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“When cuts are made it is important they be real cuts and

not just shams ones.’’ — Trudeau

EDITORIAL

es Throne Speech delivered at the opening season of
# 28th Parliament of Canada Thursday of last week re-
sembled nothing so much as a second-rate cook book recipe
on how to go about preparing a tasty stew from last week’s
leftovers. It even lacked that modicum of inspiration one
sometimes finds in a good dish of hot stew.

It just seemed as if all the ‘‘swing’’ zoom and hoop-la
which Prime Minister Trudeau and his Madison Avenue
‘“‘image’’ designers so laboriously created in their Trudeau-
mania had gone up in smoke, leaving nothing but the empty
husk of an anticipated ‘‘Just Society’? — which the Speech
warned ‘“‘shouldn’t be expected too soon.”’

Not only did the Throne Speech not contain anything to
identify it with the changing requirement of a new era in
Canadian social and economic life, but lacked even the con-
sistency of a warmed-up stew from the left-overs of earlier
Tory and Liberal regimes.

Tory leader Robert Stanfield aptly described it as ‘‘a long-
winded alibi’ for unfulfilled Trudeaumania expectations,
while NDP leader David Lewis assayed much of its content
as “‘a lot of sheer nor ense.”’

The chronic housing problem facing millions of Can-
adians didn’t even rate an ‘‘honorable’’ mention. The
poverty rampant throughout Canada got a cursory salute,
with a reminder that there is no simple, immediate or
effective way to end poverty — except to take monopoly’s
hands out of the pockets of the people, which Trudeau’s
“‘Just Society’’ does not contemplate doing now — or later!

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s flair for the “‘swinging”’
theatrical with ‘‘great expectations’’ does not show up too
well in the Throne speech. As the ‘‘Old Lady of Cambie
Street,’ to wit The Province puts it editorially, ‘‘to see in the
speech any truth that Mr. Trudeau is bringing in a new era
of Canadian politics almost requires an act of faith.’ It
sure does — and did, as the Trudeaumania sweep on June 25
this year so noisily illustrated.

Doubtless, however, a brilliant scholar and Toons of
Mr. .Trudeau’s rating is capable of taking cognizance of a
historical reality in Canadian politics; viz, that what can be
“swept in’ on a wave of hysteria and illusion, can also be
-“swept out’ when realism asserts itself. Even Dief can fill
him in on that score.

Hence for the 28th Parliament of Canada under the
direction of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, all the
omissions, “‘leftovers,’’ unfinished business, etc., of the 26th
and 27th Parliaments will now be added to his own ‘‘Just
Society” illusions, which obviously evaporated into thin air
at the opening of the 28th, if the Throne speech is any
criteria.

Nevertheless, these “‘great expectations’ resulting from
an overdose of Trudeaumania, plus many other vital issues
affecting the well-being of Canada will be on his desk daily

— to remind him in the greater eloquence of Abraham Lin-
coln that ‘‘you may fool all the people some of the time .
but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.’

Parliament, and the people will also continue to remind
the PM what the Throne speech deliberately ‘‘forgot.”’

Exit ‘Great Expectations’

Editor—TOM McEWEN
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH

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econ varies Pitovs: and for sheep of Aa incash. ~

Council to probe rapid

transit system for city

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

We can chalk up another
victory for the citizens of
Vancouver.

Last week City Council bowed
to public pressure and agreed
that a study should be made of a
rapid transit system. Council
supported a recommendation
that transportation be a function
of the Greater Vancouver
Regional District and that the
regional district initiate a study
that will include rapid transit.
Financial assistance will be
sought from the federal
government for the study.

_As you know I have been
pressing for a low- fare rapid
transit system for the Lower
Mainland not only for the two
years I have been on Council but
long before that. I’m convinced
that’ the solution to traffic
congestion in Vancouver doesn’t
lie in freeways that will bring
more cars into the city’s already
car-overcrowded centre.

Nor can we solve our traffic
problem by providing curb lanes
for buses and stationing traffic
policemen at key intersections,
although these steps are needed
to ease the pressure for the time
being. The number of cars on
Vancouver streets is increasing
by the thousands each year, and
the volume will soon be too great
to handle. :

In these circumstances it
seems to me that the only
solution is a rapid transit system
where the fare is so low and the
service so fast and efficient that
people will gladly leave their
cars in perimeter parking areas

and proceed to work and
business via rapid transit.

A balanced rapid transit
system (which should also
include improved traffic
arteries) should make use of a
wide variety of transportation
facilities - express buses,
commuter trains, ferries across
Burrard Inlet, a tunnel to the
North Shore, hydrofoil boats,
etc. The old B.C. Electric tracks
and the C.N. and Great Northern
tracks should come in handy for
this purpose.

Edmonton is already on the

way to becoming the first city in
western Canada to have a high
speed transit system. Their
plans call for a three stage
system to be completed in three
years.

Vancouver can’t afford to wait
much longer. The study
advocated by City Council will
take a year or two to complete.

‘By then our need will be little

short of desperate. We must
press for quick action on the
study and for steps to implement
it immediately after the study is
completed.

LAST CHANCE

eas on the list.

Here’s How:

you are on the list.

Are you on city
VOTERS LIST?

. If you are an owner of property you are auteoratically
2. If you are a tenant, it is your responsibility to register,
although it is possible you have been enumerated this year.

3. If you have been a tenant in the City since January 1, 1968
you can get yourself on the voters list.

o Phone City Hall — 876-1313 and enquire whether or not
o If you are not, yeu have till Saturday, Sept. 21st at 9:00
p.m. to go to 2512 Yukon (Yukon and Broadway) to register.

The registration office is open from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
both Friday and Saturday, September 20th & 21st.

U.S. CP statement
on Czechoslovakia

Following a_ three-day
meeting in New York of the
National Committee of the
Communist Party U.S.A. which
discussed problems arising from
the crisis in _ Czechoslovakia,
Henry Winston, National
Chairman, and Gus Hall,
General Secretary of the
C.P.U.S.A.-issued the following
statement adopted by the
National Committee meeting:

“The National Committee
associates itself with the
statement of August 21, by Gus
Hall issued in accord with the
decision of the National
Secretariat of the Party on that
date. (See PT Aug. 30 issue).

“The National Committee
welcomes the new possibilities
that have now opened up for a
quick resolution of this crisis.

‘““As we see it, the path to that
resolution and the normalization
of life in Czechoslovakia is along
the following lines:

1. Curbing the activities of all.

counter-revolutionary ~—forces

that endanger the socialist.

society of Czechoslovakia.

2. Immediate steps to
continue the processes of
socialist democratization and
economic reforms that were set
in motion at the January

meeting ;-of ,the, Central,
vitsais 918 ebbo on) 28285 Jeom

Committee of the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia.

3. The taking of all necessary
measures for the safety of the
borders between Czechoslovakia
and West Germany.

4. A speedy normalization of
all phases of domestic life in
Czechoslovakia.

5. Closing of the ranks of the
world socialist family — of all
forces of anti-imperialism for
defense against imperialist
encroachment and for the
waging of an offensive against
imperialism.”

‘‘We welcome the agreement
speedily to withdraw the
military forces of the Warsaw
Pact socialist countries from
Czechoslovakia.

“The National Committee
adopted this policy statement by
a vote of 61 in favor, 7 against
and 4 abstaining. This is
abundant proof that the report
circulated by the Associated
Press that the Communist Party
was split down the middle is
completely false and malicious.
On the contrary, the adoption of
the statement as well as the vote
of 60 in support of the major
report given by Gus Hall, and the
whole process of the discussion
in the National Committee
meeting strengthened the unity

of the Comtpnainist.Patty,* 7”

ae ai Hatha aes

Peps aid,Panama.
Sane DA WOOD De ate

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Hemisphere
peace parley
date changed

Following a recent meeting in
Montreal of the steering committee
for the Hemispheric Conference to
End the Vietnam War, it was
announced that agreement had been
reached on the scope as well as on
most of the details for the
Conference.

The Conference date has been
changed to the weekend of
November 30 — the U.S.A.
Thanksgiving holiday — to facilitate
maximum American attendance.

In addition to wide Canadian
participation, the Montreal office of
the sponsoring committee has
received word from many Latin
American countries indicating
support for the Hemispheric
conference in Mexico, Chili, Guyana,
Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica,

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