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Communists

Wednesday, August 22, 1984
Newsstand Price 40° Vol. 47, No. 33

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hit media
_ blackout

Film fans
war flames

— page 7 —

Communist candidates’ frustration
over the blackout imposed by B.C.’s
major media outlets led to a brief
demonstration and a hasty meeting
with network executives at the CBC
building in Vancouver Aug. 14.

Candidates Maurice Rush (Van-
couver Centre), Miguel Figueroa
(Vancouver East) and Bert Ogden
(Vancouver Kingsway) and suppor-
ters said the demonstration was called
to draw attention to the virtual boy-
cott of the CP’s message by all big
media, and that the CBC was chosen
because of its central location.

The three candidates met for half
an hour with CBC executives and
program directors following the
demonstration. ©

“They gave us a hearing, and

AN

Rae

CP carididates Bert Ogden (I) and Maurice Rush led protest at CBC Aug. 14.

assured us they’d give our presenta-
tion sufficient attention,” Rush, B.C.
provincial leader of the Communist
Party, said later.

“The blackout imposed by the
CBC, BCTV and CKVU and the big
newspapers is a denial of our demo-
cratic right to be heard, and amounts
to censorship,” he said.

Three weeks ago B.C. campaign
organizer Donalda Viaud wrote to
the stations, and the Vancouver Sun
and Province newspapers, protesting
the virtual blackout. The party also
wrote the Canadian Radio-television
and Telecommuniciations Commis-
sion regarding the stations’ lack of
coverage.

Surrey candidate Vi Swann noted

Tories and Liberals ducked questions
and received boos while Communist Party
candidates received cheers for the party’s
positions on peace, employment and who
should control the economy at all-
candidates’ meetings in three Vancouver
ridings last week.

Peace was the big issue, with Tories and
Liberals breaking ranks with their leaders
and scrambling onto the disarmament
bandwagon, at meetings where Commu-
nist, and NDP, calls for a nuclear-weapons
freeze, nuclear-weapons free Canada and
cancellation of cruise missile testing were
overwhelmingly endorsed by cheering
audiences.

In one riding, Kingsway, Progressive
Conservative hopeful Collin Wong avoided
a packed meeting called by the Vancouver
Peace Assembly, rather than commit him-

self toa course.on.the three.major.disar-—

mament points. :

Communist candidates Bert Ogden
(Kingsway), Maurice Rush (Vancouver
Centre) and Miguel Figueroa (Vancouver
East) all declared the CP’s full and long-
standing support for the points, placed high
on the election agenda by peace organiza-
tions across the country.

local papers such as Surrey Now and
the Leader gave fairly extensive cov-
erage to CP candidates. And all 10
candidates in B.C. cite the local cable
stations for their equal time policies
for all federal candidates.

Nationally, the party has com-
plained to the Nation Action Cacus
for its exclusion of CP leader William
Kashtan from the recently televised
leaders’ debate on women’s issues.

Sometimes so-called “all-candi-
dates” meetings really feature only the
representatives. of the Liberals, Con-
servatives and the NDP, with the
pointed exclusion of Communists and
others.

“Often when that happens, we’ll
just show up to speak anyway,” said
one CP candidate.

Applause erupted from the audience,
some 300-strong, in Vancouver’s West End
Community Centre Saturday when Rush
called for a 50-per cent cut to Canada’s
arms budget.

“Am I right in assuming that the Conser-
vative and Liberal candidates are in favor of
a nuclear freeze, cancellation of the cruise
missile tests and establishing Canada as a
nuclear-weapons free zone?” Rush asked at
one point, forcing Tory incumbent Pat
Carney and Liberal Paul Manning to nod in
assent.

Figueroa made the same call for a 50 per
cent chop to arms spending at an outdoor
meeting in Grandview Park Aug. 16, linking
the call to a demand to call in deferred
corporate taxes and end the federal deficit.

While some Liberals’ and Tories are
jumping onto the peace issue, the fact is that
the.leaders of both big business parties have
made statements showing they'll stick with
U.S. President Reagan and NATO policy,
Ogden told 200 people who packed the hall
at the peace debate Aug. 14.

Calling PC leader Brian Mulroney ‘“a*
disciple of the madman Reagan,” Ogden
said Liberal Prime Minister John Turner “‘is
not quite so rabid. But every day, he’s catch-
ing up.”

“T welcome statements from the Liberals
and Tories that they oppose cruise tests, are
for the nuclear freeze and for a nuclear-free
Canada. But I ask you to remember which
parties have these demands as their policy,
and which will implement such policies if
they become government,” Rush told the
West End crowd.

Noting Turner’s statements rejecting a
freeze, and Mulroney’s carbon copy posi-
tion, Rush declared that “never has a
government been so at odds with the wishes
of its people than over this question.” A
recent poll showed 85 per cent of Canadians
favor a freeze on nuclear weapons devel-
opment and deployment.

see REJECT pzge 2

CPers relate
campaign
experiences
— page 3 —