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The new covered cycling track has opened in Moscow as competitions begin to select the Soviet cycle team.

Olympic rehearsal

The stadium will seat 7,500 spectators.

Alberta cuts welfare as tally
Shows billion dollar surplus

By K. CARIOU

EDMONTON — Extensive
welfare cutbacks were revealed
recently by the Alberta Public
Accounts for the 1978-79 fiscal
year. ‘‘Alberta saves $25-million
by cutting back welfare’, read a
headline in the Edmonton Jour-
nal, over a story which also re-
vealed a $1.097-billion budget
surplus.

“Miss Hunley (former social
services minister) just felt that the
appetite for social assistance was
growing like the appetite of a
diabetic dog’’, according to
Catherine Arthur, executive as-
sistant to Hunley and now to the
paesent minister, Bob Bogle.

gle is not available to the press
much these days, since he

arherd. pubis, ire by seizing the
es Of various Métis groups, and
tried to stonewall investigations
into mistreatment of juveniles at
provincial institutions under his
jurisdiction. :
But Arthur explained that wel-
fare restrictions began on Hun-
ley’s initiative on April 1, 1978. At
that time, single mothers with one
child over four months were told
either to find work or enter job
counselling or training programs.
Also, able-bodied, employable

persons were given a two-week-

maximum of welfare. Arthur
explained that the province would
rather be known as “‘the tough
neighborhood lady who doesn’t
give our cookies at the back
door’, so that people wouldn't
come here for welfare. The
department’s new policy, she
Says, is to encourage recipients to
find work and change their life-
style.

In an interview with the
Tribune, Arthur defended Hun-
ley’s “diabetic dog’’ remarks,
saying “it was a fact, and she
never shied away from the truth.”’
However, Arthur admitted that
there was ‘‘no evidence’’ at the
time or since of large numbers of
people coming to the province for
welfare. The numbers of reci-

pients had been rising, from -

31,000 in 1975 to 36,000 in 1978,
but unemployment rose also,
from 3.5% to 4.7% between 1974
and 1978. Since the rule changes,
the welfare rolls have: held at the
same. level, but unemployment
has dropped. Unemployment and
welfare go hand in hand for many
in the province, especially among.
Native people, who have few job
or training opportunities in rural
areas.

‘They didn’t cut back on their

plush offices, did they?”’, was the
comment of Shona Pacholuk, a

director of Humans on Welfare, a
local self-help group, when con-
tacted by the Tribune. She points
out that the severe social prob-
lems faced by Albertans on wel-
fare are not addressed by the so-
cial services. department. For
example, she says, a young single
mother is expected to find day-
care for her child, take it ‘maybe
halfway across town’ every
morning, and pick it up again after
school or work. ‘‘A lot of them
lose contact with their kids. Why
isn’t the daycare right there at the
school, where they can feed their
children themselves?’’ Some
young mothers, she says, find the
situation so frustrating that they
have another child to qualify for
long-term assistance without hav-
ing to. go to work or school.

~ Welfare rates are due to be in-
creased in April, Pacholuk says,
probably by 9%, or not nearly
enough. Currently, the rates are
as follows: an adult receives $71
per month for food, and $22 for

clothing; children up to 11 get $34 -

and $15 for the same items, and
children aged 12-17 get $59 and
$16. Adults receive a personal al-
lowance of $15 per month.
Household allowances are $8 per
month for single persons and $13
for families. Rent, fuel and
utilities are covered up to certain
maximums, for example $340 per
month for two persons, or $500
per month for families of five or
more. .

At the same time the Tories
worry over ‘‘outsiders’’ flocking
here for these sumptuous bene-
fits, the corporations have never
had it so good. ‘Alberta
Economic Accounts’’, published
by the provincial treasury last
September, shows that corpora-
tion profits, plus interest and
miscellaneous investment in-
come, in current dollars, rose
from $1.384-billion in 1970 to
$9.447-billion in 1978, or from
20% of the gross provincial pro-
duct to 33% in just 8 years.

RCMP circulated
suspect list abroad

OTTAWA — The names of
about 100 Canadians, including 21
federal government employees,
are on a list of suspected ‘‘subver-

sives’’ which was circulated to.

foreign governments in the fall of
1971. This revellation.at hearings
of the McDonald Commission
into Royal Canadian Mounted
Police wrongdoing was made
Feb. 28, when it was indicated
that no one knows how the intelli-
gence agencies of those countries
have used the list.

John Starnes; who was
director-general of the RCMP
security service at that time,
testified that the list had been
‘“‘teaked’’ even though, in his
words, ‘‘our findings were rather
inconclusive,’’ and the list was
“only tentative”.

In addition, the  solicitor-
general of the day, Jean-Pierre
Goyer circulated a part of the list
to some Cabinet colleagues, a
procedure which endangered the
livelihood of those ‘‘tentatively”’

suspected by the RCMP. One of
Rudnicki,

those, Walter
employed by the civil service for
18 years, is suing Goyer for libel.
The other names along with
Walter Rudnicki’s are some-
where in various countries’ sub-
versive files. While the countries
were not identified, there were
indications that the USA, Britain

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 21, 1980—Page 8

and the Netherlands may have
been three of them.

Starnes told the Commission

that the RCMP was not trying to.

track down any illegal acts by
those listed.

“It was simply determining if
there were persons for whom
there were any reasonable

grounds for suspecting were de- °

liberately leaking classified in-
formation ... Our findings at that
time certainly were in-
conclusive.”’

However, the degree of Jean-
Pierre Goyer's. dedication to
‘‘subversive’’-hunting, or of
painting people as subversives
was indicated in his response: *‘I
would do the same thing over
again.” Z

More recently, another former
solicitor-general, Francis. Fox
(1976-78) told the McDonald
Commission, March 4, that the
state police “‘should be re-
sponsible to people who are
elected,” that decisions ‘“‘should
not be left solely in the hands ofa

‘security police.”” Fox took the

step of setting up the McDonald
Commission during his term of
office. Re-elected in the Feb. 18
election, he has been named sec-
retary of state and minister of
communications in the Trudeau
Cabinet.

Ever since the October Revolu-
tion in 1917, .the predominant
foreign policy interest of the
western capitalist countries has
been to impede the development
and growth of socialism through-
out the world. Their determined
efforts in this regard have been
their most consistent feature
throughout the 20th century.

They began with an attempt to
crush, by military force, the
Soviet government just after it
took power. They then tried toiso-
late the Soviet Union from the

rest of the world. This activity has .

also found expression in their re-
fusal to help the heroic Republi-
cans in Spain, and in their ac-
tivities against Korea in 1950, Iran
in 1954, Vietnam in the Sixties,
the Dominican Republic in 1964,
Chile in 1973, and Afghanistan
since 1978. The examples are leg-
ion, and in their totality they make
a chilling list of crimes against
humanity and on behalf of a
rogue’s gallery of thieves and cut-
throats. ,

There is not one capitalist
country. that can claim to have
¢lean hands in this business. They
are all of them, in one way or an-
other, sometimes acting separate-
ly, sometimes in combination, re-
sponsible for the Shah of Iran, for
Pinochet, and for the others like
them who infest this world.

In every case, people who are
actively working for peace,
democracy and socialism. have
denounced these official mis-
deeds, and have pointed out why

they occur. And in évery case,

their voices have been all but
drowned out by the big business
newspapers which manufactured
stories and excuses to confuse
people and to cover up for their
governments’ activities.
Fortunately, the truth always
comes out eventually. Sooner or
later, an honest historian will pub-
lish a book containing the facts
about official attempts to turn
back the tide of progress.
_ One such book, stuffed full of
facts about western intervention
against the infant Soviet govern-
ment, has recently been written
by Andrew Rothstein. ;
The -book is based on the of-
ficial papers and unpublished
memoirs of Douglas Young, the

British Consul in Archangel, a

northern Russian seaport, from
November, 1915 until August,

“1918.
It should perhaps be pointed —

out that Young was never particu-
larly sympathetic to either social-
ism or the the Bolsheviks. He
was, however, a principled man
working for an unprincipled

government. He conducted his.

life according to a firm belief ina
sense of morality and honor

which made the keeping of one’s .
’ word a matter of prime impor-

tance. His misfortune was that he
expected the government officials
for whom he worked to abide by
the same moral code. At a cost of

_ enormous personal hardship, he

discovered that this was not the
case.
Through the use of extensive

quotations from Young’s own ~

papers, released only after his
death in 1967, and from other re-
lated documents, Rothstein de-
velops a detailed picture of the

deceit and contempt which —

characterized British relations
with the Soviet Union.

The big lie

begins |

ee 1
When Britain Invaded Soviet ha
sia, Andrew Rothstein, The Jour

neyman Press, London, Englant
1979. 140 pp. $7.50. ;

Young sent numerous official
Consular messages from ‘
changel to the British Foreign
Office telling them, in effect, that
the Bolsheviks enjoyed popt®
support: among - the population
and that the wisest course for Br
tain would be that of peace @*
friendship. The Foreign Office,
meanwhile, was plotting t0 ©»
rupt the Soviet economy ane
ment a civil war by supplyint
arms and food to Generals Kor
chak and Denikin. They were also
laying plans to launch their om
military operations in support °

_ the campaign being waged by the

anti-Bolshevik forces. =

By. March, 1919, half a yer
after Young’s departure from **
changel, the combined military
force there amounted to 13,10
British, 4,820 Americans, 2:0)
French, 1,340 Italians, 1,200
Serbs and 11,770 Russians who
were conscripted by the west
allies. Rothstein gives a deta”
but, by his own admission, my
complete, list of the numerous”
occasions on which the Russiat)
soldiers mutinied and went ovey
to the side of the Red Army. .

After Young returned to Eng
land, he spent considerable time

trying to convince both the British
government and public that inter
vention was a policy doomed 10
failure. He was opposed in this
mission by the very government
which he loyally served, and by

‘most of the British media. The

newspapers, led by the London
Times, were busy turning truthon
its head. Their favourite storie _
were that the people who over
threw Tsardom were the al
criminals, and that the enemies ®
Bolshevism, Kolchak and Dent
kin, enjoyed more popular SUP
port than did the Bolsheviks
themselves. -
“Tf this sounds familiar, it is be
cause it was the beginning of the

Big Lie, a propaganda met
perfected by Goebbels and prat
ticed today by those who would

confuse and distort the reality
events in Iran and Afghanistal. —
The more books like this that
we read, the better we will under
stand the methods of operation 0
the cold war politicians and theif
media servants. Re
_— Alan Pickersgil

USSRUSA |
TRADE UNIONS |
COMPARED

by George Morris.

— by a US Communist with long
labor experience who knows the
internationals and their
leadership. © :

— who knows what questions
concern North American
workers

— who writes in easy to read
language

Order a small bundle of 5 copies 5
and help stop Cold War lies
50c each or 5 for $2.00

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