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25 years ago...

COMMUNIST GAIN
IN FRENCH VOTE

The French people, voting for
anew National Assembly on Jan.
2 repudiated in no uncertain
terms the policies of German
Tearmament, colonial oppres-
sion in North Africa and com-
plete dependence on the U.S.
persued by the outgoing major-
ity of Prime Minister Edgar
Faure.

His right-of-centre coalition
expecting to emerge as the
majority force suffered a severe
setback. Former Premier
Mendes-France too, heading a
Coalition of centerist parties and
the Socialists, failed to gain
Sufficient support to form a new
government.

The Communist Party, led by
Maurice Thorez, made sweep-
ing advances. At Tribune press
time incomplete return gave the
PCF 147 seats excluding those in
Algeria where elections have
been delayed. _ Tribune,

January 9, 1956

50 years ago...

NEED PEDIGREE
TO SHOVEL SNOW

MONTREAL — Five
hundred unemployed men have
been refused jobs shovelling
snow in the past two days as a
result of a by-law recently passed
which requires applicants for re-
lief jobs to produce documen-
tary evidence from an alderman
that they are “bonafide citizens”.

These men have to produce
identity cards, including photo-
graphs, under this provision
which aims directly at black-
listing militant elements and at
the frightening of aliens from
applying for “relief” for fear of
deportation. é

In several cities workers are
now being asked to give their
complete pedigree as a condi-
tion of getting a lousy relief job
at starvation wages these days to
be permitted to shovel snow.

The Worker,
January 10, 1931

Profiteer of the week:

When you wish upon a star, don’t make it
Genstar Ltd., Montreal, because you'll be the
payer, not the payee. Genstar’s businesses
are land ‘development’, home and commer-
cial construction, manufacture of materials
like cement, ship building and transport, etc.
In the nine months ended Sept. 30/80 they
grabbed an after-tax profit of $97,248,000 from

* the folks out there.

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
: Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
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EDITORIAL
COMMENT

Developing lands and us

‘Prime Minister Trudeau’s three-con-
tinent journey is advertized as a pre-
liminary to talks between poor countries
and rich countries, which are part of an
on-going series.

The so-called North/South dialogue
seeks a basis on which mutual advantage
can be had when capitalist countries as-
sist the developing countries. For the
developing countries the centrepiece of
such a quest is the New International
Economic Order adopted by the United
Nations on May 1, 1974.

It notes: “The developing countries,
which constitute 70% of the world’s
population, account for only 30% of the
world’s income.” - es

It demands a “just and equitable” rela-
tionship between the prices developing
countries pay for what they must buy
and the goods they sell. And it requires
that they be given “access to the
achievements of modern science and
technology and the creation of indigin-
ous technology ...”

External Affairs Minister Mark Mac-
Guigan calls it “an aspect of Canada’s
foreign policy which will be assigned a
very high priority during the eighties .. .
This priority is the evolution,” he
acknowledges, “of a new international
economic order. ...”

Inthe same speech, Oct. 9, 1980, to the
Royal Commonwealth Society, Mac-
Guigan disclosed: “Of the 800 million of
the world’s poorest people (excluding
the socialist countries), some 80% live in
the Commonwealth countries.”

He added that “almost a billion people
live on the borderline of the most fun-
damental of human requirements: food,

shelter, health care, sanitation, clean wa-
ter, education — things which all hu-
mans have a right to expect.”

It would be a good thing if Canadians
began right now to hold him and his
government to these words and to de-
mand action on his other observation
that, “The level of expenditures on
armaments is not only a threat to world
security. It cuts heavily into the resources
that ,could be made available for
development.”

The Soviet Union’s proposal for a 10%
arms cut by the major powers, with the
money going to aid under-developed
lands, was long ago presented to the UN.
It was at the UN that MacGuigan as-
serted on Sept. 22, 1980: “... there can-
not be authentic or enduring security in

‘the world as long as there is widespread

global poverty and economic injustice.”

But according to Laurence Birns, di-
rector of the Council on Hemispheric
Affairs, “All the talk about the Third
World doesn’t mean a thing if the Cana-
dian Government continues to have ac-
tive business relations with oppressive
regimes.” He said in Toronto, Jan. 3,
that 75% of Canadian investment in the
Third World goes to Latin America, in-
cluding regimes which violate human
rights. .

MacGuigan must be told that he can
best serve Canada’s interests by insisting

- on U.S. disarmament. negotiation, in-

cluding ratification of SALT II, by turn-
ing Canada’s foreign policy away from
the commands of the multi-national
corporations and in the interests of
development, disarmament, and a new
world economic order, in fact.

Nationalize Canada’s oil!

The natural resources of Canada
belong to the people of Canada, not to
the multi-national corporations fatten-
ing in their U.S. lairs. And eventually
the people of Canada will take those
resources, no matter how treacherous
the provincial governments in the hire
of U.S. monopoly.

Canada’s resources — with emphasis
on energy resources — must be
nationalized if this country’s economy is
not to be wrecked by the priorities of the
multi-nationals.

It is not only insolent, it is one more

blot on its record as a “corporate citizen”,

for Imperial Oil, for example, to tell

_ Canadians that just for not re-electing

Tory Joe Clark who would hand the
country to the oil monopolies, the
ople of Canada are going to be

punished by being deprived of a full

supply of oil, on Imperial’s decision.
_ This parasite corporation extorted
$40-million from the federal big busi-

ness Liberal government to keep its’

Syncrude oil sands project operating.
Now it is making further threats.
Imperial, along with other oil multi-
nationals is engaged in blackmail, de-
manding ransom — not in exchange for
handing over the energy resources to
their real owners, the Canadian people,
handing over the energy resources to
their real owners, the Canadian people,

but to allow a bigger trickle of oil.

How long will the people of this
country agree to buy at inflated prices
products which belong to them in the
first place?

The demand for nationalization of
oil, voiced by labor, could not be more
timely. Public ownership under dem-
ocratic control, as the Communist Party
puts it, must replace control by the
corporations and the big business
governments.

: , , 6
Reason’s voice
At the annual meeting in Toronto of

the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, a heartening
number of public lectures and symposia
were devoted to topics of disarmament
and arms control, the effect of the arms
build-up on the economy, and scientists’
responsibilities therein.

While the gatherings were interna-
tional in character, the U.S. participants
were notable as voices of reason, simply
because of a rational approach far re-
moved from the official war policies of
the U.S. administration. As more than
one pointed out, scientists have a respon-
sibility to help prevent nuclear annihila-
tion. These gatherings indicated a
willingness by scientists to accept that re-
sponsibility.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 16, 1981—Page 3