4 : E i t MG va EDITORIAL Need gov t commitment The people right across Canada who are participat- ing in and supporting and signing the petitions for the Peace Petition Caravan Campaign are on the right track. The Tory government of Brian Mulroney is on the wrong track in its reckless bid to compound Cana- da’s multi-billion dollar military budget. Dollars for insecurity and increased danger of a nuclear war is what the Tories are dealing in. But Ottawa is going to hear from Canada’s peace emissaries who will arrive in the capital for an Oct. 20 rally and the presentation of signed petitions gathered by the caravans travelling from the east and west coats. Like rivulets that join up as streams and eventually become a mighty river, the thousands of individual sig- natures will come together in Ottawa and make a pow- erful statement about Canadian opinion. That will not _ be the end of the pressure on the Mulroney government, which will need to be kept up for as long as the threat of nuclear war remains. But this will be the Tory regime’s first encounter with the Canadian peace movement since it was elected on Sept 4. It is essential that every support be given to make the desired impression on the government. The demands of the petition encompass the ideas of a multitude of peace organizations throughout the coun- try. They make a very clear call upon the government: end the testing of the U.S. cruise missile in Canada; declare Canada a nuclear weapons-free zone; divert military expenditures to fund human needs; and call a free vote in Parliament on these issues. Bland assurances from the Mulroney forces that they do want peace, will not do. They have to show it in deeds. Lining up with the military agenda of the U.S., which the new federal government has made a priority, outweighs mere words. Mulroney is called upon to respond to the ardent actions of Canadians with actual commitments to a policy of peace and disarmament. Keys to a peace policy In. the welter of provocative militarism emanating from the U.S., sane pronouncements from the stand- point of world peace, come as welcome guide posts to saving humankind from nuclear annihilation. Specifically, the speeches of Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko to the Board of the Soviet Writers’ Union, Sept. 25, and that of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 27, encourage the efforts of all those taking part in peace struggles. The world-wide millions with whom countless tens of thousands of Canadians see eye to eye on the need for permanent peace, cannot but welcome positions against war and in favor of peace and disarmament. Chernenko pointed to the grim truth of the nuclear threat internationally — no country spared. “One has to fight the nuclear threat vigorously and purposefully,” he urged. He said the state of relations between the USSR and the U.S. “determines to a constderable extent the state of affairs in the international arena.” The Soviet Union, he said, is “categorically opposed to confrontation in the military sphere,” and is “reso- lutely in favor of radical limitation and reduction in the arms race and total elimination of nuclear weapons.” Chernenko made a point that should be thoroughly considered by every peace activist, no matter of what conviction. It “does not boil down to a choice between the USSR and the U.S. as anti-communists not infre- quently claim. It is a choice between the life and death of our civilization. . .one is either with those who are pre- paring for war, or with those who reject imperialism’s adventurous policy, who work for peaceful co- existence, for disarmament.” An understanding of those words is crucial to the future of human life, and all life on our planet. When Gromyko spoke at the UN General Assembly he urged recognition of the world body as a vehicle for ending the arms race. He called attention to the “lofty purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter” signed in 1945 when the rubble of World War II was not yet cleared, when the Soviet/Western alliance was not yet chilled by the Cold War. Gromyko castigated those states which contravened the UN covenant, which instead “swore allegiance to a ‘policy from a position of strength,’ a policy of brink- makship.” He was accurately reporting fact when he noted that as early as 1946 the Soviet Union introduced a draft resolution on the prohibition “for all time of the pro- duction and use of nuclear weapons and on the destruc- tion of their stockpiles.” While this has not even now been achieved, serious steps toward that obvjective could be realized, as Cher- nenko said last March, if the nuclear powers agreed to forego first use of nuclear weapons, worked for equal security of all countries and for the reduction of nuclear armaments up to and including their complete elimina- tion. Certainly, the way to reduce the arms build-up, and to ease the danger of nuclear war is not by escalating military budgets and forces as Canada’s Tory govern- ment proposes. The only road forward is through peaceful negotiations. N ARMS . { | LIMITATION \ TALKE ah Steinberg Inc., Montreal, which owns Steinberg’s Shoppi Centres Ltd., Steinberg Realty Ltd., Steinberg Foods Ltd., a other subsidiaries, showed an after-tax profit for the year ended July 28 of $15,021,000. The year earlier figure was $13,392,000. Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR Graphics — ANGELA KENYON Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5 r Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada — $14 one year; $8 six months Foreign — $20 one year; Second class mail registration number 1560 t has never been a point of dispute that intellectual depth is not a prerequisite for memberhsip in the Social Credit cabinet. But still, when you hear or read Levy, an outspoken anti-Soviet and foe of People and issues the Canadian peace movement, will be leading the fight against council’s disar- mament positions. And we can say with the utterances of Don Phillips, the minister of industry and small business develop- ment, it gives that statement a whole new dimension in meaning. A recent letter written by Phillips is a prize case in point. Phillips penned the note in response to a copy of a letter to the editor in the Nanaimo Times which he had received from Gabriola Island resident Don Nor- din. Nordin, who is also the chair of the local Solidarity Coalition, had written the Times editor to comment on the proposed contract between Amca International and the Ironworkers Local 712 covering the Amca project at Duke Point. The contract was twice turned down by the Ironworkers because it contained wage concessions. The rejection prompted a business and government campaign against the trade union movement as well as attempts by the local Chamber of Commerce to set up a company union. In his letter, Nordin had stated that working people did not want to have their wages and conditions “dictated to them” and went on from there to criticize the Social Credit government’s economic priorities. Copies of the letter went to Premier Bennett and Phillips among oth- ers. Here is Phillips’ reply: “I read, with a great deal of interest, your comments regarding the present situation in British Columbia and your thoughts regarding the Nanaimo Duke Point situation. “Of course, after reading your letter and realizing where you were coming from I have to understand that you are, like most Communists, more interested in the dis- tribution of wealth than you are in the creation of wealth. “While you, I imagine, live in your fairy wonderland: on Gabriola Island you are not really in touch with what is happening in the real world today. However, I must realize that it is people like you who bark from the back yards of those living in your fairyland who really do nothing to con- tribute to the well-being of your fellow man. Thank you again for sending me a copy of your letter.” * * * Psmars it only rates a footnote, if that, in the account of the movement for world peace. But the appearance of the little orange flyers on the windshields of cars belonging to some Tribune staffers last week requires some comment. The flyers, neatly typeset on 8’2” by 11” sheets and emblazoned with the headline “Communist Statements Favoring Nuclear War,” list several “quotes” from various sources which purport to reveal that the socialist world thinks a nuclear conflict can be won. The quotes are either from leftist or ultra-left sources, or, allegedly, from Soviet journals. The latter are either single sentences or fragments of sentences. We have no idea who is responsible for the leaflets, since these bear no organiza- - tion’s name or address. And we can only guess at the reason why this leaflet, with its toally erroneous claim that the USSR and its allies favor nuclear war, has appeared at this time. : May we suggest its appearance was ‘inspired by the civic election, which includes, for the first time anywhere in Canada, a plebiscite initiated by the Committee of Progressive Electors alder- men on discontinuing cruise missile testing in Canada? And might we add that, one day before the leaflets appeared, Mayor Mike Harcourt said council’s numerous peace initiatives would be a major issue in the campaign? We need only add the observation that one of the council candidates for the right- wing Non-Partisan Association, David conviction that, as with all other efforts to discredit popular peace initaitives and peace workers as “playing into the hands of Moscow,” it will meet a resounding defeat. * * * t isn’t the perfect answer, with a decidely less-than-perfect situation for B.C. tenants. But at least the Tenants’ Rights Action Centre has something to make tenancy in B.C. a little more palatable. The Tenant Survival Guide, produced _ by the centre’s staff during the summer months, is now available, centre director David Lane reports. In 24 pages the guide gives a clause-by-clause description of the new Residential Tenancy Act — the one that abolishes the Rentalsman’s office and other previous forms of tenant protections — and outlines what rights tenants have remaining under the recent legislation. It also provides addresses of other tenant groups and housing registries and lists municipalities where the “government agents” replacing the Rentalsman staff are located. The survival guide is available — some- times a small fee is asked — at the Action” Centre, Suite 203, 96 East Broadway St. in Vancouver, phone 879-9137. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 17, 1984 « ~ JIRIBUNE |