‘U.S. firms try to block
$30 million sale to Cuba

Yanks tighten grip on Canada’s trade

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INDIA - PAKISTAN

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WHAT IS THE SOLUTION
TO THE TRAGIC WAR? .

—See Page 12

B.C. Communist candidates

CHARLES CARON, left, is the Communist Party candidate for Coast-Capilano,
Ne SANDY MOWERS, right, who was nominated in Okanagan-Revelstoke.
National headquarters have announced that 16 candidates will be named

th
Victoria, (See details on page 3).

@ country. Nomination meetings have been set in Vancouver South and

By MAURICE RUSH

Three of Canada’s biggest milling companies refused recently to partici-
pate in a $30 million sale of Canadian flour to Cuba because as subsidiaries
of U.S. firms they are barred by Washington’s Trading With the Enemy Act
to do business with Cuba, China and North Vietnam.

The three companies are
among the giants in Canada’s
milling industry — Robin Food
Flour Mills, Quaker Oats and
Pillsbury, Other Canadian
millers will handle the Cuban
shipments, the Canadian Millers’
Association announced,

Lashing out at the stand taken
by the three milling companies,
William Kashtan, national leader
of the Communist Party, said
last week that * Parliament should
pass a law preventing Canadian
subsidiaries of American firms
from subverting Canadian trade
policies,”

Kashtan recalled that a few
years ago a similar situation
arose when a U,S, parent firm
blocked the possible sale of Can-
adian-made trucks and cars to
China,

*It is time Parliament passed
legislation that would prevent
interference by U.S. parentfirms
in the export trade of Canada,”
said Kashtan,

New Democratic Party lea-

.der T.C, Douglas termed the

U.S. ban an “unwarranted, un-
justifiable intrusion by the U.S,
into Canadian affairs.”

Former Agriculture Minister
Alvin Hamilton condemned it as
“an invasion of our sovereignty,”

While the U.S, continues to
pressure Canada to adoptits cold
war trade policies, figures re-
leased in Ottawa last Tuesday
show that the U.S, is tightening
its stranglehold on Canadian
trade,

For many years the trade poli-
cies of successive Liberal and
Tory governments have collab-
orated with the U,S, in turning
the Canadian economy towards
producing mainly raw materials
for the U.S, market and buying
back manufactured goods from
the U.S, —

Big business groups behind
‘strong gov't’

drive for

“ae major pressure in Canada
ma 4 election to returna “strong
rity government” came from
impien es which is anxious to
Cles Ment certain unpopular pol-
Peony and block others which the
© want,
ang *Son bowed to this demand
Teser 18 Why he called the
ent election,

ce is the gist of a state-
een ted by the provincial
last Ve of the Communist Party

Week following a special

Prime Minister. |

meeting to get the party’s elec-
tion campaign into high gear,

The statement said that there

_ is mounting pressure for Canada

to join the Organization of Amer-
ican States, for a vast giveaway
of water and other resources to
the U.S., and to involve Canada
more deeply in the Vietnam war
in support of the U.S.

Big business in Canada is also
concerned with blocking new
social legislation and is bent on
electing a “strong majority gov-

ernment” which would have
enough strength to act as a steam-
roller to block popular pressure
building up for advanced social
legislation.

*The most important job be-
fore the electorate is to block
this big business plot and to
achieve the opposite result at
the polls by electing a large pro-
gressive group to the next Par-
liament dedicated to fighting for
peace, social progress and inde-
pendence,” said the statement,

This policy has resulted in a
one-sided dependence by Canada
on the U,S, and has tightened
the U.S, grip on Canada’s econ-
omy, It has been one of the
major threats to Canada’s inde-
pendence and sovereignty,

Now the latest trade figures
released by the Dominion Bureau
of Statistics show that in the
last year this trend, under Pear-
son’s Liberal government, has
increased,

January-June exports showed
a 12,6 percent increase in sales
to the U.S, compared with a year
ago and only minor gains in ex-
ports to Western Europe, the
Middle East and South America,
Exports to Britain, Eastern Eu-
rope, Africa, Asia and Central
America were down,

The U,S, increased its domin-
ance over Canada’s trade by
buying $2;2 billion worth of goods
‘during the six months or 58.1+.
percent of the overall total, This

was up from 52.5 percent last
year,

The important thing about our
trade with the U.S, was that it
marked a further increase in the
export of raw materials from
Canada,

The No, 1 export item to the
U.S. was newsprint followed by
wood pulp, Other important items
included natural gas and fertili-
zers which showed big gains,

The one-sided trade with the
U.S, has created a chronic crisis
in Canada’s trade balance, Each
year Canada has had to dip into
its foreign exchange funds to
meet the unfavorable trade bal-
ance with the U.S, amounting in
some cases to between $700
million and $1 billion a year,

There are reports from Ott-
awa that Canada is again this
year faced with a whopping un-
favorable trade balance, ex-
ceeding the $1.7 billion of last

See TRADE, pg. 10

PROTEST AT GERMAN CONSULATE. Some of the sixty men and women who pick-
eted the German Consulate in Vancouver last Friday to protest Ottawa's agree-

ment to allow West German troops to train and test equipment ct Camp

Manitoba. (See story page 2).

Shilo,
—Jack Phillips photo