peace and understanding be-
tween peoples, In this the wo-

.U.S. 13 women pilots who have

passed the astronaut tests, and
are still ‘‘warming the bench.”’
They are not entrusted with space
flights because they are not con-
sidered equal to men. :

* * *

Clare Booth Luce remarks:
‘The flight of Valentina Teresh-
kova is, consequently, symbolic
of the emancipation of the Com-
munist woman. It symbolizes to

* Russian women that they actively
-share (not passively bask, like

American women) in the glory of
conquering space.’’

‘The right answer,’? she
writes, ‘‘is that Soviet Russia put
a woman into space because Com-
munism preaches and, since the
revolution of 1917, has tried to
practice the inherent equality of
men and women.”’

Of great significance is Clare .
Booth Luce’s factual description
of the tremendous advance made
by women of the Soviet Union and
other socialist countries. Space
will not permit quoting all the

NOT THE SAME PLACE IN SOCIETY

UNITED STATES

FRANCE

SOVIET UNION

men of Canada play a very sig-
Nificant role,

~ The upsurge of women’s acti-
vity is, of course, not confined to
Canada. New movements among
women have appeared in the USA
and other countries. At the
World Congress of Women for
Peace the United States had a
large delegation representing
such impressive movements as
Women Strike for Peace, The
Committee for International
Friendly Visits and many others.

The ‘‘wind of change’ is blow--
ing in the United States. Women
like Clare Booth Luce are forced
by events to take a new look and
draw some conclusions.

In the June 28, 1963 issue of
Life, Clare Booth Luce takes is-
sue with the ‘‘experts who held,
the view that Valentina Teresh-
kova was fired from a launching
pad as a Soviet space program
female guinea pig, and that the
experiment is useless, at least
for the foreseeable future or
that the flight of Tereshkova was
a “propaganda gimmick,’”’ or a
‘*publicity stunt,’’ as a military
spokesman at Cape Canaveral
said.

She points out there are in the

facts and figures given in her
description, but I am tempted tc
give the following:

“The progress of women inal!
Communist countries, but espe-
cially in the USSR, has been
spectacular. In 1929 there were
but 3,118,000 Soviet women whc
earned wages and salaries; in
1961 there were 31,609,000.

**In 1917, Russia had 600 wo-
men engineers; by 1961 there
were 379,000, or 31 percent of all
the engineers in the USSR,

**In 1961, 53 percentofthe pro-
fessional people in the Soviet
Union were women. Of the total
membership of the Supreme
Soviet today, 26 percent are wo-
men. Some 20,000 village soviets
are headed by women,

**But the brightest example of
women’s advance in Russia has
been in the medical profession.
Of all Russian doctors and sur-
geons, 74 percent are women—
332,400 women physicians in’

1962 — while last year the Am-

erican Medical Association listed
only a little more than 14,000 in
the U.S.”’

The women of the U.S. are
more and more coming to re-
See WOMEN, pg. 5

Quebec

In his speech in the House of Com-
mons, Social Credit Rally member
Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe, Que.),
outlined some of the vast opposition
to nuclear arms in that province.
Following are excerpts from his
speech (as reported in Hansard).

\2 my opinion, thé first duty
of the present government was
to commit Canada to a policy
of world disarmament and to en-
courage all countries to follow a
policy of nuclear disarmament
because, as we all know, anuclear
war is unthinkable today since it
would destroy the whole world.

By refusing to accept nuclear
weapons, Canada could have kept
on playing that part, but by join-
ing the nuclear club, our coun-
try can hardly act as peace-
maker or advocate nuclear dis-
armament.

When I went to the United
Nations on Sept. 15 last, the pre-
sent’ government had just made
known its intentiion to store nu-
lear weapons on Canadian soil.
This was only a few days. after
a hundred or so countries of the
world had signed the Mos-
cow agreement banning nuclear
tests throughout the world,

While the situation was less
strained, while countries were
effecting nuclear disarmament
and it was agreed to stop nu-
clear tests, Ganada was the only
country in the world willing to
store nuclear weapons, . .

And yet, remember the fight
there was last year, around the
same date, when the UnitedStates
objected to the storing of nuclear
arms in Cuba because it was a
neighboring country. Well, Can-
ada also is a neighbor of Rus-
sia. What if the storing of nuc-
lear arms were to start a nu-
clear war, which is what almost
happened last year?

Mr. Speaker, a great many
municipal councils, social clubs
and national organizations are
opposed to the acquisition of nu-
clear weapons by Canada or at
least by the province of Quebec. ..

I have here a resolution dated
July 8 which was adopted by the
town of Port Alfred, county of
Chicoutimi . . . The relevant part
of the resolution reads as follows:

**That the town of Port Alfred
protest to the minister of nation-
al defense against the stockpiling
of nuclear weapons at the RCAF
base at Bagotville, and request
that the government reconsider
its decision and refuse to ac-

nuclear arms

against

cept any kind of nuclear weap-
ons in Canada.. .”’

' Besides the request from the
town of Port Alfred, I have an-
other one from the town of Alma,
in the constituency of Lake St.
John:

*‘It is moved by alderman Dr.
Raymon Grenon, seconded by ald-
erman Maurice Fortin, and un-
animously adopted, to second the
motion adopted by the city of Port
Alfred to the effect that it op-
poses the federal fovernment
plan to store nuclear warheads
at the Bagotville base of the
RCARS 3.2

Moreover, I received another
letter of protest from the Soci-

ate Saint-Jean-Baptists, Saguen-

ay branch ... It is a resolu-
tion adopted on July 30, 1963, at
the annual meeting of the mem-
bers of the Saguenay branch,
which reads as follows:

‘The members of the execu-
tive of the Sociate branch, pro-
test against your government’s
decision to equip with nuclear
warheads the planes at the air
force base at Bagotville and to
store them.

**That dangerous situation will
certainly endanger the life of
the citizens. We know that the
government will go ahead any-
way, but it will be against our
will 3:7?

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the
representations made by the mu-
nicipalities, I have here the July
3 issue of La Terre de Chez
Nous in which the Catholic Farm-
ers’ Union protests as follows:

“‘The Catholic Farmers’ Union
is made up of over 43,000 farm-
ers . .. inthe province of Que-
bec only, and this is what they
Say: _..

‘Instead of joining the arms
race, our country could play a
much more useful part in the
world by urging other countries
to promote disarmament and
peace and by providing assistance
to underdeveloped countries...’

Mr. Speaker, some municipali-
ties, St. Jean Baptiste  soci-
eties or other social clubs wrote

to ask me to protest against
the storage of nuclear weapons in
Quebec, using approximately the
same terms as the St. Jean
Baptiste Society from the Sagu-
enay area, used in its letter...

Mr, Speaker, nevertheless, we
want to record the protest of the
province of Quebec . . . against
the storage-of nuclear weapons
in that province. ..

Old soldiers
they go into

Sas Detroit Free Press rec-
ently carried a series of arti-
cles showing the rising power of
the Industrial-Military complex
in the U.S. The tie-in between
the big companies squabbling for
arms contracts and the Pentagon
was made very clear.

Close working relationships
grow up between particular ser-
vices and particular companies,
the articles explain. An investi-
gation conducted into this three
years ago revealed that ‘high
ranking Pentagon officers were
flocking into the offices of de-
fense contractors immediately
after retirement.’’.

General Dynamics Corp, had 27
generals and admirals and 186
officers of lesser rank on its
payroll at the time ofthe inquiry.

Lockheed Aircraft had also
hired 27 generals and admirals
and 171 field-grade officers.

Radio Corp. of America had
15 generai officers.

International Telephone & »

eee eas
Cnet

_ November 15, 1963~PACIFIC.*®IBUNE—Pa

never die ..

big business

Telegraph employed 14 generals.
General Tire and Rubber em-~

ployed a mere 11,

Admiral
chief of U.S. Naval Operations
until 1955 turned up on the pay-
rolls of three contractors—F air-
child
‘Electric and Bath Iron Works.

U.S. Air Force General Joseph
T. McNarney, a leading advocate:

of the B-36 bomber in the early —

1950’s was hired only a month

after his retirement at a salary —

of $75,000 a year by the B-36
manufacturer, General | Dyn-
amics,

The series conducted in the

Free Press demonstratedthe re-

lationships that exist between

service officers, big companies —

and politicians, All are working

together to encourage govern- —

ment spending on armaments.
The politicians compete with on

another to get the‘‘defense’’ con-

tract for their particular con-
stituents, :

Robert B. Carney,,

Aircraft, Westinghouse ~