CANADA

NAC-15 years strong

By KERRY McCUAIG

Fifteen years ago a couple of
dozen delegates met in a Toronto
church basement. The 1968 Royal
Commission on the Status of
Women was sitting on a dusty
shelf. Unless there was plenty of
prodding from below, its recom-
mendations would never be
implemented, they concluded.
From these humble beginnings of
the National Action Committee
on the Status of Women was
born. It has come a long way ina
short time, today boasting 500
member groups, representing
some 4-million women.

NAC can count its victories.
Reforms have been made around
pensions, the divorce laws, pay
equity, affirmative action and Na-
tive women’s rights. But NAC’s
greatest victory has been in the
ideological arena. “Women’s is-
sues”’ are a leading priority in the
public mind. Discrimination is at
least considered unfair, and when
NAC speaks politicians listen.

But a tough road lies ahead and
it’s getting wider and longer as the
women’s movement grows in
breadth and depth. Featured
speaker Sheila Day outlined the
tasks to the 600 delegates meeting
at Ottawa’s Carlton University.

It wasn’t a comforting one list,
beginning with the danger of nu-
clear war and covering environ-
‘mental damage, exploitation of
the developing world, apartheid,

fascism ;-hunger and oppression®

It is ‘‘women’s struggle for
equality (which can help stop this
holocaust’’, said the Vancouver
legal rights activists. Because
“full equality for women requires
breaking the current narrow pat-
terns of privilege and distributing
power and wealth more fairly,
and that ... will create a more
respectful, more democratic and
less destructive society’.

Participants were also chal-
lenged to create a non-racist wo-
men’s movement. “We will all
march forward together, or none
of us will move’’ warned Glenda
Simms of the Congress of Black
Women of Canada.

Simms also delivered a stinging
rebuke to neo-conservative
‘*women’s’’ groups, asking when
Black and Filipino women, who
dominate the ranks of domes-
tic/nannies, would have the op-
portunity to provide the “‘un-
conditional love’’ to their own
children, that REAL Women
likes to tout.

Unlike REAL women conven-
tions where attacking NAC

a a 3

Louise Delude, acclaimed for sec-
ond term as NAC president.

dominates proceedings, these
delegates had more pressing is-
sues to address. Although large
numbers did take delight in sport-
ing “I am a F.A.K.E. woman”
buttons issued by a new group cal-
led Feminists of All Kinds for
Equality”’.

There was no delight with the
federal government however,
which scheduled a major con-

‘stitutional debate, ‘for’ the same

time as the annual NAC lobby.

A bus load of protesters left the
convention on the Sunday to de-
liver a box full of protest letters to
the PM’s home. No one answered
the door. Although none of the
federal house leaders attended the
lobby — with the exception of the
NDP’s Ed Broadbent who
criticized the debate’s timing and
then left to write his speech — a
record number of MPs and minis-
ters did show.

They were given low marks for
performance. In a 20-minute ex-
change with NAC’s social ser-
vices chair, Barbara Cameron,
Health and Welfare Minister Jake

Epp refused to commit his
government to encouraging non-
profit, licenced child care. Came-
ron said NAC’s Canada-wide
joint campaign with the Canadian
Labor Congress and day care
would continue.

Nor was the organization given
any assurances that the govern-
ment would assess its free trade
policies, tax reform or changes to
the unemployment insurance

Jake Epp tries to fend off demands
for child care program.

scheme in light of their impact on
women.

While the women may not have
been listened to they were cer-
tainly heard — interrupting the
Commons debate from the vis-
itors gallery with chants of.“*Wo-
men will be heard’’. They were
evicted from the building but con-
tinued their protest outside on
Parliament Hill.

This -was definitely a change of
scene for NAC which hasevolved,
in the words of one founding
member, from a “‘collection of
three piece business suits’’ into a
fighting organization.

It was Day who predicted the
future face of this struggle. Quot-
ing Gloria Steinem who said that
while men may mellow, women
get angrier as they age, Day fore-
sees the ‘‘politically stingiest,

most cantankerous old women —

Canada has seen yet, taking to the
streets and burning their shoulder

pads’’.

It’s a fit image for NAC, who at
15, is nobody’s baby.

‘Demilitarize
the Arctic,’
urges Jewett

By ELVY ROGERS

THUNDER BAY — Cana-
dians should work toward the
‘denuclearization and demilitar-
ization of the whole Arctic,”
New Democratic defence critic
Pauline Jewett told peace acti-
vists here last month.

This is the only alternative to
the build-up of American mil-
itary, mainly nuclear, forces in
the region, said the veteran MP.

“Most Canadians feel the
challenge for us is to diminish
super power rivalry in the Arctic
and eliminate it if we can,” she
said, calling for negotiations
between the Soviet Union and
the United States with other
Arctic and Nordic nations to
make the Arctic a weapons free
zone.

Ottawa had compromised
Canadian sovereignty in the
Arctic by seeing the Americans
as protectors and by seeking
military integration with the
U.S. Turning the North West
Passage over to the U.S., she

said, would end any possibility _

of demilitarizing the north.

Jewett placed the blame for
loss of Canadian sovereignty in
the area squarely at the feet of
Prime Minister Brian Mulro-
ney.

The prime minister doesn’t
see anything wrong with “Can-
ada being part of ‘fortress
America,’ because he accepts
the Canadian role of being a
branch plant economy for
America,” she charged.

Ina hard-hitting address, she
accused Mulroney of using
undemocratic methods in deal-
ing with arms control, sover-

eignty questions and defence
initiatives.

The Conservatives have by-
passed Parliament, and held
secret negotiations on the status
of the North West Passage, Arc-
tic sovereignty and air defence
initiative deals, Jewett told the
meeting, organized by the Thun-
der Bay Coalition for Peace and
Disarmament.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev was credited for persist-
ently initiating peace proposals
and “his genuine desire to reach
a substantial agreement on dis-
armament.” Progress was indi-
cated when U.S. president
Reagan sent Secretary of State,
George Schultz to Moscow for
preliminary discussions on rid-
ding Europe of medium and
short-range missiles.

However, she was critical of
Canadian External Affairs Min-
ister Joe Clark for accusing the
Soviet Union of trying to split
the NATO bloc countries on the
initiative.

Clark should have taken a
more realistic, positive approach,
by telling the U.S. that “Cana-

“ dians want arms‘control now on ~

strategic bombers, air-launched
missiles, rather than nit-picking
the preliminaries of the Moscow
meeting,” Jewett said.

The speaker was alarmed at
the pace of the U.S. arms race
since Reykjavik. “The Pentagon
has been working hard to get
monies for a much larger devel-
opment of the strategic bomber,
the air cruise missile and for-
ward operating locations — in
other words it’s working to
build up the back drop to Star
Wars ... we are never going to
be secure as long as we build
arms.”

Justice still eludes Marshall

By PAUL OGRESKO

HALIFAX — After serving 11 years
in prison for a murder he did not com-
mit, Donald Marshall, 33, continues to
be a victim of the criminal justice sys-
tem in Canada. Although it’s been five
and a-half years since Marshall was re-
leased from Dorchester Penitentiary,
those responsible for his incarceration
have yet to be brought to justice.

In 1971 Marshall was arrested for the
murder of Sandy Seale. Facing public
and media pressure to get a conviction,
the Sydney, N.S. police force found the
17-year-old Mic Mac Indian a handy
scapegoat. Marshall was convicted on
the basis of perjured evidence. Three of
the crown’s prime witnesses were
coerced by John MacIntyre, then ser-
geant of detectives, into giving evi-
dence linking Marshall with the crime.

Roy Ebsary, now 75, was finally
convicted for the murder that Marshall

spent 11 years in jail for. Ebsary was
sentenced to one year in prison, with an
additional four months tagged on for his
role in the sexual assault of another
prisoner, and will likely be released by
the end of May.

Now a further delay in bringing those
responsible for Marshall’s conviction
to court has occurred.

The royal commission investigating
the prosecution of Marshall, scheduled
to open this week, has delayed its start-
ing date till September. The additional
time will be used to hear applications
from parties who want their legal bills
paid by the Nova Scotia government.
Among those applying for aid is John
MacIntyre who, after his role in the
Marshall case, was promoted to chief of
the Sydney police department.

The transition to ‘‘normal life’’ after
prison has not been easy for Marshall.

Much of the $270,000 he received from
the government as compensation has
been tied-up in legal fees. He has be-
come the target of both the media and
the police. This “‘special attention’ has
netted Marshall a bevy of minor alterca-
tions with the law. The pressures of
seemingly endless courtroom litiga-
tions has exacerbated Marshall’s drink-
ing problems, while the media attention
has made adjustment impossible.

Experts say it takes at least eight
months of transition in a halfway house
before a 10-year-inmate can integrate
back into society. Marshall got three
months in a Halifax halfway house dur-
ing which he was at the centre of a
media storm. The current delays in
bringing those responsible for Mar-
shall’s incarceration to justice means it
is unlikely Marshall’s trials will be end-
ing soon.

DONALD MARSHALL

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 20, 1987