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Toronto bans
video game

Toronto city council has voted to ban
the video game Contra. Popular in many
public arcades, Contra capitalizes on the
mercenary war being waged on the peo-
ple of Nicaragua by U.S.-backed mercen-
aries. It portrays several light-skinned
“contras” who kill darker-skinned “San-
dinistas” in a number of violent ways.

City resident Jim Smith, with the co-
operation of councillor Jack Layton,
brought the games to council’s attention
last month. In an extensive appeal, Smith
pointed out the game “was a less-than-
subtle form of propaganda which vio-
lated the spirit and letter of Canada’s
avowed neutrality in (the Nicaraguan)
conflict.”

Smith said council’s decision to ban
Contra “confirms both the opposition of
the Canadian public to the war against
Nicaragua, and their opposition to video
games which promote violence, war, and
which invoke or suggest acts of violent
crime.”

Minister slapped
for conviction

Nova Scotia women’s groups are
angry with the Buchanan government for
its refusal to force the resignation of a
cabinet minister after he was found guilty
of unlawful use of confidential informa-
tion from clients’ files. As minister of
social services, Edmund Morris tried to
intimidate and discredit Brenda Thomp-
son by leaking information to the press
from her social service file.

Thompson, a single parent, incurred
Morris’ wrath when she wrote a letter toa
local paper giving a personal expose of
life on social assistance.

With support from women’s groups,
Thompson finally won the right to charge
Morris. The attorney-general’s office has
agreed to pay both Thompson’s and
Morris’ legal fees. Morris was fined $100.

Devine approves
uranium mines

Claiming lack of public response, the
Devine government has approved the
opening of four more uranium mines.
Three are at Wollaston Lake in northern
Saskatchewan, which contains the larg-
est uranium deposit in the world.

Critics say the government failed to
adequately advertise for public input.
Environmental impact assessments were
placed in main public libraries, and
interested parties were given only 30 days
to respond.

Isabelle George of the Voice of
Women said the assessments are inade-
quate and fail to consider the impact on
the lake, disposal of radioactive waste,
and the health and safety of the miners
and surrounding, mainly Native, popu-
lation.

Both South Korea and France, with
an interest in developing and expanding
their nuclear weapons programs, have
major shares in the mine.

VOW and other groups are calling fo
a public debate about the future of ura-
nium mining in the province. ““We need a
public inquiry to fully discuss worker
and environmental safety and ethical
questions such as the nuclear weapons
connections and jobs for Northerners,”
George said.

6 Pacific Tribune, June 22, 1988

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Cdn. Peace Alliance takes on :
Conservative defence policies -

Special to the Tribune

OTTAWA — The Tory government’s
refusal to meet with peace lobbyists hung
like a bomb over the third Canadian Peace
Alliance convention here June 10-12. “We
have organized a peace constituency, and
the Conservative government is not willing
to meet with us,” lobby spokesperson
Yvonne Stanford told a news conference
during the post-convention lobby of Parli-
ament June 13.

On the opening day of the convention,
the CPA steering committee expressed
“dismay and anger” in an open letter to
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Mulroney, the letter noted, “has broken
another solemn promise to Canadians: to
consult with peace organizations after his
1984 election.” The letter also emphasized
that the government’s white paper on
defence “was created without any real input
from Canadians.”

The convention theme of “electing
peace” brought together more than 160
delegates from coast to coast at the
University of Ottawa. The CPA-backed
Canadian Peace Pledge Campaign deve-
loped strategy to elect peace candidates in
the upcoming federal election, including
print media advertising, and an action day
to highlight opposition to the federal
government’s plans to purchase 10-12
nuclear-powered submarines.

End the Arms Race president Frank
Kennedy was among some 13 delegates
attending from British Columbia, including
peace activists from Vancouver, Victoria,
Prince George and Naramata.

The peace pledge campaign sessions were
attended by many delegates who focused on
the need to collect more voter pledges and
to refine pre-election and election plans.

Pledge signers commit themselves to vot-
ing for candidates in the next election who
will work for new peace policies. All pledge
signers will receive the results of a peace
questionnaire to let them know where can-
didates and parties stand on peace issues.

In other campaign sessions delegates dis-
cussed working with the election priorities

campaign. This campaign, which was also’
' conducted in 1984, is designed to lobby and

survey candidates about peace, environ-
mental and development issues. The CPA
also endorsed another new campaign
directed against low-level flight testing in
Canada.

The CPA now has more than 420
member-organizations directly representing
millions of Canadians. Its membership has

almost doubled since it was formed in 1985.

The Canadian Labour Congress received
special recognition at the convention for its
support. Eighty-five member groups of the
CPA are labour organizations recruited by
the CLC.

Since the last convention, Quebec mem-
bership has increased by 158 per cent, an
increase unmatched
by any province in
English Canada.

Delegates showed
their support for the
Third United Nat-
ions’ Special Session
on Disarmament at
a picnic in a nearby
park June 11. Hand
prints of youth from
across Canada were
presented on banners KENNEDY
to symbolize youth support for peace. The
picnic was in response to a call from the
International UNSSOD Committee, for
events in support of the special session.

Several groups also took their banners to
the anti-free trade rally the following day on
Parliament Hill.

In her keynote address to the convention,
Danielle Dionne, an MCM councillor in
Montreal and a peace activist since the
1930s, told delegates: “We still think in
terms of solutions (that) we had at the
beginning of the second world war ... we
should show the world that we can disarm
and lead the world to a common just
peace.”

Jo Valentine, an independent senator
from Western Australia, was the second
keynote speaker. Valentine was elected in
1984 on the single issue of disarmament.
She told delegates to work for “a new sus-
tainable biological and economic order”
and described the serious problems of the
Australian peace movement in convincing
their Labour government to move away
from policies in support of military blocs
and from its opposition to the signing of the
recent treaty to declare the Pacific Ocean
nuclear-weapons free.

Youth participation was significant and
was supported in the form of a resolution
providing representation to the steering
committee and support for youth initiatives
between conventions.

The development of campaigns against
the growing militarization of the North was
addressed in a workshop led by Dan
Prinma, organizer of the Yellowknife-based
Nuclear Free North, and Nicholas Pry-
chodko of the Toronto Association for

‘

Peace. This problem was highlighted by
many delegates during the convention an
lobby as an emerging peace front.

Over 40 delegates stayed to lobby after
the convention. They met with several
backbenchers and Perrin Beatty, Minister
of National Defence, who replaced the
associate minister at the last minute.

The largest meetings were with the two
Opposition parties in parliament. New
Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent and
13 MPs met with lobbyists. Broadbent
explained that his party would increase mil-
itary spending, but it would be of a different
kind. Defence spending would be focused
towards the concept of common security
and away from alliance-based spending. At
the news conference later, lobby spokespel-
son David Kraft said the NDP deserves
credit for expanding the debate on defence
policy. :

High-ranking members of the Liberal
caucus including John Turner, Andre
Ouellet, Lloyd Axworthy and Robert
Kaplan outlined their party’s defence pos-
tions. Turner said his party does not sup-
port cruise missile testing, and indicated It
had a different set of priorities from thos¢
outlined in the Tory white paper.

Axworthy pointed to the need to have
more active involvement in regional peace-
keeping efforts such as in Central America.
Ouellet outlined a series of meetings he will
hold in the Soviet Union and other Nordic
countries to discuss demilitarization of the
Arctic.

Both parties stated that peace will be an
important part of their campaign in the next
federal election. They each raised the issue
of the failure of the Tory government t0
consult with peace groups at question
period the same day. ;

One of the largest delegations met with
Ted Montour of the Assembly of First
Nations. Montour described the meeting aS
constructive, and pointed to the need to
further build the alliance that has taken
place between Native peoples and the peace
movement.

In a commemorative and symbolic pres-
entation at the end, the Hiroshima-
Nagasaki flame was handed to the Alberta
caucus where the next convention 1S
expected take place. The flame, presented at
the convention banquet by Mitsuo Kojima,
a representative of the Japan Council
Against A and H bombs and an eyewitness
of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, has
been kept burning since August 6, 1945 and
will be extinguished only when nuclear
weapons are banished.

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MULRONEY
GOVERNMENT

, SELECTION
Commitee

YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE,

MON PETIT /

, Yellow Subma
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