t EDITORIAL Historic INF treaty In this issue you will find responses by many to the breakthrough achieved with the historic agreement reached last week to eliminate Soviet and American medium and short-range missiles. Historic this INF agreement certainly is, because for the first time we will see the actual destruction, the elimination of an entire system of nuclear attack weapons. Previous agreements, while vitally necessary, have all been tirotlation treaties uesigned to put a brake on an arms race, to help cap it. But consider: despite all the limitation treaties signed over 42 years of nuclear history, humanity in 1987 has stockpiled four tons of explosive power for every woman, man and child on earth. We have developed sophisticated systems (“address-accurate, ” say ever-original American designers) to deliver this punch anywhere on earth in just minutes. Reagan’s Star Wars threaténs to turn space into a future battlefield. Human minds are harnessed to new technology and vast resources are used to conjure up still more lethal ways to misuse chemistry, biology, genetics engineering, _ computer science and robotics to terminate life on earth. Limitation alone, obviously, can’t be the answer. The new thinking advanced by the Soviet Union which offers a modern, rational set of ideas for interna- tional conduct — the concept that humanity must begin to rethink the arms race and start to replace nuclear confrontation with a network of international cooperation and guarantees — is beginning to take hold. The INF agreement is one of the first victories for this new approach to global security. Much remains to be done. As the CPC and others point out in responses to the INF pact, 97 per cent of the world’s nuclear arsenals remain to be reduced and eliminated. The crucial INF first step must be followed by others. Canadians have an important role here. Testing the U.S. cruise missile over Canada must aon The Tories’ defence paper calling for billions more for war spending must be scrapped. We must prevent Canada adding its voice to NATO’s call for replacement of INF missiles with additional conventional weapons. Disarming only to rearm is not the way to peace. We must press for an end to nuclear testing. The Canadian Peace Pledge Campaign to begin Oct. 1 is an immediate way for us to move the process forward. It will ensure that peace and Canada’s world role will be a major issue in the next federal elections. Get involved! Contact the Canadian Peace Alliance or your local peace group. Doks THIS MEAN THE STRATEGIC OPENING To THE IRANIAN ATAODERATES 1S OFF 9 7 6 ARMS SALES Toa I GvESS kAA 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 t aforum sponsored by the Centre for Socialist Education and reported on elsewhere in this issue, NDP MLA Dale Lovick said his caucus has had no luck in trying to unearth details of the Social Credit government’s plans for privatiza- tion. Only when those in charge of the province’s largest Crown corporations start to get notices from the government will the plain brown envelopes start appearing under Opposition MLAs doors, - he said. But recent developments provide some clues as to priorities when it comes to putting publicly supported enterprises on the sale block. Last week we reported on Alcan’s plans to upgrade its dam on the Nechako River after the federal govern- ment — pressured, said critics, by B.C.’s Socreds — dropped a seven-year court case against the firm. That effectively abdicates federal control over the Cana- da’s watercourses to the province and cor- porations operating here, and allows Alcan to increase the generating capacity of the Nechako dam. Noteworthy here is that Alcan already sells surplus power ’ from the dam to B.C. Hydro. The notion that the province is facilitat- ing the piecemeal privatization of the Crown energy corporation seems even more apparent after reading an item in the Financial Post. The article, in the Sept. 21 edition, observes that the Kansas-city based UtiliCorp United Inc., wants to increase its“Canadian profile” by capital expenditures in its latest acquisition — West Kootenay Power & Light Co. The sale of the formerly Cominco- owned power utility to a U.S. company prompted cries of outrage and opposition, not only in the West Kootenays but around the province over the implications People and Issues of selling a Canadian energy resource to a foreign firm. Now that the deal has been sealed, earlier this month, the company has announced plans to build a gas turbine to provide back-up power. The Post quotes company president Richard Green Jr. as saying, “By buying utilities, we are raising our market share. The more market share we can get, the more competitive we can be.” Ironically, the company’s drive for competition is caused by deregulation of utilities south of the border, meaning Canada has been adversely affected by deregulation — itself closely linked to privatization — before it has even become a reality here. Taken together, the Alcan development and West Kootenay purchase mean pri- vatization of energy resources is already a reality in major areas of British Columbia. And these indicate that Victoria is think- ing big when it comes to selling public utilities to the private sector. * * * hey’ve been married for more years than any individual on the Tribune staff has been alive. And for a good deal of those years, they’ve been funding through their efforts B.C.’s labour weekly. For that reason — not to mention the fact that we don’t know of too many peo- ple who can celebrate a 60th wedding anniversary — we pay tribute to Harry and Jean Bird, who are getting ready to mark that anniversary on:Oct. 18. Jean was an 18-year old immigrant from England when she met Harry — himself born in the Netherlands — in Regina in 1927. Neither person had many relatives in Canada, so there were few fam- ily goodbyes to say when they headed off to the west coast a short time later. Harry had been a member of the Car- penters Union since age 15. But the Depression soon caught up with the Birds, as, with so many other working class Can- adians, and Jean recalls a rough life in a shack in the bush in east Vancouver dur- ing the years that followed, ‘until World War II. Both became members of the Commu- nist Party in 1935 or 1936 and avid suppor- ters of the working class papers which preceded and eventually became the Pacific Tribune. And if they didn’t have family when they started out, they’ve certainly created one of their own. Expected to attend the anniversary will be four children, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchild- ren, not to mention others who have become part of the Bird “family” over the years. aE Ae hen we interviewed him last Dec- ember for a feature article in our Christmas issue, we only touched on a small part of the life of Spanish Civil War veteran Wally Waywood. And when we phoned around last week asking for details, we know we only acquired a few additional pieces of information ona long, active life dedicated to the working class. Sadly, that life ended after an illness on Sept. 14. Born in Minsk, Byelorussia on July'22, 1910, Wally at age six moved with his family to Canada, settling in Winnipeg where he attended school.. We featured Wally last December in an article we did on the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion, the brave Canadian volunteers who fought for the Republican side in Spain, 1936-39. At the time we weren’t aware that Wally technically was not a ““Mac-Pap.” He volunteered for Spain before the Canadian battalion was formed, joining with the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Battalion and. fighting the war near and in Madrid. Fellow veteran Fred Mattersdorfer, who we also interviewed, believes Wally also served some time in the British contingent. Wounded in Spain and left behind dur- ing the initial evacuation of the Interna- tional Brigades, Wally eventually got out with the help of the French Communist Party. He joined in the Canadian army in: 1942 but was not sent overseas, and was later released on medical grounds. For the rest of the war he saw duty as a merchant seaman. Following the war Wally moved to Burnaby, and became a longshoreman and later an active member of the Carpen- ters Union, Local 452. Provincial Council of Carpenters secretary Colin Snell remem- bers Wally as a dedicated trade unionist who was an executive on the local in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Mac-Paps are holding a memorial for Wally on Oct. 17 at the Centre for Socialist Education, 1726 E. Hastings St. in Vancouver, at 1:30 p.m. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 30, 1987