End Vietnam slaughter’
drive gains momentum

,, End the slaughter in Vietnam!” is
| the call rallying thousands of Cana-
lans from Ontario and Quebec for the
March on Ottawa, Saturday, April 18.
triving by special train from Toronto

4nd Oshawa, and by cars and busloads
‘tom other cities and towns, they will
gather on Parliament Hill to demand
at the Trudeau government openly

labor leaders have already en-
dorsed the March on Ottawa, in-
Cluding officers and leading
Members from the United Auto-
Mobile Workers, the Canadian
Mion of Public Employees, the
hited Steel Workers of Ameri-
fa, the Labor Council of Metro-
Politan Toronto (CLC), Canadian
as t Congress Federal Locals
ie Councils, Food and Allied
orkers Union (AMC), United
lectrical Radio and Machine
Orkers Union, United Rubber
orkers Union, Local 183 of the
Orers International Union of
tine c International Associa-
C mM of Sheet Metal Workers,
Wosdian Communications
Reet Council, and Local 82,
We Leather, Shoe and Allied
orkers,

of te will join with thousands
Vietnam peace supporters
°m peace and religious groups,
Wersities and schools, wo-
tb ae Organizations and others
€mand an end to the U.S.

Ontario Budget

oppose the

war in Vietnam, and an end to
Canada’s complicity in it.

The March on Ottawa will
protest the criminal slaughter,
by troops of the United States
and its allies, of Vietnamese
people through bombings by air
and naval and army _ units,
through the use of toxic chemi- :
cal gases and napalm, of anti-
personnel shells and grenades,
through tortures and mass mur-
ders, by starvation caused by
the monstrous defoliation of
whole areas of South Vietnam.

The Appeal to Labor on Viet-
nam declares the war “is a ma-
jor cause of the spiralling in-
flation that attacks the living
standards of Canadian workers.”
It quotes Ray Haynes, executive
secretary of the British Colum-
bia Federation of Labor: “The
war in Vietnam is one of the
worst social ills of our time...
From a straight economic ques-
tion, it is preventing Canada
and the U.S. from paying ade-

*

war in Vietnam, stop the

sale of arms and strategic materials,
stop all research for the U.S. war
machine, and demand the immediate
unconditional withdrawal of all U.S.
troops from Vietnam.”

Answering the Appeal to Labor on
Vietnam issued by the Vietnam Mobili-
zation Committee of Toronto, many

quate attention to the numerous
domestic ills facing both coun-
tries.”

A special train has been char-
tered by the Vietnam Mobiliza-
tion Committee to take march-
ers from Toronto and surround-
ing areas to Ottawa on Saturday,
April 18. The train will leave
from Toronto’s Union Station at
7:00. a.m. and from Oshawa at
8:00 a.m. Tickets for the round
trip cost $12 for adults, $8 for
students and $4 for children.

All peace marchers, it is an-
nounced, are to assemble at the
University of Ottawa at 2:00
p.m. and proceed from there to
the‘ Rally at 3:00 p.m., on Par-
liament Hill. Following the Rally
there’ will be a concert at 4.30
p.m. in Ottawa’s Civic Centre.

The March on Ottawa has
been planned to coincide with
Vietnam peace activities in the
United States that will involvé
millions of Americans during
that week.

Sugar coating, bitter pill

& By WILLIAM STEWART
ereq | Ontario Budget was ush-
Sumpti, last week under the as-
acts On that following two
ity» “Uch as Trudeau’s “auster-
White prpaien and _ Benson’s
‘thing » 2Per on Taxation, any-
8 Would look good.
Cia] aay Robarts and Provin-
dabbe easurer McNaughton have
teak a little grease on the
tar; ag financial crisis in On-
ing ij Na bid to come up look-
is € heroes. The ironic twist

unless labor. moves
to expose the chicanery
© just Tory budget, they may
Ontario that. The crime of the
Much ; budget, lies not so
it lef, What it did, but in what
Mr. Noone. Two days after
$3.7 aughten presented his
million budget to the
re and an Ontario tele-
: Wne audience, Toronto home-
Mum $ Were promised a mini-
this 35 boost in their taxes
the ley this would echo in
ants —“S of all Toronto ten-

at
Quic
of ly
q

legis)
Vis; atu

a
in, Produce this $3.7 billion,
by ae mainly coughed -up
bring wets and farmers. will
linn? 22 aN estimated $948 mil-
Othe Srporation taxes, on the
M457 are Will bring in only
< ona “eg against $480 mil-

; Eva
healt nue, ‘Under the heading
lon jag! jump from $180 mil-
iting an to $324 this year

a the increased revenue
Edicare.

There is no provision for
the reduction of rates although
there has been universal con-
demnation of the plan in its pre-
sent form. :

There will be some increases
in government grants to muni-
cipalities, $188 million to school
boards, college, and universities,
$37 to municipal affairs. But in
the main the increasing costs
of municipal services including
roads, hospitals, education and
social ‘services will be charged
against the property tax.

Included in the report was a
table which set out to prove
that Ontario is discriminated
against by Ottawa which ex-
tracts $1.4 billion more from the
province than it spends here.
What was revealed by the table
was in fact not that, but some-
thing much more interesting.
Municipal governments spend
36 percent of all the public
monies collected in Ontario by
all three levels of government.

Yet the property tax yields only~

14 percent. This means that
senior governments must sub-
sidize the municipalities to the
extent. of the difference be-
tween 14 percent and 36 per-
cent. In a year such as this, with
costs: of education, roads and
other civic services mounting,
while the senior governments
fail to appreciably increase their
assistance to municipalities, it
means that they must go to the
property base, which now only
covers 39 percent of their costs,

to finance the entire additional
burden.

What is absolutely essential
to any meaningful approach to
a solution to the dilema of
municipal financing is a revolu-
tionary change in the allocation
of the responsibility for public
services and the means to pay
for them. This means both the
federal and provincial govern-
ments must assume the lions
share of costs based on their
wider powers of taxation of
large incomes, personal wealth,
coroprate profits and capital
gains.

This is the true meaning of
the provincial budget. After all
the bows are taken for the in-

crease in relief to those on fixed:

income, of up to provincial pay-
ments for taxes on provincial
property in municipalities, an in-
crease in the support to school
boards from 46 percent to 51
percent of total secondary and
elementary education costs, the
“bitter facts remain to be faced
by Ontario taxpayers for the
next year.

Labor must chi ge the cun-
ning attempt of the Robarts
government to throw a few

sweets to the people, and while

exploiting the’ gross inequities
of Federal -financial policies,
pose as the champion of the
people of Ontario.

Robarts and. Ottawa and the

monopoly forces they represent, :

are in it together.

?

_-CP election call

Unity to solve crisis’

CLAIRE DASYLVA-DEMERS

MONTREAL—“Unity of the
workers can resolve the crisis
in Quebec,” is the title of the
electoral program of the Com-
munist Party of Quebec, whose
standard bearer in the April 29
provincial elections is Claire
DaSylva-Demers, candidate in
the Montreal constituency of
St. Louis.

In view of the “very serious
gap which exists in the political
life of Quebec,” where there is
no mass federated labor party,
independent of the capitalists’
parties, the CPQ “has decided
to participate in the provincial
elections with a workers’ pro-
gram in order to resolve the
crises in our economic life and
in the relations between our
two peoples.”

The introduction to the elec-
toral program warns that the
two old-line parties of big busi-
ness in Quebec, the Union Na-
tionale and the Liberal party,
“although they use nationalist
slogans, have always betrayed
the interests of the nation, for
they are the implacable ene-
mies of the great majority of
the nation—the working peo-
ple.” The Parti. Québecois,
declares the program’s introduc-
tion, bases itself ‘on the
French - Canadian petty - bour-
geosie, declares itself for the
‘sovereignty’ of Qutbec,° but it
is for the control of the state
by. capitalists . . .” Of ‘the Cré-

Fiqht to save jobs

ditistes it says, “basing them-
‘selves also on the petty-bour-
geoisie (above all in the rural
and semi-rural districts), they
are opposed to the sovereignty
of Quebec and to all radical
social change.”

The Quebec Communists’ pro-
vincial electoral program. ad-
vances a series of political solu-
tions in each of four major
categories — economic, social,
national and peace. It includes
the “elimination of unemploy-
ment by means of a _ planned
industrial development, made
possible by investment of the
profits of monopolies. which will
be nationalized,” and “the end
of all anti-labor, anti-democra-
tic legislation and of the police
state.”

Complete, universal medical
insurance; ,free education at all
levels and a salary for all uni-
versity students; and separation
of the church and the entire
public education system are
among the social policy pro-
posals.

The four points of the na-
tional policy section commence
with, “The adoption of a, con-
stitution; for Quebec which. will
assure us the control of our
political, economic and cultural
life .. .”, and the “negotiatoin
of a new confederal pact with
English Canada, a new Cana-
dian constitution, guaranteeing
equal rights to the two na-
‘tions .. .” It concludes with the
call for: “reinforcing the unity
of the workers of both nations
as the sole guarantee of demo-

cratic progress and of the end

of all special. privileges and of
discrimination against every
majority or minority national-
ity.”

The section on a policy for
peace cites the elimination of
all American bases in, and of
flichts over, Quebec. It proposes
a Quebec National Assembly de-
claration demanding Canada
withdraw completely from
NATO and NORAD, as well as
insisting “the United States
withdraw its troops totally and
unconditionally from Vietnam.”

Students back werkisrs

University of. Toronto stu-
dents held a special meeting on
campus ‘“‘to let the public know
just what is happening to Cana-
dian industry and Canadian
workers.”

After 71 years of operation,
Dunlop of Canada will shut
down on May 1, putting 600 em-
ployees out of work.

The meeting was attended by
about. 750 people; mostly stu-
dents, and some workers. Ban-
ners around the hall had such
slogans as ‘‘People, not wages,
cause inflation and unemplov-
ment,” “We want jobs, not wel-
fare.” and “Trudeau: How do
you budget on nil income?”

Chairman Tom Patterson; son
of Dunlop worker Bill Patterson,

said in opening the i
“The company cares not a ft
people, people like. mv. father
and 600-other workers.”

Steve “Lanedon, a
student, said: that s
widening t ;
taking up tt
rights of workers

students are ginning
process of cooperation, which
must. grow ever stronger until
social justice-is achieved

David Weatherhead, Liberal

MP, said he favored laws requir-
ing companies to give six
month’s notice of closing. Ed
~Broadbent NDP MP, called for
a_wave of criticism. of Ontario’s
premier Robarts, and called for
a feasibility study into the
plant.. He. said that all changes
in plants must be made. with
agreement of the workers, and
that there must be a minimum
of. six month's notice given: for
the closure of plants, after the
company shows justification.
Prof. Melvin Watkins cited
the vast wealth and..power..of
the Dunlop Company;. --with
plants in 26 countries, $1 billion
in sales a year, and $1 billion
in assets. He said that the Dun-
lop situation showed how pow-

erless: people are, unless they’

act together, and called for laws
to deal effectively with the rea-
lity of multi-national corpora-
tions. :

James Renwick, NDP MP also
called for a movement. to ké®p
the plant open after May 1.

Almost all the people in- at-
tendance marched to Queen's
Park. On arrival. they -were
thanked by Philip Japp,. Presi-
dent of local 132; United Rubber
Workers of America, who asked

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 10, 1970—Page 5