Let’s spend money on sch«
and health instead of aff

Complete text of a brief submitted to the
forthcoming federal-provincial conference by
Tim Buck, Labor-Progressive national leader

: pea is no doubt that the spirit of the

Geneva Conference of. the Four Great
Powers will deeply affect your confer-
ence. The prospects opened up for last-

. ing peace and the resolution of disputed -
questions, cannot but affect: the finances
of the governments of Canada,

This is particularly true with respect
to the crushing burden of armaments.
Canadian development, particularly in the
field of social services, has been held
back because in the “cold war” years
almost the whole amount collected by
the federal government in income and
corporation profits taxes has been spent
on armaments in a fruitless and ruinous
armaments. race.

A large part of these huge sums, al-
most $2 billion annually, can now begin
to be devoted to lifting up the level of
social services, and to developing our "
peacetime economy. :
’ The proposals embodied in this brief
are submitted to you by the Labor-
Progressive party in the conviction that
the problems of  federal-provincial-
municipal relations that beset our ad-
ministrative bodies today, at all levels,
concern every Canadian and that public
debate of them is indispensable to equit-
able solutions democratically arrived at.

The attention of the nation is rivetted
to the forthcoming conference of federal
and provincial governments.

From coast to coast municipal and pro-
vincial governments face serious problems
and there is an obvious rising tide of
popular sentiment in favor of a basic
revision of present-day policies. Ever-
widening circles of citizens are becoming ~
convinced that the future of Canada de-
pends on the new and bold policies’
needed in place of the present-day course
which is already limiting development

of the country, restricting opportunities
for Canadians and causing hardship to
many.

We are fifteen million *people in pos-
session of this rich-and fruitful: half of
North America, a territory blessed with
an abundance of fertile land, water
power and untold natural resources. Given
a truly Canadian national policy our
country could .become a great indus-
trial. nation with an agriculture which
provides plenty for its people and valu-
able surpluses: for export. While pro-
viding continually rising standards of
life for all within Canada we could, mind-
ful of international obligations and the
sacred duty to help others, extend a great
deal more assistance than we do now to
less fortunate peoples.

More and more people can now see
that, since the proclamation of the ill-
conceived Truman Doctrine in the United

~ States with its predatory policy of ‘“con-
tainment,” the federal government at
Ottawa has capitulated systematically
to the dictates of Washington. Leading
circles of U.S. finance capital are doing
all they can to prevent Canada’s develop-
ment as a truly sovereign nation with
a well integrated industrial establish-
ment — an industry capable of utilizing
our great natural resources.

By the subordination of our national
interest to the aims of a foreign power,
the USA, an historic trend has actually
been reversed. Once again we are ex-
porting more and more raw materials
and less and less of finished manu-
factured and partly processed materials.

Recently the sedate Toronto Globe and
Mail published editorially a table show-
ing the following dangerous trend in
the development of Canadian economy:

THE CHANGING COMPOSITION OF CANADA’S EXPORTS

Percentage of fully _
manufactured products:

Percentage of raw and
partly processed materials:

Seed ee ee 40.6 59.4
1 EER Se See 33.1 66.9
(2 ge ees Sees a eas 7.5 decline 7.5 increase

Breaking the exports down into the classifications of agricultural and
industrial products the trend shows up even worse.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

Percentage of fully
manufactured products:
he ee Se aes 31.8
SE Rag ae 2 ees ie eee 19.4

Raw and partly
processed:
68.2
80.6

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS

Fully manufactured: —

Money spent on nation-building pro-
jects, such as the all-Canadian natural
gas pipeline, is money invested in the
future of the country and its children.

x

The trend is unmistakable. We are going
. backward. A halt must be called to
this shameful and dangerous policy.

The federal government is trying to
stifle the rising criticism of its economic
policies, that were initiated by intro-
duction of the ill-conceived Abbott Plan,
by the recent appointment of a Royal
Commission to study “Canada’s Future.”

Because agreements arrived at in your

» present conference will have a direct

relationship to that question, it is neces-
sary to emphasize the fact that the only
question that is decisive for Canadians
concerning the future of our country
is the question whether the federal and
provincial governments will now discard
and repudiate the un-Canadian policy
of thé federal government — misnamed
“integration” — and cooperate around a
truly Canadian national policy to re-
establish the economic sovereignty, and

_ Anew deal is needed fo
the financial problems °
_ provinces a

thereby, politicial sovereignty also of

Canada. : d
General A. G. L. McNaughton, chair-

man of the Canadian section of the

International. Joint Commission on
Boundary Waterways, told the House
Affairs (May 12, 1955) what the attitude
of U.S. interests is towards economic
sovereignty of Canada. He declared that

“if the friends south: of the border
had their way we’ wouldn’t be even
in the humble position of hewers of
wood and haulers of water. We would
be relegated merely to the inactive
role of storers of water...”

Today, the leading circles of U. i
‘finance capital have transformed the

once forward-looking, revolutionary
United States into the reactionary gen-
darme of the world.’

From the arrogant Monroe Doctrine,

under which the Western Hemisphere
was proclaimed the “private preserve”
of the USA, the rulers at Washington
proceeded to the noxious Truman
Doctrine of brazen self-arrogation of un-
limited rights to determine the very
future of every nation in the world.
They are determined to prevent any and
all progressive changes anywhere. They
are obsessed with the desire to smash the
rising strength of the peoples and states
undergoing socialist transformation.
The cold war is the instrument of this
frankly avowed policy of world domina-
tion — a domination not more palatable
because .of the pretense of concern for
democracy in which it is wrapped.

. ‘With the tacit acquiescence of the

provincial governments, the St. Laurent
government has harnessed our country
to the war machine of the U.S. and its
aims. Hon. Lester B. Pearson, our
minister of external affairs, dispensed
with all pretense to an independent

foreign policy when he resurrected the °

decrepit “ready, aye, ready” policy and
proclaimed that: when the U.S. is at
war, Canada will be at war also.

What are the results of these tragically
wrong aims pursed by the federal govern-
ment? To list but a few:

@ A staggering load of military
y: expenditures,’ unprecedented in
peace time, has been imposed upon
our people. While the municipalities

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 30, 1955 gr

nd municip

cannot provide adequately

of their growing ©” in
they are burdened with
growing unemployme™! ey
false policies at

wa:
otta ie

taxpayers’ dollars ar€ «sary
all sorts of fantastl¢ ™ jom® 5
at home and abroae,
the main are concoc not
at Washington and are ae
any way to the real nee?” ”
of Canada. | ee

Our country is

foreign trooPS: — ants |
U.S. military establish Y
landscape as thous omic
dians that U.S. eee a py U
of our country is back saa
forces. ; es gev®

Our industria scl

has been ene ase
profit-greedy specula our,
a field day despoiliné inset
“sources to supply ono?
mands of the U.»
militaristic megaloma?

ic
8 Lopsided econon'
making more ®
dians dependent uper ei
of raw materials for 1% ot,
Some of our finest

find the promise °
or, in all too many
munerative employ”
migrates to the Unité &
@ With war expen cist
tained at record vs

ed social legislation. sisi
surance, adequate Peter ef
rental housing, Reg pee
facilities and many oa
forms, have been relege
tant future: :

jac

4 ro
The conference of

federal authorities ee
people’s right to a ;

destiny. Wee need 2 nae
firmly upon the proclar
round economic
and prosperous Cana
peace. This aim has paces
our grasp by the Gener”
the Four Powers. b