SK il ima et 0 | RW eo EER 4 0B eee a) The Tribune asked Communist Party leader William htan to comment on the latest developments in the free rade debate as the U.S.-Canada talks are set to begin: * * * Prime Minister Mulroney keeps on stumbling on sharp 'Ocks and President Reagan continues to stab him in the ie This is seen in the shakes and shingles episode; it i. in the move against Canadian softwood and Mber imports to the United States. Both actions are 80ing to play havoc in the economy, not only in British umbia, but in the country as a whole. Ye can see now how opposite are the promises Prime ister Mulroney made during the election campaign 4 ae promised jobs, jobs, jobs. It is expected that WU JObs will be lost in the shakes and shingles episode. Nd countless thousands of others will be lost if the Mited States moves against lumber or imports from ver parts of Canada. Another promise of the Prime oes which has gone by the boards is his promise " ull Partnership for the provinces in any free trade 80tiations. revustead of that full partnership, Mulroney offers a €w every three months during the negotiations. Still, fre is no guarantee that the interests of the provinces © Zoing to be protected since one of the main aims of € trade negotiations is to eliminate those barriers that ie Ovinces have put up to ‘‘protect’’ the interests of Province to another and also from outside. a Is obvious now that the federal government will pee the interest of the provinces in these negotia- ie The United States wants to impose changes on the Vinces in the same way it imposed changes in the | reign Investment Review Agency and the National nergy policy. hirdly, the Liberals would appear on the surface to Pee caucting a sharp, critical campaign against Mul- ee But that’s only superficial. What they are concen- ting on is not the essence of free trade but how the “me Minister is bargaining on free trade. a his points out the need for Canadians to keep a sharp ay On the Liberals should they see them as an alter- lve to the Mulroney Tories. The Liberals are not ied themselves to be much of an alternative, other N those who might be called left-minded Liberal MPs, © are taking a more consistently critical position of the licies of the Mulroney government. In all of these situations what is of interest is the Sitions of those who up until now have been quiet or © have not come out fully against free trade. The a Union has come out against free trade because | att the Reagan administration, culture is an area for ack. There should be no doubt about this. oe Prime Minister has said that they're opposed to ing everything on the table, but the United States has ae it very clear that everything will be on the table, 1 | the there is no indication any respect will be shown for / Cultural development of Canada. The Steel Union, which until now has been rather cuiet, although the Canadian Labor Congress has devel- ‘i d rather strong resolutions against free trade, has W come out in opposition to it. They were hit by ons to the exporting of steel and piping for gas and - Now the national body of Steel, as well as Mr. out rah fepresenting District Six in Ontario, has come against free trade and has called for a so-called Bc approach rather than a free trade agreement Ween Canada and the United States. il te. a‘ sense one sees around free trade a political alignment between a policy which leads to greater and Broad coalition needed to defeat free trade INTERVIEW WITH CPC LEADER WILLIAM KASHTAN greater economic integration with the United States and a policy towards strengthening the independence of Canada with respect to economic, foreign and military questions. The Prime Minister has said free trade will be a major issue in the coming federal elections. But he’s not so sure anymore that everything is going to be of benefit to Canada —a promise he made at the beginning of negotia- tions. Still he tries to placate public opinion by saying he wants the kind of agreement that was embodied in the auto pact and that he is going to fight for a similar pact ina whole number of other industries. He mentions hydro in Quebec, the fisheries, high tech etc. The interesting thing in all of this is that he does not speak about lumber, which means that lumber has now been sold out to the United States at the expense of the people of British Columbia. We are on a very dangerous course now. It is clear what is needed is a sharper, stronger opposition to the policy of the Mulroney government. We have called and will continue to call for an all-Canada coalition to fight this onslaught. The good beginnings against free trade that have been made are not sufficient now to meet the nature of the situation. What is needed is an all-Canada Coalition that is open to everybody opposed to free trade between Canada and the United States and is prepared to fight for a democratic alternative. And we think that now may be the time to look into the question of government. It is clear that the course pur- sued by the Mulroney government is dangerous to the interests of Canada; it is dangerous to the job prospects of Canadians; it is dangerous in terms of every aspect of Canadian life. It must be attacked in the sharpest possible way. It may be early now to raise the question of government, but we should now begin to give thought to the fact that it is time for a different government. The only prom- ises the Mulroney government has upheld have been those to the corporations, the banks and the White House — not those made to working people. It is time for change. Sooner or later the Canadian people are going to demand that Mulroney and his gov- ‘‘The action by the Reagan administration in imposing a 35 per cent tariff on red cedar shakes and shingles from B.C. and its threat to impose countervailing duties of 27 per cent against Cana- dian softwood imports will cost Canadian workers thousands of jobs,’ reads a resolution of the Communist Party adopted at its Central Com- mittee meeting May 23-25. ‘Imposition of tariffs on shakes and shingles will have an immediate and devastating effect on Cana- dian workers, with an estimated 4,000 jobs at risk if the tariffs remain. The threatened action to impose countervailing duties on Canadian softwood would have an even greater effect. An industry study has put job losses at 4,000 across the country, 2,000 of them in B.C. and has pointed to another 4,000 indirect job losses. if “if paint what SOME. CALL. IT ART. OTHERS CALL IT Lark TRADE. And the critics ask:"Is Brian ‘2 genius, or just schizophrenic 2‘) Demand U.S. cancel tariff — CP ernment must go and be replaced by a new majority in Parliament with new policies that will truly advance the interests of this country. From a political point of view, what needs to be worked for is the bringing together of the NDP, left Liberals, the Communist Party, the trade union move- ment which has come out strongly against free trade, the women’s movement, young people who are the victims of the present economié¢ policies and farmers who are increasingly concerned about the danger of free trade for them. In other words, there is a majority of Canadians who in one way or another see the dangers of free trade and who are combatting it in their own way. What now needs to be done is to bring them all together as a major political force that could begin challenging the government and bring about a serious change in the next election. ‘‘The swiftness with which U.S. industry, backed by the Reagan administration, has moved | to impose tariffs in the face of growing Canadian exports, demonstrates that the U.S. will act only in the interests of U.S. industry in any free trade deal with Canada. ‘‘Only immediate and unequivocal action by the Canadian government can avert the crisis in the forest industry and prevent the loss of thousands of jobs. ‘‘The government should demand that the U.S. administration cancel the tariff. It should go further and cancel free trade negotiations with the USA. Free trade with the U.S. is not the road to jobs. It is the road to disaster and not elast, the road to loss of Canada’s sovereignty and independence. Nuclear cloud courtesy of Cold War 4 oo June 5, the U.S. conducted Sings th nuclear weapons’ test : the unilateral Soviet testing i Jy fortum was imposed last | 29. The blast, which took © under the Nevada desert ae Was widely condemned Dra 2d the world as an obstacle to tae °SS in the Geneva arms P Scientists Agree : inde @ surprising development, : Signeq aent U.S. scientists have ayy, ot agreement with Soviet Of ¢tities enabling an exchange Othe 28 data from within each is,» COuntry. In Moscow, Ad- Wind, chairman of the 1 Resources Defence » an American environ- oo ftura — ~SUnci mental group, said May 29 that U.S. scientists would be allowed to come to the USSR to set up three seismic monitoring stations on: Soviet territory. In return, Soviet scientists would be al- lowed to erect similar posts on private land in. California to monitor U.S. nuclear tests in Nevada. This agreement, although completely unofficial on the American side, effectively takes care of the major problems that would be involved in verifying a test ban agreement between the U.S. and the USSR. The Reagan administration, clearly miffed that private U.S. citizens acting on their own could resolve problems it has claimed are too difficult to deal with at this time, was quick to disavow the arrangement. “‘Of course, any agreement be- tween these groups has no official status,’ said U.S. State Depart- ment spokesman Charles Red- man. ‘‘It is obvious that issues with such strong national security implications as nuclear testing must be discussed in a govern- ment-to-government context”’. Deliberate Fallout In yet another testing-related ‘development, the U.S. Depart- ment of Energy finally released a 1950 document describing a nu- clear experiment which took place in December, 1949, and re- sulted in large-scale irradiation of populated areas of the American northwest. According to the newspaper, The Portland Oregonian, the in- cident occurred at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Wash- ington. It discharged some 5,000 curies of iodine-131 into the atmo- sphere in an experiment “‘related to devleopment of a monitoring methodology for intelligence ef- forts regarding the emerging Soviet nuclear program’’. A former official. at Hanford told the newspaper that the plume of radioactive gas covered parts of Oregon and Washington and was at times 200 miles long and 40 miles wide. Iodine-131 is known to cause thyroid cancer in hu- mans. The exact reason that an un- suspecting American population was deliberately exposed to radia- tion in this way has not been dis- closed. It is believed, however, that the experiment was launched by U.S. intelligence agencies who were hoping to come up with a method for locating plutonium production plants inside the USSR. By knowing the distance from Hanford and in what direc- tion a particular reading was ob- tained, it was believed that intel- ligence operatives would be able to calculate the precise location of Soviet atomic facilities. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 18, 1986 e 5