EDITORIAL Can rights survive emergency Ottawa officialdom has spared no expense in going through the lavish procedure of receiving from Queen Elizabeth the constitu- tion and Charter of Rights it has chosen for Canada. The glamour of it all will not wipe out the bad taste of the backroom deal struck by nine English-speaking premiers and the federal government in November of last year. Even on the face of it the whole thing fails the needs of human rights in a united Canada by denying the existence of the French Cana- dian nation, and by nullifying Native and women’s rights with override clauses which may be invoked by provincial governments. Beyond that there is a lingering threat in a Cabinet order passed in May 1981. While today, Ottawa is busy sending out full texts of the new constitution and Charter, the scope of the Cabinet order remains undefined and unexplained. One exchange on it took place in Commons on Feb. 24, 1982, in which the prime minister described the order as an updating of “all emergency action” ranging from floods and natural disasters to “insurrection and inva- sion.” The innocent who were jailed still re- call his “apprehended insurrection” in Who gets arms? Canadian Government sanctions against Argentina in the wake of the crisis around the Falkland Islands, brought to light the fact, previously unknown to most Canadians, that this country ships military equipment to the fascist junta. Knowing that the military's prime enemies, until the Falkland con- frontation, were -the ordinary people of Argentina, and knowing that the military there uses its equipment to put down all aspirations for human rights, how is it that Ottawa kept up this arms trade until now? Where is the passion for human rights which bubbles to the surface every time the U.S. propaganda machine churns out a new fabrication about “dissidents” in the socialist world? How is it that the wealthy media which flog to death every tidbit of CIA “information” claiming lack of human rights in socialist countries, have not questioned Canada’s aid to the junta? As a matter of fact, how many other right-wing regimes do we equip with the means of browbeating their populations? You'd think the monopoly press, with all its facilities, could unearth such information. Flashbacks THE ‘PEACE NAVY’ Harold and Sheila Steele, British Quaker parents of three children, took centre stage last.month in the growing storm over their government's impending H-bomb tests. They said they would use all their sav- ings to fly to Japan and from there would sail to the Christmas Islands danger zone as a “willing sacrifice to prove to the world the horror of the devilish device”. Their 13-year-old son, Hugh, told a meeting of his schoolmates: “This is what my Dad is doing. What are you all doing?” The idea of a “Peace Navy” to picket the test zone has caught on. From Britain and other countries people have offered to join up or have sent money. In one day the family received 500 letters of support. A Japanese businessman has offered to pay-the Steel's fare and press reports say a 1,000-ton fishing vessel will be chartered. Tribune, _ April 22, 1957 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 23, 1982— Page 4 Quebec in 1970, when the War Measures Act killed all rights. In the same exchange, Trudeau denied knowledge of provision for the prime min- ister, in time of such “emergency,” to manage and co-ordinate the national information services. However, Solicitor General Kaplan acknowledged plans for civilian internment. He was asked regarding this legislation on “emergencies in both peacetime and. war- time, is the Solicitor General in charge of the establishment and operation of civilian internment camps ...?” ~ Kaplan replied that he could “confirm” that he had been asked “to begin planning for the eventuality ...” The question arises whether, despite fes- tivities heralding the constitution and Char- ter of Rights, such rights will survive the ad- vanced plans for “emergency” control of civi- lians. Break strangle hold on workers Statistics Canada reports 1,428,000 work- ers refused jobs in April by Canada’s capital- ist system — 9% of the work force. The response from the prime minister, from the governor of the Bank of Canada and various other spokesmen of the ruling class, is that the workers should take the rap for the incompetence of the system. In fact, it is not the workers who have raised interest rates; it is not workers who have created mass unemployment; it is not workers who have brought about 12% inflation; nor is it workers who have created the housing shortage, high rents and extortionate taxes; it is the ruling class — state monopoly capitalism. There is no better time than now to step.up the struggle. And no worker or working-class family need fight alone against the imposed crisis policies. More and more people across the country are standing up to the monopolies and their governments, standing up to the auto giants and their ilk, and saying no to unemployment, inflation, concessions, the housing crisis, and the ruination of social services. An unflagging fight is needed to win the economic and social rights that belong to workers by right of their key place in pro- duction. Those who understand that this is a class struggle should join the Communist Party of Canada, and fight in an organized, scientific way for these goals. FIGHTING EVICTIONS THOROLD — I have lived one year in a two room shack I rent and have been out of work for along time. I could not pay my rent. The landlord sent an agent up who gave me three days to pay. As I had no money or place to go, } stayed with my family in the shack. The agent and his men came and threw my furniture onto the street. I had no one to help me, but a neighbor brought an organizer of the national unemployed association. He spoke to me and, in about half an hour, 50 or 60 men and women arrived, also unemployed, and carried my furniture back into the house. They told me not to ~ move until the town authorities paid my rent. . My wife and I are now members of the association. We still live in our home and I tharik everyone who helped me. I also call on everyone to stand up and fight evictions and starvation condition. The Worker, April 23, 1932 TRUST ME, OUR HIGH INTEREST RATE POLICY WILL GET CANADA MOVING / The battle against the crisis conditions im- posed by the monopoly ruling class to make the workers pay, demands not belt- tightening, not sharing the poverty, but put ting upa united struggle to break monopoly’s strangle hold on workers’ lives. If you think no one benefits from high mortgage rates, you're reckoning without Canada Trustco Mortgage Co., London, Ont. In the three months ended March 31 this’ outfit had an after-tax profit of $6,288,000. That’s down from the $7,280,000 made in the same months in 1981, _ accounted for, no doubt, by people living in doughnut _ shops and all-night laundromats instead of houses. Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON ‘Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,- Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186 ‘Subscription Rate: Canada $14 one year; $8 for six months. All other countries: $15 one year. Second class mail registration number 1560 © ISADORA DUNCAN MOSCOW. — On November 7th, the fourth an-— niversary of thé Russian revolution, Isadora Duncan appeared-for the first time on the stage of the Great State Theatre. Of that performance, Izvestia wrote: “For a long time the stage of the Great Theatre has_ not revealed such an artistic festival. It was a harmoni-— ous festival of the liberated body. Isadora Duncan was _ the dancer . . . it was full of beauty, explanatory — not a literal illustration, but one that was revolutionary. — “Her pantomine and dance discloses a bent, weary and plodding slave, in chains, striving to break his” bonds and falling down exhausted at each vain at- tempt. At the first notes of the Damned Czar’s hymn he lifts his head, his face tortured. With superhuman effort he rises and tears his chains as the hymn draws _ to a close, stretching his arms toward a new and joyo Ti pope ;