Far budget brought down by
Stataq inister Paul Dozois,”
the Parti c. Walsh, president of
Ma Can, Ommuniste du Québec
Ww, evan Tribune interview,
all as : Mediately recognized by
Signg Wen lection budget. The
Mise oe Unmistakable, a pro-
ad ng , medicare by July 1970
a crease in taxes.”

Pectag PrOVincial election, ex-
ed or the fall, will be pre-
“Onvent; June by a leadership
hale, “a of the Union Natio-
_80vernment party.
themsejnidates are presenting
8 now €s: J. P. Bertrand, who
G, Carqrrebec prime minister, J.

mal, and André Léveillé.

Commenti
thip qnenting on these leader-

ntestants, Walsh said,
- ie has come out with the
‘age Of approach that Le-
the Queb at the convention of
Say yy ©¢ Liberal Party which
Yesoue.. €xclusion of René Lé-
Wants That is to say, Bertrand
Come re Union Nationale to
‘Darati Ut squarely against a
yom 4 Seton, thus removing
armory of bargainin
men’s With the federal Lie
indepen 3 Slogan of ‘equality or
Dania) once’ coined by the late
Johnson.”
Ite Cardinal, the present min-
education, Walsh _re-
; He claims that he
RG he Union Nationale to
ohnson, the policy of Daniel
eanine He defines this as
Chg; t& that ‘all options, in-
ust 5 S€paratism, should and
but? €main open in our party,
this ti, adds, ‘I myself am not at
Sroe separatist.’ ”
Veille td candidate, André Lé-
the ), 'S @ former secretary of
Walgpentteal Labor Council. In
literati Opinion Léveillé has
avin Y no chance for election,
eq to° Unquestionably been ask-
indica PUt his name forward to
hag ae the Union Nationale
_ Ask urban, labor base.
Ih ae where monopoly stands
Walsh» leadership convention,
West} Commented, “There is no
Walt ae that the St. James and
the y tteets decision makers for
Cideg pee Nationale have de-
dingy c Bertrand, and that Car-
of ./S being groomed as one
‘longsig Possible successors,
ie vce Mario Beaulieu, former
Noy, “TBanizer of that party and
‘bint Member of the Quebec

“The theme of the UN leader-
ship convention,” he continued,
“ig ‘Quebec 100 percent.’ Mr.
Bertrand adds, with somewhat
dubious arithmetic, that he sees
no contradiction between being
100 percent Quebec and 100 per-
cent Canadian. His plea is for
amendments and a new interpre-
tation of the BNA Act which
would recognize ten sovereign
provinces or states, and two
nations from the standpoint of
cultural and language rights.
His nationalist pitch for election
will be based on maintaining
provincial rights in national
form. For example, should a
park in Gaspé be under federal
or provincial jurisdiction and
should it be called a national
park? Should a new internatio-
nal airport be nearer or farther
from the Ontario border? Can
the medicare program be oper-
ated as a Quebec project with
the two percent federal ‘social
progress’ tax going directly to
Quebec to finance it? And mat-
ters of this sort.”

As for the Quebec Liberal
party, Walsh said it also faces
a type of conference which Le-
sage, leader of that party, has
declared will not be a leadership
convention because his leader-
ship is not up for contestation.
Questioned about the rumored
leadership ambitions of Claude
Wagner, one-time Lesage pro-
tégé, Walsh commented, “This
former mail-fisted attorney-gen-
eral and minister of justice is
making noises indicating a de-
sire to contest the Quebec Libe-
ral leadership and the next
provincial election on a ‘law and
order’ platform.”

As a final comment on the
Quebec Liberals, Walsh added
that, “Having got rid of René
Lévesque, as well as the pro-
separatist petty bourgeois sec-
tion of the leadership of the
Quebec Liberal party; and hav-
ing effectively silenced the more
timid exponents of a similar
policy, such as the former min-
ister of education Paul Gérin-
Lajoie, the issue for Quebec
Liberals now appears to be —
how. far right, and how anti-
sovereignty that party should be
in the next provincial election.”

Turning from the old-line par-
ties, the Quebec Communist
leader said, “The Parti Québe-
cois, lead by René Lévesque,

which according to a recent poll
among French-Canadians only in
Quebec, represents 21 percent of
the popular vote, has just issued
an election program. It advoc-
ates at one and the same time
both withdrawal from NATO
and NORAD, and even more ex-
tensive U.S. investment in and
control of Quebec industry.

“While proposing political in-
dependence,”, he continued, “it
also strongly advocates econo-
mic association in a kind of
common market with English
Canada. This latter point was
quite deliberately put forward
to attract support both from the
ranks of a section of the French-
Canadian bourgtoisie, which
which would feel stifled if its
home market was confined to
Quebec’s six million population,
and to the workers who realize
that economic separation from
English Canada would mean a
further drastic drop in their
standard of living.”

When asked about a recent
statement by Lévesque concern-
ing Quebec’s bourgeoisie, Walsh
replied, “Some representatives
of the French-Canadian bour-
geoisie have taken this bait of
economic association and are
now approaching the Parti Qué-
becois. In addition, it has been
noted that some skilled French-
Canadian workers, in the ab-
sence of a mass labor political
party, have actually become
members of the Parti Québe-
cois.”

Réal Caouette, under pressure
from Créditistes in Quebec con-
stituencies where they have
federal seats, has said his party
may enter Quebec election can-
didates in those constituencies.
“The effect of this,’ Sam Walsh
observed, “would be to further
divide the Parti Québecois inter-
nally, siphoning off support from
its right-wing section which
came to it through the efforts of
former Créditiste MP, Gilles
Grégoire. But Caouette’s pitch
will be definitely a status quo,
federalist one aimed to separate
Créditisme from the sovereignty
camp, basing his party on rural,
semi-rural and semi-proletarian
sections of the population.”

The Parti Nationaliste Chré-
tien, claiming 150,000 members,

_is an avowedly extreme right-

wing, separatist party. What will
it do in the Quebec election?

HM:

Quebec teachers shown above in front of the Legislature are one

group of many who have been protesting aspects of the govern-
ment’s policy—on taxation, on labor, on the status of Quebec. All
signs point to an election in the fall when the man selected at the
Union Nationale leadership convention in June will try to secute g

larger mandate for its policies.

Walsh’s opinion was, “It may
take a certain vote from both
the UN and the Parti Québe-
cois, in those same constituen-
cies where the Créditistes have
support. So far, however, this
party has not surfaced very
much.”

Turning to the NDP on the eve
of its Quebec convention last
weekend, Walsh said, “The NDP
is meeting to discuss recommen-
dations from its provincial coun-
cil to enter the next Quebec
election, and to name a new
leader to replace Robert Cliche.
In all probability, it will fail to
do both. The feeling of the re-
maining NDP membership is
that the Parti Québecois has
successfully occupied all the
political territory the Quebec
NDP could possibly gain and
much more, because of the
NDP’s anglo-saxon, patronizing
attitude to the solution of the
national question.”

What of Quebec labor and the
progressive movement in the
next election? “It is glaringly
clear,” Walsh stated, “that the
big gap now in Quebec politics
is a mass party of labor, as called
for in the convention of the QLF
two years ago, and by the Com-
munists since 1964.

“Unfortunately, the leadership
of the QFL has done nothing to
implement this proposal. On the
contrary, the QFL president,
Louis Laberge, has declared him-
self for political pressure on the
existing parties instead. He’s
announced, ‘We do not want to
change the capitalist system. It
is the working people who have
built it, and who've received so
much from it.’

“From the ‘left’ this idea has
come under attack by the presi-

dent of the Montreal Central
Council of the Confederation of
National Trade Unions, Michel
Chartrand. He’s all for ‘instant’
socialism, and as far as he’s con-
cerned, a political party of the
working class would simply get
in the way.

“The fact that a mass party of
labor in Quebec is urgently ne-
cessary,” Walsh continued, “is
attested to in the findings of
Professor Lemieux, commission-
ed by the Canadian Labor Con-
gress and the QFL to bring in
proposals with respect to poli-
tical action in Quebec. He makes
this the main point of his find-
ings.

“Now, before the election, the
formation of a mass party of
labor can only be proposed as
the next major step in labor’s
advance to political power. But
it is not,’ declared Walsh, “a
realistic goal for the presenta-
tion of a large number of can-
didates in the coming provincial
election.

“The Parti Communiste du
Québec,” he reported, “has de-
cided to enter the election com-
paign. It will emphasize again
the necessity of a mass party of
labor, federated in character,
and including the PCQ. We have
chosen to contest the constitu-
ency of St. Louis, where tradi-
tionally Communists have pre-
sented candidates and where we
now have our headquarters.

“Claire Da Silva, associate
editor of Combat, will carry the
Party’s banner. First shot in the
campaign,” Walsh concluded,
“will be the distribution to every
home in the constituency of the
Communist Party of Canada’s
pamphlet calling for withdrawal
from NATO and NORAD.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY. 23, 1969—Page 7

SS