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SIGNING UP FOR PEACE ... at
_ last year’s Walk for Peace.

Pledge
campaign
tracks
election

Peace organizations in Canada
have adopted a tactic that was used

~ successfully by the New Zealand peace
~ movement in 1984 to build public
support and political pressure for a

“peace voter pledges.”

Voters are being encouraged to
“take the peace pledge” — a com-
mitment to choose candidates in the
next election
who will work

da’s support
for the nuclear
arms race.
The pledges
_ will be used to
show politi-
cians that vot- nate
ers in their osc
home ridings LAMBERT
want Canada to be nuclear-weapons
_ free and are willing to cast their votes

let candidates know they run a real
tisk of defeat if they don’t support the
campaign.

People who sign the pledge will be
sent the results of a peace survey given

pin down politicians on issues such as
cruise missile testing, the purchase of
_ nuclear submarines, and Canada’s
- support for Star Wars.

The 130 groups sponsoring the
campaign will sponsor all-candidates
meetings, advertise during the elec-
tions and lobby political parties on -
their defence policies. ae

seen before”, said Sheena Lambert,
- campaign coordinator. _

_ She emphasized the campaign is
~ not endorsing any particular. aes

| “Peace is a non-partisan issue. There

2 <ohta peecepaie sn CansdecAles.

ie aoa La pleamnenran ee

6 Pacific Tribune; April 13, 1988

nuclear weapons free country — —

Shuffle hints at fall vote

Communist Party leader William Kash-

tan sees a fall election in Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney’s March 31 cabinet shuf-
fle.

“The government is trying to overcome
its trouble spots in preparation for an elec-
tion,” he told the Tribune in an interview.

Mulroney has pared down his cumber-
some 40-member top caucus to 26. Nine
have resigned or have been fired under a
cloud of suspicion
and others have
been dropped.

The most nota-
ble shift came with:
the appointment of
John Crosbie to
the international
trade spot, replac-
ing Pat Carney
who moves down
to Treasury Board.

Kashtan said
the change reflects a new stage in the free
trade negotiations between Canada and
the United States. “‘Now the task is to sell
it to the Canadian public. Pat Carney was
not considered strong enough for that, so
Crosbie was chosen for this job.”

Crosbie has always been a backer of
free trade, even before it became part of
the Mulroney lexicon. The product of
Newfoundland’s old guard, he has con-
sistently pressed for economic merger with
the U.S., feeling the province could do
better dealing with the United States than
it could with the rest of the country, Kash-
tan noted.

“A man with strong convictions, and an
able tongue, Mr. Mulroney hopes he can
sell the deal,” he said, adding that it will be
a tough job for the minister since polls
indicate a majority of Canadians do not
support the deal.

KASHTAN

“Wider and wider sections of the popu-
lation are viewing this agreement as a sell-
out to the United States?” he noted.

The cabinet shake-up is aimed primar-
ily at improving the Tories’ tarnished
image. Names the PM is counting on to hit
the hustings during the election campaign
have been moved out of portfolios which
have recently come under fire.

Benoit Bouchard has moved from
immigration into Crosbie’s former trans-
port spot. The press has held Bouchard
responsible for the mess involving immi-
gration and refugee claimants.

McDougall was shifted from privatiza-
tion minister to immigration, and Otto
Jelinek, who emerged looking petty and
spiteful following remarks he made about
athletes during the Winter Olympics, was
moved from fitness and amateur sport to
supply and services.

In addition to cleaning up its image, the
changes are a key part of the Tories’ elec-
tion strategy where Quebec is the “lynch
pin,” Kashtan said. He cited the co-opting
of Lucien Bouchard, Canadian ambassa-
dor to France, into the cabinet.

“Bouchard is seen as a major player ina
program designed to rebuild the strength
of the Tory fortunes in Quebec,” he said.

The CP leader recalled that in 1984
Mulroney was able to win a majority in
Quebec based on a tacit alliance between
the Tories and the nationalist-separatists
in the Parti Quebecois, who considered
Trudeau to be the main enemy. The PQ in
particular, threw its weight behind Mulro-
ney, helping to engineer a massive break-
through for the Tories. Bouchard was a
member of the PQ, and the Tories hope to
use him to rebuild their alliance with
Quebec nationalists

“Prime Minister Mulroney is trying to

replay his 1984 game with the promotion
of Bouchard as the main star in Quebec,”
Kashtan stressed.

But Bouchard has run into trouble
before his task begins and is already hav-
ing a hard time finding a seat to run in. A
natural riding would be Quebec City, but
as a minister in the Levesque government,
he was the author of the notorious laws
used to bash the Quebec civil service, and
he’s worried about a union backlash.

“Bouchard is the kind of nationalist-
separatist Mulroney doesn’t object to,
because he-is also Buiavays ” Kashtan
added.

The other plank is to make sure that the
Tories strengthen their position in the
West through free trade. By sewing up the
West and Quebec, Mulroney hopes to
defeat the Liberals and the New Demo-
crats.

Ontario has been left out of the equa-
tion, Kashtan noted, because “‘there is an
opinion in the Tory camp that their politi-
cal fortunes in Ontario are at a low ebb
and they are willing to sacrifice Ontario
while they concentrate on Quebec and the
West.”

Kashtan also emphasized that the
Tories would fight the election on support
for free enterprise and NATO. “Mulroney
has chosen NATO because he hopes
under a chauvinist militaristic banner he
can mimic Margaret Thatcher’s success in
Britain,” he said. f

“But we should not ignore the possibil-
ity that the Tories will bring in populist
policies, such as their inadequate child
care package, to win support,” he warned.

““He may even begin lecturing President
Reagan occasionally, as he promised to do
last week about acid rain, but this is a
posture to cover up charges that he’s sel-

TORONTO — Thousands of Canadi-

on that basis. The campaign will con-
- centrate on marginally-won ridings to —

to every candidate. It will attempt to

| “This is a huge nation-wide cam- —
| paign. It’s like nothing we have ever —

ans in Ontario and Prince Edward Island
were expected give the federal Tories a
resounding “No!” to the Mulroney-Reagan
trade deal April 9.

With 600 members of the Pro-Canada
Network in Toronto, and thousands more
in 35 communities throughout Ontario col-
lecting names on petitions, organizers
expected it to be the biggest public display
of opposition to the so-called free trade
agreement between Canada and the U.S. to
date.

More than 250,000 leaflets were to be
distributed by more than 1,200 volunteers in
communities ranging from Belleville to
Timmins and Windsor, urging Canadians
to reject the deal by calling for an immediate

' federal election on the issue. The aim of the

action by the PCN is to spark a Canada-
wide debate around the deal that will force
the Mulroney government to let the people
have their say about the country’s future.

The leaflet details some of the impact of
the Mulroney-Reagan deal in a series of
questions put to Canadians. They address
the issue of thousands of jobs that will be
wiped out, especially for women and minor-
ities who tend to be concentrated in the
industries most vulnerable to the agree-
ment’s destructive impact.

Other issues raised include the expected
spread of privatized hospital and nursing
home care; the opening of American
ownership to Canadian banks; the loss of
Canadian control over oil and energy pric-
ing; the total lack of protection for Cana-
dian exports against U.S. protectionist
measures; and the attack on agricultural

Q a

DECIDE

marketing boards and other mechanisms to
protect farm incomes.

“Why won’t Mulroney call an election?”
the leaflet asks. “Why won’t Mulroney
debate in public?

“Because he knows that if the Canadian
people find out what’s in the deal they'll
throw it out.”

In Toronto, some 600 volunteers were
expected to be in shopping malls and on
street corners urging Canadians to sign up
in the fight against free trade.

The petition drive was to be launched at a
kick-off rally outside the downtown Eaton’s

- Centre April 9. Speakers included Ontario

Federation of Labour president Gord Wil-
son, Mel Hurtig for the Council of Canadi-
ans, Marjorie Cohen for the Ontario
Coalition Against Free Trade, Isa Bakker
from Women Against Free Trade and

ling out Canada.”

Bishop Remi De Roo.

With a combined membership of more
than 10 million, the Pro-Canada Network
unites academics, Native peoples groups,
free trade opponents in Quebec, religious
and church groups, the peace movement,
farmers, the business council for fair trade,
senior citizens, women’s organizations and
the labour movement, including the Cana-
dian Labour Congress.

While the federal Tories are spending
about $12 million to sell the deal to the
public, the PCN is countering with its peti-
tion drive and an appeal for Canadians to
join in the campaign. The network has a
speakers bureau available to go into any
community throughout the land, and is
inviting opponents of the trade deal to
install signs on their lawns demanding that
the deal be dumped.