Editorial

The national card

October 16, 1970, the October Crisis, the War Measures Act, the army ...
words that chill 20 years later. Enacted during the First World War to deal with
“enemy aliens,” the WMA history is long and reactionary. A graveyard at
Kapuskasing testifies to the Ukrainian-Canadian socialists who died in the
interment camps established under its name. Thousands more felt its weight:
the “foreign agitators” who lead the Winnipeg General Strike, Japanese
Canadians, Communists ....

- We now know there was no threat of an armed insurrection in 1970 as Pierre
Trudeau claimed. We also know that Pierre Laporte was sacrificed by his own
to create the crisis.

Retrospectives of those events imply that Canadians acquiesced quietly to
this suspension of democracy. While the outcry didn’t match the severity of
the attack, people did fight back.

_ The Communist Party was the first organization to rally on Parliament Hill
in the first days after the act came into force. Meetings were organized by
lawyers, churches, unions, students. A generation of young people politicized
by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements risked arrest to poster,
demonstrate and distribute flyers. aa

Mainstream debate called for modifying the more severe aspects of the
legislation, ignoring that laws were already in place to deal with kidnapping
and murder. But the War Measures Act wasn’t about law and order. It was
enforced to send a message to a people frustrated by the denial of their national
rights.

There were other targets: a labour movement pushed to militancy by a
jobless lineup one million long; a public sector beginning to voice opposition
to cuts in social spending; a revived anti-war movement. It was a cold and
calculating act of state power, a warning against dissent. It was to set the stage
for bringing in sweeping austerity measures one month later.

There is an eerie similarity being played out today. The army is again called
out, only this time aboriginal “separatists” are the example. A conservative
prime minister hopes his get-tough stance won’t be lost on a population both
fearful and angry over job losses, poverty, cuts in social spending and regres-
sive taxation.

The fact that the ruling class is able to play its national card so frequently,
and so successfully, to club all working people shouldn’t be lost on the Left.
It has a responsibility to articulate, and popularize a credible alternative to
national divisions. If we don’t, this is a card we will see played again and again
to the detriment of us all.

FUWALLY...WATEH 1T
LUDAPPESGR IVIE THAN Allie.

55 na RRA aa A NT GROANS

~

TRIBONE __

EDITOR
Sean Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk

GRAPHICS
Angela Kenyon

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t took 15 years of their lives before the
members of the Irish Guildford Four
were able to bring the frame-up contrived
by British police to light and finally win
their freedom from prison. The members
of the Birmingham Six — like the Four,

falsely accused of pub bombings in Bri-
tain — are. now going before an Appeal
Court, having managed after 14 years to
force into the open the falsified police
evidence that sent them to prison in the
first place. As case after case now coming
to light has demonstrated, there is little
that could be called justice in British
courts for Irish supporters of the repub-
lican cause.

It’s for that reason that the Irish

Solidarity Committee is taking up the
international campaign in this province for
support to stop the extradition to Britain of
Dessie Ellis, an Irish republican currently
being held in Portlaoise prison in Ireland.
He is charged with conspiracy in events
related to the conflict in Norther Ireland,
a charge which is virtually impossible to
disprove.

Earlier this month, Ellis began a hunger
strike in prison in a final appeal to the Irish
govemment to stop his extradition. In a
Statement Oct. 10, he declared: “As from
the moming of Oct. 10, 1990, I will be
embarking on a hunger-strike in protest
against my extradition. I am going to
hunger-strike to the death if necessary, to
prevent my extradition to Britain. The gov-
emment (of Ireland) has it in its power to
stop my extradition and only the Irish
people can force the government to act. I
now appeal with my life to the Irish
people.” P

That Ellis would never be afforded a

fair trial in Britain is now virtually self-evi--

dent, given the British courts’ record. In
fact, Britain’s record on human rights in its
handling of the conflict in Ireland is the
worst in Europe, according to Britain’s
own Standing Advisory Commission on
Human Rights as well as Amnesty Interna-
tional. Thatcher’s government has been
ruled in violation of the European Conven-
tion on Human Rights 21 times — 10 more
times than any other country.

The Irish Solidarity Committee is call-
ing on supporters to phone, write or fax
messages to Edward Brennan, Irish am-
bassador to Canada, calling on the Irish
government to allow Ellis to remain in
Ireland. The address is 170 Metcalfe St.,
Ottawa K1P 1P3. Phone (613) 233-6281,
fax (613) 233-5835.

* KO

f the loss of door-to-door postal del-
ivery, the growing length of time in
line-ups and the appalling waits for
second class mail seem like a relentless
loss of basic postal services, the facts
gathered by the Canadian Union of
Postal Workers put an even more shock-
ing perspective on what the Tory govern-
ment has done to postal service and postal
workers. :
These are just a sampling of the union’s
research findings:

People and Issues

¢ The community mailboxes, although
originally intended as a temporary meas-
ures during postal deficits, are becoming
more and more prevalent, despite the in-
ferior service they provide. Currently, °
404,822 households in urban areas must
use the mailboxes. By 1994, that will have
grown to 1.2 million.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, Can-
ada Post has a record of firing staff two to
four times more frequently than the federal
public service and most private sector
employers in Ontario. From 1981 to 1984,
roughly five workers a month were fired;
now the average is 35 a month. The man-
agement harassment has forced the union
to spend $4 million a year on grievance
arbitration — up enormously from the
1985 total of $750,000.

¢ New technology is expected to cut
hundreds of direct processing jobs as well
as result in the transfer of mail processing
work from smaller communities to urban
centres — at the same time as postal ser-
vices are being contracted-out to low-wage
retail operations.

* OK OK

A while we’re looking at numbers,
recent statistics commissioned by
the Canadian Labour Congress from.
Statistics Canada files challenge the
federal government’s claim that the
regressive nature of the GST will be of-

fset by the progressive income tax sys-
tem. In fact, according to Congress re-
searchers, the income tax system has be-
come less and less progressive under
successive Tory and Liberal governments
and currently does almost nothing to re-
distribute income in this country.

The CLC notes that in 1988, the richest
10 per cent of Canadians earned more in-
come before taxes than the poorest 40 per
cent of Canadians — 23.6 per cent of total
income in the country compared to 18.9
per cent for the 40 per cent of Canadians at
the bottom end.

If the income tax system were really
progressive that statistic would change sig-
nificantly after taxes were paid. In fact,
only the slightest redistribution took place.
After all federal and income taxes were
paid, the richest 10 per cent of Canadians
still took home 21.8 per cent of total in-
come compared to 21.2 per cent for the
bottom 40 per cent.

OK OK

e erred in an article in the Sept. 24

Tribune, “Students, teachers say
lack of funds behind enrolment crisis.” In
it we listed enrolment increases at Mala-
spina College, stating that these applied
to this year’s registration.

In fact, the figures, compiled by the
Ministry of Advanced Education, were
from the 1989 registration, Canadian Fed-
Veration of Students Pacific Region re-
searcher Jean Karlinski points out. No
figures for this year’s registration have
been compiled as yet.

4 + Pacific Tribune, October 29, 1990