Ne el

Pe. a Oa eek hoe ee

FE, geht IAT | maemo

pa APY Oy

ee ees

ba af PO Nm mB rn Bp dh ges)

CANADA

3,000 demand
public inquiry

MONTREAL — Over 3,000 people demonstrated
here Nov. 21 to protest the slaying of unarmed Black
teenager Anthony Griffin by Montreal cop Allan Gosset,
and to demand a full public inquiry into the shooting and
into allegations of institutionalized police racism.

Ronald Rock of the Black Community Council of
Quebec (grouping 15 organizations in the black commu-
nity) called the shooting ‘‘a disgusting atrocity”’. He said
society “has to deal with the question of racism, espe-
cially in public institutions. Allan Gosset should be
charged with the full weight of justice.”

Unfortunately, police racism and violence are escalat-
ing in the city. According to the BCC, there have been at
least 45 incidents of this nature between members of the
Black community and the cops in the past nine months.

PHOTO — COMBAT

Democracy victim of
free trade onslaught

By MARK SYDNEY

Looking through my bookshelves last weekend for
research material on a subject not totally unrelated to
this article, I chanced across a splendid collection of
writings compiled many years ago by Margaret Fairley
called ‘‘Spirit of Canadian Democracy.”’

Involuntarily, the thought came to mind: the rulers of
Canada, whether British colonialists 150 years ago, or
today’s homegrown Tories have always had more than a
passing dislike of democracy.

Back before Confederation, the Tory Family Compact
made no bones about where they stood: they hated
democracy, and were even prepared to themselves take
up cudgels and guns (and did) to stop it.

Canada’s current Tory rulers retain that same con-
tempt for democracy and the democratic process. And
they are prepared to abandon, circumvent or undermine
democracy when it suits them.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current
debate raging over free trade.

The decision whether or not to implement free trade
will perhaps, like no other, determine the face and direc-
tion Canada will take for a very long time. Yet, here is an
issue on which Canada’s Tory prime minister, Brian
Mulroney, has resolutely decided not to heed the con-
cerns of Canadians, and is just as ready cavalierly to
wave aside any pretention to democracy as was Louis
XIV of France.

Canada’s Absolute Monarch

“Ltat, c’est moi’’, King Louis is quoted as saying
250 years or so ago. ‘‘I’m going to act when I believe it’s
right ... whether it’s popular or not’’, King Brian told
the first ministers in Toronto Nov. 26.

Two hundred and ten fragile seats in parliament these
days, it appears, doth an absolute monarch make. From
the day the Tories hoisted the free trade flag, seldom
have Canadians seen such callous disdain for democracy
and its institutions.

Canadians cannot really believe it democratic when
the all-party parliamentary sub-committee conducting
hearings on free trade spends a total of one day, or less
than eight hours, in each province and territory (after.
two weeks in Ottawa); hears, as it did in B.C., four
fifteen-minute presentations supposedly representing

‘that province; sits before an audience there by invitation

only (the public be damned) of primarily business-people
and free-trade boosters; is expected to come up with
subsequent recommendations for parliamentary debate;
but doesn’t even have a final text of a free trade agree-
ment as the basis for those hearings, because such has
not yet been made public.

Kept in the Dark

Canada — or rather the prime minister and parliament
— must give its consent to a free trade agreement by
January 2, 1988. Yet parliament and the Canadian people
are being asked to discuss and accept an agreement of
such overriding importance, and we still don’t know
what’s in it. That’s democracy? Sounds more like faith-
healing. Even capital punishment got a lot more debating
time in the House.

From the way things look, a final text might not be
tabled before Christmas. Mulroney can’t seriously be-
lieve Canadians — even many supporters of his own
party — will agree this is the democratic way of doing
things.

None of the deadlines — the initial Oct. 5, 1987 initial-

ling deadline,the Jan. 2, 1988 signing deadline, the May
1988 ratification deadline — were democratically de-
cided on through consultation or discussion here in
Canada. They were unilaterally imposed by a foreign
power, the United States, to meet its own constitutional
requirements. Our constitutional requirements played
no part, and will be undermined anyway. Mulroney has
made it clear he will impose free trade guidelines and
override provincial jurisdiction and laws as set out in the
British North America Act.

Rule by Deceit

Finally, the prime minister has no popular, democratic
mandate to sign, or even negotiate a free trade deal at all.
Mulroney says he can’t rule ‘‘Canada by committee”’, or
by consensus. However, he is perfectly willing to govern
Canada by deceit and thuggery.

Free trade was not an issue in the past federal election
campaign. The Canadian people were kept totally in the
dark, not least of all by Mulroney himself, who in the
election campaign said he would never consider such a
thing. Even the most informed of parliamentary insiders
were caught with their pants down when Mulroney an-
nounced that he and the U.S. president had agreed to
negotiate a free trade agreement.

Tale of Two Systems

This contempt for democracy is not a momentary
lapse; it’s Tory (and Liberal) style. Eleven men spent
two days at Meech Lake and unilaterally decided, with-
out any prior warning or consultation, to totally alter
Canada’s constitutional fabric. Furthermore (leaving
aside the content of the changes, which are totally un-
democratic), an all-party parliamentary committee, after
weeks of hearings just as farcical as the current free trade
hearings, conceded that the Meech Lake Accord was
deficient, did not guarantee the rights of Native peoples,
women, Northern Canadians, ethnic minorities, etc. But
did that faze any of the Tory or Liberal pooh-bahs (or, to
their shame, a good many NDPers)? Not a whit. Even
though everyone recognized the problems, it was
recommended that the Meech Lake Accord be passed as
it stands, without any alterations. That is democracy,
Tory style.

Contrast this with the ‘‘undemocratic, totalitarian’’
Soviet Union. In 1977, the Soviet Constitution was re-
written. First, a draft constitution was compiled by a
commission of parliamentarians, lawyers, Communist

( | a
CSIS ‘adjustment’
won't stop spying

The Tory government has responded to public
and parliamentary criticism of the Canadian Sec-
urity Intelligence Service with moves that in fact
change nothing.

The notorious counter-subversion branch,
which a parliamentary commission characterized,
along with the entire CSIS, as having difficulty
recognizing the difference between subversion and
legitimate dissent, is being scrapped.

The counter-subversion branch will cease to
exist as a separate and very visible unit. Its func-
tions will now be shared by the equally shady
counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism
branches. What that will in effect do is make CSIS
wiretapping, spying, harassment and infiltration
of, and the placing of informers and agents provo-
cateurs, etc. inside popular, democratic and left-
wing movements, even less open to public scrutiny
than before, because the source will be harder to
pinpoint.

In announcing the ‘‘mid-course adjustment’’
Nov. 30, solicitor-general James Kelleher gave no
promises that such activities would be stopped, or
that the security files compiled on an estimated
800,000 Canadians would be scrapped. All he
would say is that they will be reviewed, and files
not needed for either counter-terrorism or
counter-intelligence work destroyed.

Informed critics of CSIS suggest that rather than
be destroyed, the files will more likely be simply
moved to another storage area.

‘The solicitor-general gave no guarantees that
CSIS will abandon its priority targeting of progres-
sive individuals, especially those active in labour,

peace and even NDP activities, and progressive
organizations for scrutiny.

\s e

Party officials, etc. and submitted to the Supreme Soviet
(parliament). There the draft was amended somewhat
and passed as a draft, to be sent out to the entire country
for several months of discussion. Meetings were held
everywhere, in factories, universities, offices, residen-
tial areas; millions of people attended, offering criticism
and suggestions. Individuals wrote letters with their
ideas. Based on all these suggestions, over 100 clauses of
the initial draft were subsequently amended; several
were dropped altogether; several more were added. It
was a constitution drawn up and written, in effect, by the
people, decided on democratically.

Canada, however, is not the Soviet Union, not by a
long shot. And, one might suggest, the Soviet experience
is not yet directly relevant to Canada.

Yet the above illustration does serve to bring the point
home. For all Canada’s rulers and their spokespeople,
like Mulroney, like to talk about democracy, they will
sacrifice it, circumvent it, undermine it —even their own
bourgeois democracy — when it becomes an obstacle to
their vaunted ambitions.

Even those who support free trade (and Meech Lake)
might ponder the implications. As Margaret Fairley’s
book shows, the aspirations and spirit of Canadian
democracy have always resided with and are realized by
the people, not their Tory or Liberal rulers.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 16, 1987 e 15