EDITORIAL Tory Gruise myopia To watch this Tory government you would think the INF treaty hadn’t been signed and that there are no talks underway for a wider strategic arms treaty. Rather than beginning to adjust its cold war mentality to the changing world scene, Ottawa is still being led around by the nose by both the Canadian military establishment and its America counterpart. Rather than beginning to examine new options the disarmament process offers Canada for establishing a new set of relations, especially in the Arctic and in Europe, the Mulroney government is pressing ahead as if we were living in the 1950s. In the past two weeks, we see the military preparing a pro-nuclear submarine public relations blitz to bolster flagging interest in the expensive and tactically stupid plan contained in the Defence White Paper. Then, for the third straight year, the Tories continued to agree to allow overflights of Canadian soil by the U.S. air-launched cruise missile — the 10th in the program designed to perfect a first strike attack against the USSR. This is all the more irresponsible today in the face of the Murmansk speech by Soviet leader Gorbachev in which he made specific proposals to Canada which would prohibit the use of the Arctic zone for military staging grounds. We are being offered a choice: the Soviets put forward the concept of the peaceful use of the Arctic; the Americans see it as a future nuclear battleground. The Canadian government, by continuing to permit U.S. ALCM testing, (which will strike the Soviet Union over the Arctic) in fact sends a clear belligerent signal — and one not supported by the majority of Canada. It’s almost as if this government has wished away the events of 1987 and supplanted them with its white paper calling for drastic increases in military spending based on the Soviet threat theory. _ The instant action by peace forces in response to cruise tests last week is encouraging. Canadians, while greeting the Soviet-American INF agree- |L WANT TO ASSURE THE CANADIAN PEOPLE we HAVE NO NUCLEAR wespons ON ou Sot cess 10 YARDS ABOVE iT MAY BE ment and what it promises, are also seeing the Mulroney Tories as represent- ing the worst of the old cold warriors. ; While the free trade sell-out will certainly be front and centre in the next federal election, the issue of peace and the deplorable Tory record here will not be lost. This government should be kicked out of office for several good reasons, not least of them the continued placing of our country in danger through tying us to the American military juggernaut. FIRIBONE EDITOR Sean Griffin ASSISTANT EDITOR Dan Keeton BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS Angela Kenyon Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5 Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada @ $16 one year @ $10 six months @ Foreign @ $25 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 aC: oa Sle ighting Heritage, published by the Tribune in 1985, contained the account of the RCMP and Regina city police attack on the On-To-Ottawa trekkers in Regina’s Market Square on July 1, 1935. One trekker, N.J. Schaak, died two months later of injuries sustained during the attack. But what of the scores of other trekkers and supporters shot and beaten? One of them died Jan. 17 at the age of 75. He was Leslie Stephen, grandson of Sir Stuart Douglas and son of A.M. Stephen, the now neglected poet whose memorable lines include: “Starve quietly my sons, in the land where they say you are free.” For 52 years Leslie had been in Riverview Hospital, unable to speak, a victim of the crippling brain injuries he suffered when he was struck on the head during the Market Square attack. Former Tribune editor Hal Griffin, who worked closely with A:M. Stephen during the mid-1930s in the CCF, the League for Peace and Democracy and other organizations, filled us in on the details. Some time after A.M. Stephen died in 1942, his wife Irene went to California to join her other son. She entrusted Leslie’s care to Anita Anderson who had stayed with the Stephen family in the 1930s when she and her sister, Marian Sarich, were militant members of the old Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union. Anita honoured her commitment well. For 35 years after declining health ended Irene Stephen’s visits to her son, she visited People and Issues a a Leslie faithfully, administering through the power of attorney given her by Irene a small trust fund set up to provide for his funeral and interment of his ashes in a family plot in Oregon. But a few years ago, she was informed that her power of attorney had been superceded by the public trustee’s office and on Leslie’s death, she was reminded once again that the trust fund was in the hands of the trustee. But she fought this final injustice against a man whose life was ruined by injustice and we are able to report that at least she extracted payment of the funeral expenses. ee eas K o reader of the Tribune is eating California table grapes any more, of course, but if anyone they know is still tempted, the latest revelations by the Uni- ted Farm Workers about the growers’ manipulation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should demonstrate once again just how much of a chemical hazard grapes have become. People passing by the grape display in the grocery store may have noticed that scattered throughout the boxes are a few tags which read “Grapes have been treated with sulphites to ensure freshness and quality.” If that sounds innocuous, the UFW warns that it is anything but. Growers have been routinely spraying grapes with sodium sulphite to retard fun- gus growth during the storage period. But in 1986, the U.S. Food and Drug Admin- istration removed sulphites from its list of “generally safe’? compounds following reports of 16 sulphite-linked deaths and 800 allergic reactions. Later, however, when the Environmen- tal Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that growers must certify that 75 per cent of their grapes contained sulphite residues of less than 10 parts per million, the growers began cranking up the pressure to have the requirement waived. Many grapes remain in storage for months at a time and the sulphite spray is used every seven to 10 days to keep the fruit looking palatable. Needless to say, the allowable limit. is exceeded after only two or three sprayings. As a result, the EPA — which has been made more compliant to corporate demands following Reagan’s appoint- ments to the agency — backed down and gave the growers two “options”: to con- tinue certifying that the grapes do not exceed allowable sulphite limits; or to place tags on 40 per cent of the grape bunches stating that sulphite has been used. An offer like that even agribusiness couldn’t refuse. But consumers don’t know what the levels of sulphite are or what its effects might be. Worse, if the tagged bunches are sold first, they may not even know that the grapes have been sprayed — and they could suffer allergic reactions as a result. It’s yet another reason to keep the grapes out of your grocery basket and continue supporting the UFW boycott. * Ke e couldn’t help taking note of the fact that some 85,000 copies of the first public relations hype produced by the Tory government on free trade —a glossy kit called “Trade — Securing Can- ada’s Future” — is being taken to the paper recyclers and dumped, Despite ads run for weeks in newspap- ers across Canada urging people to ask for free copies (we ordered two only to find that the material it contained was about as useful as a submarine with a screen door), thousands and thousands of copies were left in government warehouses. And when the final text of the agreement was signed, it became even more irrelevant. So what will happen to the booklets? They'll be turned into toilet paper — a conversion which, of course, opens up any number of possibilities for scatological humour. But we'll simply say that it would be a welcome if we could flush the free trade agreement down the pipe as easily as we'll be able to dispose of the recycled government propaganda. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 27, 1988 PORES