needed social funding.

Some 1,500 women and men
marched through Vancouver streets
Saturday to mark, for the 11th

time in the city, the United

‘Nations-sponsored International

~ Women’s Day.

At a rally following the march,

_ Ald. Libby Davies.presented march
_ organizer Onni Milne with a proc-
" lJamation from the mayor acknow-

_ ledging the day.

Davies, a guest speaker, told the

| rally the “International Women’s

- Dayisnotjust a tradition — it has

| become a symbol for the struggle
for democratic rights around the

"ae A rages OOO

world.” ;
Davies, who represents the

Committee of Progressive Electors
on city council, noted women’s

.| demands for better social benefits
_and union wages “are being sucked

BRITISH COLUMBIA

LIBBY DAVIES. . .military expenditures absorbing ARDYTH COOPER...Native women’s struggle
has effected some legislative improvements.

1,500 join [WD march

UNIONIST URGES
WOMEN’S UNITY
— page 11 —

up by the military” and declared,
“the women of Vancouver are
strongly united.”

“We need to keep fighting for
peace, against violence against
women, and for freedom of cho-
ice,’ declared Vancouver East
NDP MP Margaret Mitchell.

Anne Harvey,
Local 378 of the Office and Tech-
nical Employees Union, noted
women’s struggles in the labor
movement for child care, wages
and freedom from sexual harass-
ment, as well as gains within the
labor movement itself. She pointed

president of .

out the six seats reserved for
women on the Canadian Labor
Congress executive.

““Let’s make sure before the next
International Women’s Day, we
can truly say that women’s issues
are on the political agenda in this
province — for that will be a day
we can truly celebrate,” she urged.

South African liberation leader
Jesse Duarte, a leading member of

South Africa’s United Democratic
Front, also addressed the rally.

Other speakers included Ardyth
Cooper of the Professional Native
Women’s Association, Meagan
Ellis of the Vancouver Transition
House Occupation, Jan Ford of
Women Against Violence Against

Women and Lee Lakeman of —

Rape Relief.

Free trade ‘will force more

~ Women who are heads of fami-

lies are already the fastest growing

group among those living in
erty — but unless women take

action to fight Tory plans for free
trade and cuts in social programs
their ‘ranks will grow even faster,

anti-poverty advocate Jean Swan-

_ son told the Congress of Canadian
_ Women Sunday.

“The federal government is plot-

_ ting changes in the economic and
social structure that will force more .

) and more women into poverty. We

_must start fighting now to see those
policies are never enacted,” she

' declared.

Swanson, a staff worker for End
Legislated Poverty, was the fea-

_ tured speaker at the CCW’s annual

) dinner, one of several events mark-
\’ ing International Women’s Day
, last weekend.

More. than 200 people turned

3 out for the event, highlighted by a

slide show marking 75 years of

. women’s work in B.C., narrated by

artist and filmmaker Sara Dia-

continuing campaign for Native

| self-government.
_ Swanson, a speaker at an earlier ©

CCW meeting in 1982 noted her
dress then on the issue of equal
ay “which we all hoped would be
he issue of the 80s.

“But under the impact of the
Socred restraint program and now

mond, and by an address by
Squamish Band representative
_ Deborah Jacobs who outlined the

the Tories’ legislative agenda, we’re
fighting to slow the pace of pov-
erty,” she said.

At the top of the Tories’ list,
Swanson warned, is the plan for
free trade with the U.S., a plan
which would “make women poorer
by forcing us to compete with low-
wage areas in the U.S. where legis-
lation is cruel to women.”

In addition, she noted, many of
the industries which even advo-
cates acknowledge are vulnerable
to free trade pressures — such as
textiles and small electrical goods
manufacturing — “are the very
areas in which women are work-
ing.

“Free trade will also affect us
because many of the programs
which now benefit women like
Unemployment Insurance and fam-
ily allowances will be cited by the
U.S. as ‘unfair trade advantages’ ”
she added.

But it is not just free trade that
poses a danger, Swanson said.
Finance Minister Michael Wilson
has also warned of more cuts next
year to social services.

“Of course, he doesn’t call them
cuts. He says that there will be
changes to programs to give
women ‘opportunities to become
more self-reliant’,” she said, noting
that the same phrase has been
used by the Canadian Manufac-
turers’ Association in its call for
cuts to funding for social pro-

grams.

‘women into poverty’: Swanson

Yet while the government is
planning reduced social benefits, it
gave a tax credit of $1 billion to the
Reichmen family which took over
Gulf Oil — a credit which would
have given all single mothers in
B.C. $9 an hour for three years,
Swanson noted.

Already, the de-indexation of
family allowances and reductions
in child tax credits will result in
every family being $2,000-per child
poorer over the 18 years of eligibil-
ity, she emphasized.

She also warned that the gua-
ranteed annual income concept
advanced in the Macdonald Report
and touted .by the CMA, Grace

McCarthy and others “will only

make women poorer yet.”

Despite the right wing campaign
— which, she said, would also.
attack such concepts as equal pay
as a “market distortion — it’s not
all bleak,” Swanson said. z

“The pensioners fight won a.
victory —and it was particularly a
victory for women,” she said.

Women are fighting back and ~

they are involved in developing-an
economic agenda for the next elec-
tion, she said.

“And Vancouver city council
shows that we can elect govern-
ments that will do something to
protect women’s rights and servi-
ces,” she added.

“Let’s see International Women’s
Day asa day to renew ourselves for
the struggle ahead.”

See Ce aN eo. ee ee ee. ae

‘Two weeks left
to block NORAD
renewal’ — Jewett

The renewal of the NORAD agreement without the limiting
ABM clause would pose a danger of Canadian involvement in Star
Wars not only through NORAD but also, because of a little-known
clause in the agreement, through the North Warning System, NDP
defence critic Pauline Jewett warned in Vancouver Mar. 4.

For that, and many other reasons, the Mulroney government
should not renew the agreement and Canadians should “do every-
thing they can” over the next two weeks to get that message to the
prime minister, Jewett told a public meeting in Robson Square,
organized by End the Arms Race.

Jewett, who was one of several dissenting members of the joint
committee on external affairs and defence which conducted hear-
ings on NORAD renewal, said that she has repeatedly warned that
NORAD could be the “Trojan Horse” which could bring Canada
into participation in Star Wars. But the renewal of the agreement
without the clause excluding Canada from participation in an
anti-ballistic missile program — the renewal terms proposed by the
committee — “would also remove the safety valve from the North
Warning System,” she noted.

The agreement establishing the North Warning System, signed a
year ago, provides a basis for co-operation between the U.S. and
Canada in researching a developing technology, including space-
based technology systems, but stipulates that they must be consist-
ent with the NORAD agreement.

“As long as the ABM clause is there (in the NORAD agreement)
it would prevent doing anything under the North Warning System
that would involve active ballistic missile defence.

“But with the clause removed, the window is wide open there
too,” she warned.

As a result, the North Warning System could become a staging
ground for ballistic missile tracking and interception.

The ABM clause, inserted in the NORAD agreement in 1968 and
re-inserted in subsequent renewals, was summarily removed when
the agreement was renewed in 198] at
the urging of former deputy defence
minister Buzz Nixon who called it “a
piece of garbage.”

“Even today the defence experts
who came before the committee made
no bones about it — they were talk-
ing about space weapons at the time,”
Jewett noted. ~

The New Westminster-Coquitlam
NDP MP noted that even as the
NORAD hearings began, “it became
clear to most of us that NORAD

~- could and would be an essential
PAULINE ingredient of ballistic missile defence,
JEWETT of Star Wars.”

And further evidence of that emerged during the hearings, she
said including the “dual hats” of NORAD commander Gen.
Robert Herres who is also commander for the Unified Space
Command.

“He may have two hats, but he’s only got one head and I think
ultimately that the one head of NORAD will come to include
strategic offence and the whole nuclear war-fighting concept,”
Jewett warned. =

Throughout the hearings, leading military figures warned that
Canadian defence policy was on the threshold of enormous changes
as a result of U.S. strategy. But despite that imminent change, the
committee “was not serious in its study” and conducted its hearings
“secretively,” she said.

And in the end, while Liberal and New Democrat members of
the committee weré barred from preparing a minority report, the
Tory majority “wrote an unthinking, un-analytical report” and
recommended “a routine five-year renewal of NORAD without the
ABM clause,” she warned. What is worse, she added, Mulroney
and U.S. President Reagan “might decide the moment is right when
they meet in Washington March 18 to signa carte-blanche five-year

- renewal of NORAD.

““We have a couple of weeks:— so please do everything you can,
including letters and telegrams to MPs, to get the message through
to the prime minister.”

The best outcome would be that the agreement would not be
renewed, she said, adding, “‘but at least let’s get the ABM clause
re-inserted.””

The demand for non-renewal of the agreement also received
significant new support from Dr. George Ignatieff, the former
Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and to NATO.

Ignatieff, now Chancellor of the University of Toronto said in
Kingston March 3 that membership in NORAD would inevitably
involve Canada in Star WArs, thus jeopardizing Canadian security
and he urged that Canada pull out of the NORAD alliance.

On March 15, members of the North Bay Peace Alliance and the
Toronto Disarmament Network will stage a major protest outside
NORAD headquarters in North Bay, Ont. part of an emer-
gency campaign mounted by the peace movement to prevent sign-
ing ofa NORAD renewal during the Mulroney-Reagan meeting in
Washington March 18.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 12, 1986 e 3