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Ontario NDP’s

leadership race

By PHYLLIS CLARKE

- When delegates to the Ontario
New Democratic Party Conven-
tion gather next month in Kings-
ton they will have to make a
choice between two candidates

_ for leader.

Donald MacDonald, for fifteen
years the Ontario leader, has
been challenged in his position
by James Renwick, MPP from
Riverdale. If some of the first
public “confrontations” are any
indication, it will be difficult for
delegates to find the principle
differences between the two
men—albeit that they both want
to be the leader.

The following were some of
the things they had to say in a
television debate:

“Let me make it quite clear,”
said Renwick, “I can lead the

party to the government of the

province of Ontario at the next
provincial election.” And Mac-
Donald replied, “Jim and I agree
On one thing . . . that the NDP
can form the government of this
province in 1971. He says he
can win it better than I can and
that’s where we disagree.”

“I am a radical,” says Ren-
wick, ‘in the sense that I insist
the issues be isolated, that the
alternatives be formulated and

that you place the alternatives

before the people of Ontario.”
To which MacDonald replies, “I

- don’t think we want to get hung

up on the business of a radical.”

When the program’s host ask-
ed where the two men really
differed;~Renwick answered, “It’s
a différence of approach. It’s a
difference of the kind of people
we are.”

It’s unlikely that the fight be-

ocialist course set by Czech CPs:

PRAGUE

The Ceteka News Agency re-
ports that a meeting of the pre-
sidium of the Central Commit-
tee of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, under the chair-
manship of A. Dubcek, first sec-
retary of the Czechoslovak Com-
munist Party Central Commit-
tee, after hearing a report on
the Moscow talks Oct. 3 and 4,
expressed agreement with the
actions of the Czechoslovak de-
legation in Moscow.

The presidium decided that the
party’s main tasks, to be dis-
cussed at the plenary meeting of
the central committee of which
the party organization and pub-
lic will be informed, should be
concretely formulated in the

_ next few days.

The presidium stressed that
“the main line of/ further actions
by the party should retain all the
positive features of the post-
January policy, proceeding in so
doing from the Bré&tislava state-
ment and the Moscow agree-
ments. A starting point for the
party’s further actions is the
strengthening of socialism in our
country, the strengtheningof the

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER ‘18, 1968Page'$*\0:
$ 3300°- SL 8. AREOTOO <A IFIAT AA

tween the 54-year old MacDonald
and 50-year old Renwick will
take on a rough character, but
it would also be wrong to as-
sume that there are no differ-
ences.

One, which is beginning to get
into the debate, is what should
be the relation of the NDP to the
trade union movement. At last
weekend’s conference of Ontario
Young New Democrats, Renwick
made it somewhat clearer that
his orientation was away from
a labor base for the party. “‘The
party was not established to be
a labor party. It is quite possible
to have a socialist society in
Ontario without having a Jabor
party,” he said.

His audience at this meeting
appeared to be much more in
support of having the NDP
abandon its attempt to win the
middle class voters and concen-
trate more fully on the labor
movement.

In this connection one must
also keep in mind the discus-
sions that have begun about the
federal leadership of the NDP
and the position put forward by
another MPP from Ontario, Ste-
phen Lewis. He posed the ques-
tion of the way ahead for the
NDP: “There are too many par-
ties clouding up the political
centre. The place in the: political
spectrum for us.is to take up a
radical posture on issues.”

This of course is not what
either Renwick or MacDonald
seem to be saying—the result
being that for those NDPers who
think that changes are necessary
in a left-ward direction politic-
ally, there is no candidate for
leadership in Ontario at present.

unity of the party.on the prin-
ciples of Marxism-Leninism and
its leading role in all the aspects
of public life.”

To this end, it was recom-
mended that those features and
principles of the post-January
policy be clearly defined which
make up its essence, which have
been successfully tested in prac-_
tice and become the permanent
values in the day-to-day activi-
ties of the party and society.

“It is necessary to draw a
line between the positive aspects
of the post-January policy and
the designs of anti-socialist
forces which would like to take
advantage of them.”

The presidium stresses that
“we shall strengthen the unity
of our society on the principles
which proceed from common
laws of building socialism and
from the creative Marxist-Len-
inist approach to the socialist
construction in our country, On
the active struggle against bour-
geois ideology.”

The presidium points out: fur-
ther that “it is necessary to pay
great attention to ways of
Strengthening the ideological and

QA AN Ls TSA i3

As <=

Because of Renwick’s position
in relation to the labor move-
Ment it is expected that Mac-
Donald will get the nod from
the trade union delegates at the
convention and one suspects
that the more radical will per-
force have to support him too.

But the debate in the NDP
which the loss of seats in the
urban eastern and B.C. ridings
in the federal election seems to
have provoked, will probably
not be settled in this Ontario
convention. If anything the Ren-
wick-MacDonald fight may force
the debate to open more sharply
‘as the need for deeper changes
than that of personalities comes
forward. -

And the more this debate is
conducted throughout the orga-
nization of the NDP and not in
the back rooms, the healthier it
can become. At the YND con-
ference’ Douglas Fisher said,
“We've ‘tried to be rational,
smooth and rounded to appeal
to the middle class liberals.”

But any analysis of votes on
June 25 indicates it is just these
middle class liberals who switch-
ed to Trudeau in large numbers.
And this certainly underlines
the need for the examination of
just where the emphasis should
be — on the middle class or th
working class.

For all the left in Canada and
the need of united action against
the parties of big business —
Liberal and Tory — the answer
is important.

To some extent the Kingston
convention may get at this. But
what is much more likely is that
it will not be until the federal
Convention next spring that the
answer will come.

Organizational unity of the par-
ty, explanation and application
of Leninist norms of inner-party
life, raising of conscientious dis-
cipline within the Party and re-_
sponsibility of communists for
correct implementation of party
Policy, which is inseparable from
the development of inner-party
democracy.

“In drafting the main tasks of
the party, it is necessary to fur-
ther focus great attention on the
working out of principles of a
correct cadres policy which will
guarantee that only those who
enjoy the people’s confidence
and firmly stand on the positions
of socialism and proletarian in-
ternationalism should work in
Party and state organs.”

The presidium recommended
Particular attention to ideologi-
cal work.

“Every Communist,” it said,
“must proceed from the prin-
ciples of internationalism, from
our ideology and policy and un-
derstand clearly that the pros-
pects for the development of
Our country lie in the union
with the U.S.S.R. and other so-
cialist countries. This must un-
derlie all our measures in poli-

tical, economic, cultural and
Smilitary jrelations): ca;siio 6 oy
Ww ea; nt shOCHSoe Nit WO Ai et

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: OKAY, CoqBurT, Let's see
OPEN...

LBJ ships

grapes to Vietnam

Democratic Party candidates
in California with political eyes
cocked to the labor and Mexican-
American vote are falling over
each other issuing statements
backing the table grape boycott.
Meanwhile, the Johnson admin-
istration is stabbing the boycott
movement in the back by pur-
chasing big shipments ‘of table
grapes for South Vietnam, as
well as for the U.S. armed forces
elsewhere.

James Drake, administrative
assistant to AFL-CIO United
Farm Workers Organizing Com-
mittee director Cesar Chavez,
charged last week that federal
agencies have sharply increased
table grape purchases for South

“This is particularly necessary
for mass media, whose activity
must be developed in truly so-
cialist spirit and aimed to sup-
port the efforts of the party in
implementation of the Brati-
slava statement and the Moscow
agreements.”

The presidium declared that
guidance over mass media must
be strengthened in this direction,

The presidium recommended
“clearer formulation of the prin-
ciples on which our political
system rests. It relies on the
socialist platform of the Na-
tional Front, which is closed to
new political parties. It is neces-
sary to preserve all the positive
principles of the present policy
(the party’s contacts with the
people, the participation of the
working people in the shaping
and implementation of the policy
of the party) and at the same
time to come out against Ppos-
sible anarchist trends and to en-
sure speediest rallying of all so-
cial forces on the principles of
democratic centralism.”

The document, “On the Main
Tasks of the Party in the Pres-

ent) Period,’ iwill Jalso. include ;

FOUR IA iE TIAMAT VOR E523:

Sr

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WHAT SHE'LL

Vietnam sinc
boycott.

Last year When

> the

was Sed, government Moot
ments to Sout Vietnam al tS
tripled that of the Previ oat
at Ous year

In 1968 even thi

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be more than doubleq fe Se
Vietnam, he added ee

The union’s isi i eal
on published rece mae
Department of Comme, wes

erce

I 1965 \pra
South Vietnam Shipments to
pounds, at a eo 244,952
e

the UNion-initiateg

< ne to

: Sto $32 43
following year og}; 438. Th
331,062 poungPMeNts rose to

value was $40,575

“questions stemm;
institution of 4 i
ture of our State
ity of the part
of the new state
pea sue Measures aim_
fect links between d to per-
guidance of Natio € Planning
and the Objecti ec

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in the implem

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Y In the cong;

clude the mate 5
tional relations ai S
on the strengthen;
tion between the Of c
tries, the efforts a :
that our Party makes is
c

bution to th ntrj_
the unity i the lidation as
communist move ational
that our repypjj > to ensure
the socialist car) a8 a part of
priates ip Bh ctv
again imperial: Ss

world peace» lism ang eee

The presigj

dium
that further we “mphasizeg
the draft p) out of tha
submitted to

of the developer,

—