. the Watergate Affair is not just a US. Issue, Testimony to this is given by U.S. bomb- ie Pilots who continue to drop thousands Pon thousands of tons of explosives on 1954. If this was not clear enough by the ac- “ANXIETY” OVER WATERGATE IN EUROPE LONDON — K. C. Thaler, London correspondent for the U.S. ‘Ss, United Press International, reported widespread European ne nxlety concerning the Watergate scandal. pun ferring to NATO circles, Thaler said: “Until a few days ago ingt pean diplomats and politicians followed developments in Wash- 8ton with amazement rather than worry. But suddenly the pic- €gan to change. European allies of the U.S. are beginning to Signs of international anxiety over the Watergate affair ture p Show en tions of the U.S. in Cambodia and its conti- nual support of provocative actions by the puppet regime of President Thieu, Mr. Nixon moved General Alexander Haig into the White House as his top aide this week to fill the place of H. R. Haldeman, who was knocked off in the Watergate scandal. General Haig acted as Number Two ad- visor to Henry Kissinger, advising Nixon on how to bomb Vietnam. Canada, which is a member of the truce team in Vietnam to supervise the carrying through of the Paris agreements, is in a position to perform a real service by expos- ing the double role of the U.S. and Presi- dent Thieu. Unfortunately however, it is: choosing, presumably under the direct or- ders of External Affairs Minister Sharp, to act as the “honest broker” for the U.S. and in’so doing jeopardizing the possibilities of Davis set to bully through sales tax In tion, Spite of massive opposi- ‘regional government the Central Committee. sidered the main issues confrontin Watergate-Vietnam-complicity creating a stable peace in Vietnam. The. Canadian truce team has used its presence in Vietnam to insinuate in every way, contrary to the facts, that North Viet- nam is violating the terms of the Paris Agreements, paving the way for its own withdrawal from Vietnam and the possible re-entry of U.S. air and naval forces into the situation. Watergate serves notice on the entire world, and not least of all Canada, that honesty and integrity are not even kissing cousins to U.S. imperialism, and if we are to win the peace in Vietnam, massive world pressure will be needed to force the U.S. to live up the Paris Agreements. A good place to begin. would be to demand that Canada stop acting in its traditional role as U.S. powdermonkey in Vietnam and play the part of a genuine peacemaker. Tea tm Parliament dodges . key issues-Kashtan As parliament reopened this week in Ottawa, the Central Committee of the Com-' munist Party of Canada made its plans for the Plenum meeting to take place on May 12-13. Anticipating both events, the Canadian Tribune interviewed William Kashtan, General Secretary of the Communist Party, to present what he con- g parliament, and what is to be projected in When asked what faced parliament in the upeomin r session, Mr. Kashtan replied: policies, “According to the press, the number of questions that will be dealt with appears to be limited to. bilingualism, the death penalty and the corporation rip-off. Phese measures willbe debated until the end of June, and then pé¢rlia- ment will recess. These matters, however, are not the major is- sues before the Canadian people. There are more urgent matters and it appears that they will not be dealt with in any way in this session of parliament. itietigg » €ven cutting across his shal} Party, Premier Davis mar- ram €d his troops this week to John through the unpopular 1 White budget saddling On- lo wi : 5 Sales ‘ih a 40% increase in To budget fiasco saw the cs forced to pull back from Sales ‘Sligy imposition of the Source 4x on domestic energy : S. It also saw the leader challew Opposition, Mr. Nixon, hge Davis to go to the eo ther’ M a general election on Sales tax. of thy Stewart, Ontario leader Cuseg” Communist ‘Party, ac- iStegar, € Tories of “arrogant Will oF d of the needs and the Inca» in the people of the prov- Popular ae through the un- that € main thing, however, he ne budget battle proved,” Pressure Was “that mass public Ment . ©8N force the govern- O retreat. Tore who say that the tax, io Stuck in the energy retreat Were fully prepared to thang to the 7% tax on other are mr nestic energy sources, line eaoee: Stewart said. “This backroge Obably encouraged by Want 6 Tory strategists who ing Sn dampen down any feel- or Ong the people of victo- Uture Confidence that in the ary pr ™Mass_extra-parliament- Tor : pure can force the lation ,° back away from legis- Ta ‘troduced in the House. Mass 4 together with - the, Ment, PPOsition to the govern- health, education and all of. which led to the defeat of the government in the two recent by-elections, it is obvious that the Davis government is running against the tide. “The . Tories mistook their mandate in the last provincial election as license to pursue open monopoly policies from Queen’s Park. Life is demon- strating to.them their error. “They. are, however, shrewd- ly taking advantage,” Mr. Stew- art said, “of the ineptitude of the New Democratic Party in the Legislature. Under the leadership of Stephen Lewis, the NDP has almost entirely re- stricted itself to parliamentary manouvering and, as could be expected, came off second best © to the Liberal Party in the pro- cess. : “One can only surmise that rumors of Mr. Lewis’ resigna- tion reflect widespread dis- satisfaction in the party with his performance. “It is to be hoped that the NDP will conclude that it is not only a matter of replacing Mr. Lewis with another Queen’s Park specialist, but that it draw the conclusion that until the party relates ‘its actions at Queen’s Park with widespread extra parliamentary pressure, there is no way it will go ahead. “This is the lesson of the budget for the NDP, for the or- ganized trade union movement and for :all people’s organiza- tions. People’s action can beat Queen’s Park, provided it is united and timely,” Mr. Stewart concluded. ~the Canada-wide A demonstration organized by. Women Against Soaring Prices protests high food prices outside one of Toronto's large supermarkets. WASP lobbies MP.s, hits weak price board Women Against Soaring Prices, one of the initiators of campaign against high prices, has present- ed a brief (May 8 in Ottawa) to Minister of Consumer Affairs Herb Gray and. other MP’s. In welcoming the government re- commendation for a Prices Re- view Board, which -has been ad- vocated by WASP since 1968, the brief points out that “gov- ernment guidelines for this Board are incomplete and un- satisfactory.” It continues: . “Dependence upon ‘investigation and publi- city’ just is not powerful enough to deal with rising prices. Moral perusuasion has not worked in the past and will not work in the future... “We are not economists, but we feel the time has come for someone to put things in per- © Continued on page 10 “The most pressing,” Mr. Kashtan said, “is the inflation- ary price spiral, but nothing is being done about it to help the Canadian people. While it’s true that a food price Review Board was proposed, the government made sure that the proposal had no real teeth in it. The Board will not be effective in combat- ting food price rises. It can only be effective if it has the teeth to prevent price rises and roll back prices. If the Board does that, it. will be of real benefit and serve a useful purpose for the Canadian people. In order to achieve this the. working class movement is going to have to press the government and pre- vent the government from using the board only as a face-saver. ‘It is also important to re- member that the increases are not restricted to food. Prices continue to go up on all items, as if the sky was the limit, and monopoly is having a field day, as seen by the reports that monopoly increased its profits by 35% over last year. The gov- ernment is: proposing that the U.S.-controlled monopolies get still further tax concessions. This will allow U.S. interests to further strengthen their control over Our economy. “What is needed in response to this is a new set of priorities, including (1) the necessity of curbing the power of monopo- lies to control prices and bring prices down, (2) effective meas- ures to raise the purchasing power of the people, and (3) effective measures to ensure the @ - Continued on page 10 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1973—PAGE 5 |