CP-Tory policies on mortgages HAMILTON The Com- munist proposal to limit residen- tial mortgage interest rates to a put more than half a billion dollars into the hands of Cana- claimed here May 2. The Communist Party leader contrasted the proposal to that of Joe Clark’s to make mortgage payments tax deductable, pointing Betty Griffin and federal FEDERAL ELECTION SCENE maximum of five percent would - dian consumers, William Kashtan . a a a eee ae ae ee out that Clark’s plan would benefit only a third of taxpayers “while the rest of us subsidize them.”’ Mortgage interest deductability has existed in the U.S. for some years, Kashtan claimed, and the U.S. experience has proven that it does not increase the actual number of people who buy homes. The only benefactors from the scheme would be _ banks, speculators and developers who increase their sales and profits, while house prices would remain out of reach for most Canadians. CP candidates converged on the corner of Hastings and Cassiar St. Thursday to protest the proposed 60,000 sea Multiplex at the PNE. Left to right, CP provincial candidate in Burnaby, North candidates Eric Waugh, North Van.-Burnaby, and Fred Wilson, Van.-East, were among about 20 CP campaigners handling out leaflets to frustrated drivers at the busy intersection. The Multiplex is opposed by local residents, would destroy the residential community surrounding the PNE, eee create even worse traffic problems, the CP warned. Corporate interests already are able to make interest payments tax deductable, he said, ‘‘Wouldn’t it be more in the interests of the Canadian people to close the ex- isting loopholes for corporations and to legislate a ceiling on all residential interest rates.’’ Kashtan charged that high in- terest rates were a major factor prohibiting most Canadians from purchasing homes. Average house payments jumped by 135 percent between 1972 and 1978 to a pre- sent average of $7,061 per year, he said, and most of the increase has been paid to money lenders. Each unit of housing built would generate enough work in site preparation, construction and manufacturing to employ three people for the period of one year, Kashtan said, ‘Our program to build 300,000 units annually for the next five years would go a long way towards solving PECORIOY, ment.’ Liberals back slum housing VANCOUVER EAST — Com- munist Party federal candidate Fred Wilson scored Liberal hous- ing policy and demanded a $30 million housing program for new housing in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver before about 150 members of the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association Thursday. : Wilson claimed that there are 2,000 people currently living in slum housing in the Downtown Eastside while local slumlords are making fortunes out of rents paid by federal pension cheques and provincial GAIN cheques. “The slumlords only exist because right wing governments allow them to,’’ Wilson declared, “The federal and provincial governments pay them and the ci- ty of Vancouver allows them to break the law — but most impor- tantly, these governments refuse to build the new housing that would put the slumlords out of business.’” Wilson called, for $30 million to be committed far new housing in the Downtown Eastside in 1979 and 1980 to build 1,800 new units of low cost housing. According to. the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council the project would create over 450,000 man hours of employment. . The CP candidate took issue with the claim of Liberal MP Art Lee that his government had pro- vided $31 million for housing in Vancouver East between 1974 and 1978. A large portion of that money was for co-op housing, he’ pointed out, and the policy of the Liberal Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is only to guarantee loans from private money lenders which the co-op tenants must pay back. Regardless of the actual amount spent by the Liberals, he said, it obviously has not affected the free reign of the slumlords over the Downtown Eastside. “The real facts about what the Liberal government did between 1974 and 1978 is that it gave $3 billion: in new tax incentives and $10 billion in direct subsidies to private corporations,’’ Wilson said, ‘‘Compared to that the Liberals have given crumbs to Vancouver East.”’ credit system. Conservatives prepare for war VANCOUVER KINGSWAY — A Conservative government would prepare for war, not peace; CP federal candidate Jack Phillips charged Wednesday on a CKNW radio broadcast in Vancouver. Joe Clark and the Tories’ cal for increased support to NATO | and for sharp increase in ‘‘so call- ed defense expenditures” from the present 12 percent of the federal budget to a new high of 20 percent of the budget ‘‘suggests that 4 Conservative government would be preparing for war, not peace,’ Phillips said. : In outlining CP national policy Phillips distinguised the stand 0 the CP from that of the NDP by outlining an immediate economic, program which would include th nationalization of B.C. Telephon! Co. and other privately owned telephone companies and the Canadian Pacific Railway and it holding company, Canadian | Pacific Investments. 4 The CP’s long range economic — program, Phillips added, calls for. the nationalization of U.S. branch — plants in Canada, banks, trusts and insurance companies, and the | “This would pro- vide the “capital for economic ~ development on the: basis of av planned’ economy,’’ he said, — “Planned for the welfare of the — people, and not profits for cor” be porations . . . It is this economica program which more than | anything else distinguishes US — from all the other Parties con: a testing this election.’ SS ie spokesmen for ‘Canadian labor tend to be over simplistic in discussing the American trade union movement, leaving the wrong impression that it is one, solid reac- tionary mass in support of George Meany and his cronies. However, on September 8, 1978, William W. Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, delivered an important address to staff members of his un- ion, reflecting the fact that some top U.S. labor leaders are beginning tO reassess their positions. _ The opening paragraph of Wims- inger’s speech proves that not ail American labor leaders are Meany supporters: ‘ “itis time for some internal re- flection on where we are and where we think we have to go to defend ourselves, indeed not only to sur- vive, but to survive on a plane higher than any one on which we is clear. We can’t sit around and wait for the rest of the labor move- ment. like the sleeping dog, sooner lie around and snooze, than to act like a sheep dog, wake us up and hurl us into the future, or away from diszs- ter’s brink.” Later, there is a significant state- ment on class struggle that every trade unionist should study:- ‘*A few years ago, with some la- menting by some of your officers, we engaged in a convention dia- logue to take the words ‘class IAM constitution. “One officer, now deceased, ar- gued strenuously not to make that move and he was more right than the majority. His name was E. R. White, one of the most knowledge- able and articulate officers this un- ion has ever had. He saw the picture more clearly than the majority be- ‘Cause what we are reaping now are the fruits of the corporate state and the class struggle that it generates. previously lived. 1 think this much — lt seems content to act much struggle’ out of the preainble of the ~ “What is happening to us is “Class warfare in its finest hour. I wish those words were back in our pre- amble. That’s our mission: to engage in class struggle and lift our members out of it.’’ Some of our top, Canadian trade union officials should similarly re- assess their positions, along with some of their friends in the leader- ship of the New Democratic Party. You can close your eyes to the exist- ence of the class struggle, but it won’t disappear. LABOR~ COMMENT BY JACK PHILLIPS The speech by the IAM leader demonstrates that he understands the role.of American imperialism in relation to other™ countries, al- though he does not specifically ‘mention Canada: ‘‘We see the cor- porate state in action overseas. We can’t even contain it within our border. We see them rape economic and human rights in the Third and Fourth Worlds — all the under- privileged and underdeveloped paris of the world — in Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Nicar- agua, Rhodesia; and there’s pro- bably a longer list than that. It always-boils down to the ruling elite versus the powerless.’ In dealing with the myth of free enterprise, Winpisinger could just as well have been speaking about Canada, allowing for differences in degree: “Competition today is a myth. What it’s worth in this economy to- day in my humble judgment is a genuine full-blown collision — a collision of ethics and economics, of the values of equity and fairness and the greed of profit and plunder. The free market today offers no U. S. unionist re-assessing priorities, no values, no end and no human purpose. “It may well be true that a single monopoly firm does not rule each sector of industry, but domination in this country today by a big three or four has become an accepted fact of life. I think everyone knows that competition within an oligopoly is-a lot more of.a struggle for power to control supply and demand than to win any customers by price com- petition. oe Allowing for the differences in _ the Canadian political structure as compared with the American politi- cal structure, the IAM leader’s call for the building of alliances is quite appropriate for Canadian labor: ‘““Our whole movement, top to bottom, has become more and more isolated from our natural allies and, indeed, some of us have developed too much contempt and distaste for those who ought to be our allies, and would be if we would let them. The roster would run something like the minority groups, the youth, the students, progressive churches, liberal and progressive academies and academics, even the radicals and the social activists can be our allies, and last but not least, the en- vironmentalists. We are not an is- land unto ourselves anymore.”’ That section of the speech which deals with union solidarity is even “more applicable to the Canadian scene: “Support your local public em- ~ ployees who are organized. They’re taking their lumps right now from the right wing budget cuts . ... and all of that kind of thing, If the police, firemen, sanitation or office employees are up against it, demon- strate with them against layoffs or wage: freezes or cutbacks. Show some solidarity to the community — . fight for your brothers and sis- ters. Fight for genuine tax reform, not tax cuts. If you don’t, and the city bossses get away with freezing wages or firing those public employees and using strike break- ers, don’t forget that you’re next. cold war volicie’ } “Support other unions that strike in your community in the private enterprise sector. Their existence is threatened too. If we don’t go back to the strong helping the weak, we are all going to lose the war.”’ It must be said that there are ob- - vious omissions in Winpisinger’s assessment of the American scene. For example, he does not deal ex- tensively with American foreign policy and touches hardly at all on the role of arms spending in fueling inflation. Nevertheless, -he leaves the impression that he is not un- aware of these problems. It is almost as if he omitted or skirted around certain issues for tactical considerations. In dealing with the disruptive and splitting role of the American trade union movement in promoting the cold war abroad in the late forties and in the fifties, he makes a sad commentary: “For years and years, the Business Roundtable of this country ac- cepted, they said, the principle of free trade unions — the recognition of free trade unions in the U.S. It was in return for a commitment by the American labor movement to promote democratically-controlled trade unions abroad. They have forsaken their commitment. It will condition how we conduct our af- Name...-..: Address ........: City ortown ......... Postal Code ...... LARVA AT ATT | Old[] New ] RIiBUN Read the paper that fights for labor "eee eee ‘ ee en wenn sl] am eaeiosina: 1 year $10[ ] 2 years $18[ ] 6 months $6] fairs elsewhere in the world in # future.’’ (The unions in other co tries referred to were in many ¢c@ promoted and funded by the © “— JP.) It would be wrong for me to tempt a definitive analysis of U speech in relation to the overall p? litical scene in the U.S. There 4% many American writers who @ more qualified to do that. How ever, I agree with the IAM c¢ ‘when hé says that Preside Carter’s economics “‘come stralgi from corporate boardrooms.” Ful ther, I must, welcome his call © dump Carter at the next election, ™ favor of a president who will PY the country ‘‘back on the road economic and social justice.’ In my case, as a Canadian, main: conclusion I, draw from thi speech is that those Canadians wi® portray the American labor move ment as a monolithic, reactional mass are dead wrong. It is partic larly important for us to be cogt! zant of the growing opposition American unions to what Georgt Meany and his pals stand for. 4 these currents grow stronger, it be increasingly difficult for leadel of international unions to deny f autonomy to their Canadi members and, eventually, full dependence. ‘ an eo eee 8 8 ee 88 ee ee Oe ... Province... Foreign 1 year $12 fe) Donation $.......-.-