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Union leaders declare:

‘We won't stand for it”

. By WILLIAM ALLAN

WINDSOR — Ed Baillargeon,
President of the Windsor Labor
Council representing 32,000
trade unionists, said:

‘This is serious, what’s going
On in Canada today. The sup-
Pression of civil liberties, the
atrests of hundreds including
trade unionists, raids on homes,
Press censorship, all under the
4 ar Measures Act, means Cana-
lan union leaders must meet
ed decide to act.

We have a meeting of the
Council Tuesday night and I'll
Propose we telegraph the leaders
Of the Ontario Federation of La-
a for a provincial meeting to
ace up to our responsibilities,
Which as I see it is to return de-

Mocracy to Canada. Also the On-

tario Federation of Labor has its
Convention in Niagara Falls
Oy. 2-3-4 and our delegation
Will make this an issue there.”
Pcatles Brooks, president of
© UAW Local 444, Chrysler,
With 9,400 members; said, ‘The
anger to Canadian labor is
Sreat here. Already they have
arrested an unknown number of
abor leaders in Quebec as well
4 radicals, peace forces, stu-
Pee: and God knows what in
€ir dragnet. It could happen in
dsor, Hamilton, Toronto,
ancouver too.
You can be sure the anti-
peor employers are smacking
heir lips. They already will be-
Sin to charge every union or-
8anizer with. carrying bombs,
being a Bolshevik, and the old

NEW YORK — The move to
€xtradite Angela Davis, black
Communist and freedom fighter,
to California on a murder and

dnapping warrant was de-
Nounced at a’ press conference
Y Gus Hall, general secretary of

a Eee munis Party of the

The charges are “a fraud and a
pmeUp,” Hall declared, calling
Or mass pressure, reaching up
to Gov. Rockefeller to stop the
€xtradition.

Miss Davis is being held by
the New York police for a Nov.

extradition hearing.

The issues go deeper than the
legal aspects, Hall told the
Crowded press conference.

The California charges, Hall
Said, rest on flimsy evidence.

_ Angela Davis, he pointed out,
™ her concern for prison reform
and aiding the defense of jailed
black Americans had helped the
defense of George Jackson, one
Of the three men known as the
Soledad Brothers. The three had
been accused of shooting a guard
NM San Quentin prison earlier

“this year. Subsequently she was

accused of having bought guns
Mvolved in a shooting incident
4 ‘Marin County in which
€orge Jackson’s brother, Jona-
than, was killed.
Press hysteria
Although there is no proof that

She had bought the guns, the
Mass media and the FBI have al-

_Teady convicted Miss Davis, Hall

Said. “It is generally known that
iss Davis was out of California
When the incident took place,”
he added.
“Miss Davis had the right to
Say at what moment she wished

red herring is going to be used.

In Canada, only one out of eight
workers is in a union. It is worth
while for labor to look into the
Quebec scene—we could find
employers’ agents operating
there to create a situation where
we are now under military rule.
In 1919, we had the Winnipeg
General Strike, and the ruling
class used that struggle to im-
pose national anti-labor legisla-
tion on us, Section 98, the effects
of which lasted for 15 years.

“The mask is dropping from
Trudeau and his mentor in the
U.S., President Nixon. The game
is, use this act of kidnapping
and death, which no one could
condone, as a weapon to crush
us all. That’s why I suspect em-
ployers’ agents. work in this.
Our local yesterday passed a re-
solution condemning the killing
of one of the men kidnapped and
all terrorist acts, but warned the
government not to use this non-
working class act by terrorists to
penalize the whole working
class. We won't stand for it.”

Vic White, acting president of
Ford Local 200, with 4,500 work-
ers, said, “We are concerned
about the implications when the
national government imposes
what I would term action that
smacks of what Hitler imposed
on the German working class, to
bring about the reign of nazism,
the front for big German mono-
polies that smashed unions,
wiped out people’s rights, out-
lawed political parties of the
workers.”

Angela Davis frame-up
_rouses mass protests

to fight back. I am convinced of
her innocence. Being from Ala-
bama, Angela Davis knows the
nature of American justice and
the chance of a fair trial for
black Americans in the U.S. to-
day. She decided to wait for the
proper time to face charges and
clear herself of them: It was for
her to say what that moment
would be for her to fight back.

“She could have left the coun-
try—that would not have been
difficult; but she chose not to.

“The Angela Davis case can-
not be separated from today’s
mass hysteria inspired and: fed
by government agencies like the
FBI and the police. We are mov-
ing rather speedily in the direc-
tion of a police state.”

Hall declared the FBI deserves
special condemnation for its role
in the recent bombings. “They
have had their man on the in-
side in all these cases,” he de-
clared. “They've worked along
inspiring. and encouraging the
bombings. They’ve let the bomb-
ings take place.”

There will be Angela Davis de-
fense committees in many cities
of the country, Hall said, in Los
Angeles, San Francisco, New
York, Chicago, etc. There will
be a national organization to
take charge of her defense.
And the Communist Party will
be a part of it.

In reply to questions, Hall said
Angela Davis “has been and is a
member of the Communist Party
and has stated so on many oc-
casions.”

The Che Lumumba Club, of
which she is a member, is a
new branch of the Communist
Party in Los Angeles, he added.

Canada-wide demand
to restore democratic
rights to the people

Reaction by Canadians against the
War Measures Act has been swift. The
invoking of the Act by the Trudeau
administration has created widespread
unease and mistrust, and is sharpening
the divisions within the country.

The full impact has not yet reached

all Canadians.

Crowds now gather in front of the

munist Party of Canada, Wil-
liam Kashtan, a Communist
Party picket injected a new note
on Parliament Hill. Mr. Kashtan
was accompanied by Sam Walsh,
president of the Parti Commu-
niste du Québec, almost all of
the Central Executive of the
Communist Party, and other
prominent communists.

Chuck McFadden, leader of
the Young Communist League,
took a prominent part in the de-
monstration along with a num-
ber of YCLers.

Three victims of the War
Measures Act during the Second
World War were on the line.

Outside of Quebec, the first
casualties to the police were in
Toronto where two YCLers were
arrested by the police while put-
ting up some 150 posters that
night. However, they were not
booked and no charges were
laid.

Similarly, in Winnipeg, it is
reported that the police ordered
the bookstore» owned by NDP
MLA Cy Gonnick, well-known
Waffler, to take down a sign in
its window.

Five hundred people met in
Toronto in an orderly meeting,
called by a group of lawyers,
who set up an ad hoc commit-
tee. Among the speakers were
Nancy Pocock, a leading mem-
ber of the Voice of Women and
the Society of Friends, who
spoke of the need for courage in
defense of civil liberties.
~ George Addison, secretary of
the Vietnam Mobilization Com-
mittee, warned of the danger of
movements for peace being sup-
pressed, and charged that the
government of Canada has never
condemned the violence used by
the United States against the
Vietnamese people.

Alf . Dewhurst, chairman of
the Metro Toronto Committee of
the Communist Party, told the
rally that while we differ on
many questions, on this ques-
tion we can have no differences
—that the War Measures Act
must be repealed. :

There must be organized unity
in every city in Canada through
committees dedicated to strug-
gle against the Act, he declared:

“J am confident that this Act
will be repealed and that the
government will not be success-
ful in carrying through its aims
in respect to it,” he said.

-George Harris of the United
Electrical Workers Union said,
“If justice prevailed in Canada,
then political leaders of suc-
cessive government in Canada
and Quebec, including Trudeau
and Bourassa, would be indicted
for their complete disregard of
social, economic and political
inequality imposed on the peo-
ple of French Canada.

“Acts of terrorism as a means
of social and political struggle
are to be. deplored and . con-
demned, ‘but the soil from which

Communist Party demonstration last Saturday on Parliament Hill .

such happenings arose in Que-
bec is the long and continued
neglect of the problems of
French Canada.

“The War Measures Act will
not reduce unemployment in
Quebec, which has 41% of the
all-Canada total. It will not con-
tribute one decent home to re-
place the vast rotten slums in
which hundreds of thousands of
French Canadian workers live
their lives, and it will not add a
penny to the average income
which in Quebec is one-third be-
low that in Ontario.

“Canadians of French and
English Canada must unite to
end these intolerable conditions.
English Canada can have no re-
servations in supporting the
legitimate national aspirations
of French Canada. Both must
demand the lifting of the dicta-
torial War Measures Act.

“It is to be hoped that the
Canadian Congress of Labor
will respond, as has labor in
Quebec, and will mobilize labor
across the country to reject Tru-
deau’s false position that the
civil rights and freedom of the
Canadian people are being pro-
tected through a law which
takes away all civil rights and
freedom.” aes

Charlotte MacEwen, president
of the Ottawa Voice of Women,
thrilled democratic Canadians by
her lone demonstration in the
face of a number of Trudeau
supporters on Parliament Hill on
Sunday.

A protest rally against the
War Measures Act drew 400 in
Winnipeg. It was sponsored by
the students of the University
of Manitoba. Placards carried .
the following slogans: “Stop
Government Terrorism,” “End
Political Repression,” “War Act
no — Freedom yes.”

Manitoba Provincial Leader of
the Communist Party W. C.
Ross read the party statement
(carried elsewhere in this issue).
A member of the NDP publicly _

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23,

House of Commons to watch the spec-
tacle—soldiers with tommyguns accom-
panying cabinet ministers and govern-
ment officials, bulletproof cars, plain-
clothesmen all over the place .

~< in

fact, everything that an “advanced
capitalist democracy” is not supposed
to be, according to storytellers.

Led by general secretary of the Com-

burned his membership card in
protest against the position tak-

en by NDP Premier Ed. Schrey- ©

er and Transport. Minister Bo-
rowsky in supporting the War
Measures Act.

William Kashtan in speaking
to the press, and in a final ad-
dress to the picketers and the
crowd in Ottawa, said that there
was an effort to pit French
against English in Canada which,

if successful, would be a trage-:

dy. We do not advocate separat-
ism, he said, but this Act may
stimulate it. The War Measures
Act won’t overcome inequalities,
but may well stimulate trends
and tendencies which could veer
in the direction of separatism.

“This is a historic occasion,”
said Mr. Kashtan. “We can say
that we are the first political

-party in Canada which reacted

so quickly and correctly. . We
warn the Canadan people that
there is a dagger aimed at the

heart of Canadian democracy. If

Parliament does not vote down
the War Measures Act, the strug-
gle will continue and Trudeau
will be defeated.

“There has been some talk
that the War Measures Act may
be used against the Communist
Party. Let me tell you, this Act
is equally directed at any voice
which calls for social change in
Canada, at any voice raised
against unemployment and for
equality.”

Sam Walsh, President of the
Communist Party of Quebec,
said this is an effort to intimi-
date and to stop all mass pro-
test being taken by the people
of Quebec.

“It was deliberately intro-
duced at this time,” he said, “It
is tyrannical. Courageous young
Quebec Communists are here,
representative of all the demo-
cratic forces in Quebec who
will more and more demonstrate

complete opposition to Trudeau _

e

1970—PAGE 5