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Policies — Kashtan

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that it be continued for three
more years, illustrates that its
stance of independence is more
posture than reality.

“Thus, on the central question
of Canadian development, stand-
ards and jobs, the performance
of the Government has been tot-
ally inadequate.

“The working class and de-
mocratic movement,” he said,
“must avoid being tied to these
policies and must continually
advance genuine alternatives to
these policies, without neces-
sarily forcing an election.

“The results of the Parliamen-
tary session so far,” Mr. Kash-
tan concluded, ‘emphasize the
need for a much more far-reach-
ing program to cope with the
basic problems facing the coun-
try and its working people, the
essence of which are to really
curb the power of monopoly.”

While shoppers across Cana-
,da are paying more each week
for food (Toronto prices jumped
5.7% from March ’72 to March
’73) they are also fighting back.

In Parliament, only the Con-
servatives opposed setting up a
new food prices review board;
instead plumping for a 90-day
freeze on prices and wages,
which would give the food pro-
fiteers a further period of un-
hindered harvest at the public’s
expense.

Unfortunately, in the view of
most shoppers, the board lacks
teeth, and will only serve the
Canadian people if tremendous
pressure is brought on it and
the Government. 2

Women Against Soaring Prices,
based in Toronto, in its national
campaign to battle skyrocketing
food prices, has demanded “a

Ontario budget facing
fast-rising opposition

Opposition to the Ontario
budget has mounted steadily
since the time it was brought
down by Ontario Treasurer John
White April 12.

Featured -in the “hold-the-
line” budget are two retrograde
steps: the retail sales tax is in-
creased from 5 to 7%, and now
extends to cover electricity, gas,
oil and other heating sources,
but not for industry.

Backbenchers among White’s
own party have been disturbed
by the bad publicity the budget
has produced among the people.
One, MPP John Smith (Hamil-
ton Mountain), broke ranks and
voted against the government,
saying that “I feel I am in close
enough contact with my people
to know what they want.”

Other Tory backbenchers are
expected to give White a rough
time when the caucus meets to
discuss the budget this week.
About 12 have indicated their
dissatisfaction with White’s pro-
posal.

Long-time Tory  standard-
bearer, the Toronto Globe and
Mail, blasted the budget pro-
posals and White’s arguments as

“specious,” and called the in-
creased sales tax regressive. It
also called into doubt his state-
ment that future tax credits
will offset increased sales taxes,
and suggested that any gains
made by municipalities will not
be offset by ‘a tax increase

whose equity is suspect, whose

necessity is in doubt, .. . . and
whose place in a high unem-
ployment economy is all wrong.”

Demonstrations protesting the
budget have been held by. the
Ontario Committee of the Com-
munist Party, and Women
Against Soaring Prices. (WASP)

The Metropolitan Toronto
Labor Council stated that “the
Tories have placed the major
burden. of taxation on _ the
shoulders of low-income taxpay-
ers,” and “the people of this
province should, by now, have
realized that Davis’ Tories have
lost the right and their capacity
to govern.”

But none of this seems to
have gotten through to Mr.
White. He has repeatedly insist-
ed that he will not back down
and repeal the 7% on energy, in
spite of the many protests.

prices review board with power
to immediately stop price in-
creases and roll back prices of
food, clothing, housing, drugs
and other basic necessities of
life ee

Real Culprit

In recent weeks, meat boy-
cotts have had a definite effect
in Canada, in lowering prices of
beef, but their sponsors say,
without continued pressure they
inevitably rise again.

The “real culprit is profiteer-
ing by the food monopolies,”
charged Pat Anderson, who
chaired a Vancouver meeting to
set up a co-ordinating commit-
tee to fight food price boosts.

In Montreal, more than_ half
the shoppers interviewed by the
Montreal. Gazette at the height
of the boycott, said they were
by-passing beef. Some were boy-
cotting all meat because: what
hasn’t gone up?

The Gazette’s Linda Cahill
reported that as “housewife
Laurette Sloan handed out leaf-
lets denouncing chain stories as
responsible for high prices . . .
almost all (shoppers) wheeled
past the steak counter.”

In Vancouver, where a “don’t
buy beef” campaign had “tre-
mendous” results, there were ad-
ditional protests against profit-
eering on fish.

Something Fishy

“It is particularly noticeable
during the meat boycott, how
the price of fish jumped and how
some supermarket outlets were
really testing the consumer pub-
lic,” wrote H. K. Warren in the
Pacific Tribune.

Prices of halibut were up from
$1.29 a pound to $1.59, and in
one store, to: $1.89.

“There have been no halibut
‘landings yet this year,” the com-
mentator pointed out (at his
time of writing), “. . . so that
any halibut. in stock is from last
year’s landings. In addition, the
last landings were late in 1972
. . . the prices were 50¢ per
pound for large, 68.3¢ for. me-
dium.” In September, it reached

.80.6¢ per pound — “an all-time

high.”
No Wage Boosts
It’s worth noting too that there
have been no wage settlements
in the fish packing industry
since 1971 — so the increase is

.pure gouging by the packers.

In a leaflet circulated by the
women’s league of Quebec, # is
pointed out that 76.8% of all
money spent on food in Canada,
goes to larger supermarket
chains and larger “independent”
grocers, although they make up
only 18% of the total number of
food stores.

The leaflet gives an example
of what would happen if it were
the farmers who were getting
more money. On the basis of
figures of the Union of Agricul-
tural Producers, a farmer gets
five percent of the consumer’s

. dollar spent on broiler turkeys.

At 60¢ a pound in supermarkets,
the farmer gets three cents. If
the farmer wanted to increase
his revenue by 50%, this would
increase the consumer price by
only one-and-a-half cents. Yet
fowl prices, too, have zoomed.

Unite in Fight

In Vancouver, the Co-ordinat-
ing Committee ‘of Concerned
Organizations was set up by
People Against Soaring Prices,
Women Against High Prices,
National Anti-Poverty Organiza-
tion and the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers Women’s
Auxilliary.

In Metro Toronto, Women
Against Soaring Prices, and the
Ontario Anti-Poverty Organiza-
tion, to which it is affiliated,
have demonstrated at food
stores, collected figures on the
processors’ profits (some of
which appeared in these pages);
and WASP is circulating a post
card demanding an. effective
prices board, not just a decoy.
The present board’s terms are
“couched in Sunday school leaf-
let language,” as commentator
Helen Frane of Ottawa, put it.

Farmers, fishermen, food work-
ers and the working class as a
whole know that they are not
getting the spoils of the high
food prices. From every quarter
they are charging the processors,
chain stores and advertising mo-
nopolies with looting the family
budget to pile up extra millions
in profits.

Indications are that the unity
of the people to curb the mono-
polies is building, and that with
such people’s unity, the price
spiral can be stopped, and prices
rolled back within reach of the
working-class family budget.

| For Peace, Jobs, Independence!

=

e .
Continued from page 5

anomie domination by every means

“"aluable, including nationalization.
ihe: adequately protect and advance
he ed usEle for democratic rights and
S of Canada’s working people it is
W essential to win economic indepen-
ae _The main enemy is monopoly
Pitalism. Canadian monopoly prom-
suk, its own narrow class interests by
Cay tdinating the national interests of
To ada to those of U.S. imperialism.
or Win genuine independence means
faking the stranglehold of monopoly.
Mon: chief instrument of the anti-
Be jbely struggle must be an indepen-
trad? Sovereign and united Canadian
€ union movement; united in fra-

| ite Solidarity and co-operation with
Y of all nations; a movement with
™m class approach and operating on

a fir

the premise of true working class inter-
national solidarity. |

We greet the international solidarity
which has emerged in defense of trade
union and democratic rights in Canada.
We demand the unconditional release
of the three Quebec labor leaders,
Louis Laberge, Marcel Pepin and
Yvon Charbonneau, plus a number of
other workers presently incarcerated
in Quebec prisons for trade union
activity. oat : :

Having played an increasingly vital
role in the securing of peace in Viet-
nam and Laos, Canadian workers and
their trade unions are now faced with
the equally vital responsibility of see-
ing to it that this hard won victory for
peace is consolidated, and extended to
all of Indochina and to the world. Can-

ada’s trade unions can and should play
a key-role in providing leadership in
this fight to win and consolidate world
peace, as the solid base for expanded
trade, jobs and increasing cooperation
between the Socialist and capitalist sec-
tors of the world.

Demonstrate this May Day for full
employment, for independence, for
democratic and trade union rights and
for world peace!

Break the big business conspiracy to
undermine the living standards of
working people and their hard won
democratic rights!

No surrender of the precious right to .
organize, to strike and to picket! For-
ward to new victories for the working
class in 1973!

Central Executive Committee
Communist Party of Canada —

‘ Om C47

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1973—PAGE 9

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