* William Askin, 28-year-old teacher,
has been nominated by the Communist
Party in Edmonton East for the com-
ing federal elections. The following are
excerpts from his acceptance speech.

As a classroom teacher, I have ac-
cepted the nomination of the Commu-
nist Party for the June 25th election,
not just because of the sorry state of
education in Canada. A wide range of
factors has led to my accepting the
honor of a Communist nomination. Of
great importance is the fact that the
Communist Party of Canada has the
program .and policies which point out
a new direction for Canada.

Now, some people think that Pierre
Trudeau is some kind of socialist in
disguise. If he is a socialist in disguise,
it is a damn good disguise and he sure
keeps the fact well-hidden. Some peo-
ple think that the goals of democratic
Canadians are going to be achieved
through the efforts of a Trudeau Cabi-
net. But, “Puckerlips Pierre” has actu-
ally said nothing to indicate that he is
going to rescue Canada from American
economic enslavement. On the contra-

Some

By CHARLES BOYLAN

“This is the year, baby. Some
campus is going to blow.” So says
Andy Wernick, Education Commis-
sioner of the Student Administrative
Council at the University of Toronto.
And over a hundred turned-on dele-

Union of Students national seminar
at the University of Manitoba held
last week all agree.

Canada won’t be left out of the
world-wide student revolt. But don’t
get frustrated looking for hidden
caches of dynamite. Or even for
mind-blowing pot. Because you
won't find it. As Terry Campbell,
editor of CUS’s paper, Issue, says,
“It’s people power. People want to
contro] their own lives and that’s
where it’s at.”

Actually much of the debate at the
seminar evolved around the differ-
ence between where people °and
their institutions “are at” and
where/how they are “becoming.”
The seminar itself was a good illus-
tration of the difference. In the be-
ginning the seminar was “at” an
analysis of education, “Rhetoric
versus Reality.”

Two tours of the Winnipeg school
system provided an eye-opener of
both. The rhetoric of equality of op-
portunity and reality of stream-
lined schools where working-class
kids are trained for industry and
lower-paid service work, while the
middle class prepare for university
training to fill the technocratic and
administrative levels of our corpor-
ate society.

gates to the eleventh Canadian -

ry, he has given reassurance, over and
over again, to the American monopo-
lies, that he will not tamper with Ame-
rican-controlled enterprises in Canada.

What about the Conservative Party?

What about Robert Stanfield? Will this
crew help Canada escape the strangle-
hold of American domination? Well,
Bob Stanfield, underwear king of the
Maritimes, doesn’t make any pre-
tence of being anything else than a
Bay Street Boy. He has indicated, over
and over, that the Tories don’t pose a
threat to Yankee investment in Cana-
da.

American monopolies in Canada
must be nationalized. Profits gleaned
from our vast Canadian industry can
and must be used to better the stand-
ard of living of Canadians—not to line
the pockets of American speculators
and financial buccaneers.

Some people say that our standard
of living is high enough now. Some
people say, “We’ve never had it so
good.” But, do these people know the
facts? Do they have a good notion of
what they are talking about? The
average yearly income of the average
Canadian worker is only 70 percent of
the average American worker. This
means, in dollars and cents, that if you
are a worker in Canada earning $5,000
per year, you would be earning, per-
haps, $7,100.00 per year in the U.S.
‘American ownership of Canada’s in-
dustries is cheating the Canadian
worker out of a higher annual wage;
it is cheating him out of a higher stand-
ard of living.

One unique feature of the Com-
munist Party’s election platform is its
attitude towards Canadian youth. No
Party in Canada is as devoted to the
question of bettering the status of
Canada’s youth as is the Communist
Party. At the present time, nearly
50 percent of Canada’s population

Seminar delegates also saw the
reality of Jerry Farber’s description
of the student as “nigger,” as slave
to an impersonal, dehumanizing set
of institutions to which teachers
are also chained. Authoritarian con-
trol of public schools has been made
efficient and “modern,” but authori-
tarian it continues to be. And the
kids know it.

They don’t fully know who “The
Man” is yet. But a few predictable
headlong confrontations with the
school system will prove “Mr. Char-
lie” isn’t “Mr. Teacher, sir’ in front
of the class.

The seminar -<idn’t stay “at” an
academic analysis for long. Reality
has a way of imposing itself even
through revolutionary rhetoric.
‘Cases in point were visitations by
The Two Great Men, Messrs. Stan-
field and Trudeau, to Winnipeg.
These two men have style. Granted
Stanfield’s is designed for the dead
sober community (accent on adjec-
tive), while Trudeau’s is to swing-
ing youth.

But passive spectators of both
performers had to conclude neither
could answer the issues posed by a
hundred students whose hundred -
pickets all agreed, “Fifty to one he’ll
say nothing.” When forced to an-
swer to issues, as Trudeau was,
most’ seminar delegates saw the
only swinging thing about him was
his rose, which by the end of the
question session had wilted consi-
derably. Many also saw a very real
danger lurking behind the costly
facade of Trudeauism-cum the gay

HAHA USSnee RET TRE ATTY EEDA

’ is under the age of twenty-five. Such

a large number of Canadians surely
rate the earnest attention of the Cana-
dian government. Especially since the
Prime Minister of Canada is Such a
young, young leader—he’s only forty-
six, or forty-seven, or, is it forty-eight?
But, in spite of the supposed youth
of our prime minister, he still has gone
on record as being opposed to lowering
the voting age to eighteen—he wants
the voting age to remain the way it
is now, twenty-one. The Communist
Party doesn’t agree with swingin’
Pierre: we want the voting age lowered
to eighteen immediately.

The question of youth points out
just one of the radical differences be-
tween the Communist Party and the
Liberal Party. We Communists ask the
question: how best can the youth of
Canada be served? How best can this
large section of Canadians be made
full participants in the growth and
democratization of our. country. The
Liberals, on the other hand, ask dif-
ferent questions. They ask: How best
can youth be exploited by their party?
How many nomination meetings can
be packed with teen-agers in order to
ensure that the right type of. Liberal
is nominated. How best may young
people, who are denied the right to

vote, be exploited by working for noth- .

ing for the Liberal electoral campaign?
About the only thing the Liberal Party
can supply for young people is the
supplying of free hugs and kisses by

- Pierre Elliot Trudeau. ;

Thousands of young people arrive
on the labor market each year. These
young people want meaningful em-
ployment—good jobs and income—not

hugs and kisses. They want proper ©

training for their jobs. They want skills
obtained either at technical institutes
or universities, not the smooching of

an amorous Prime Minister. The Com-

AAA RR

campus Is going to blow

man in a grave time.

The seminar continued. Thought,
talk, action — thought, talk, action.-
Nor was it leaderless. The ex-
perience and mental work under-
taken over a number of years by
men like Father McGuiggan, organ-
izer of a reformed arts program at
UBC; Jim Harding, student activist
candidate for vice-president at SFU
and long-time youth radical in the
NDY and SUPA; Stanley Ryerson;
Marxist historian and expert on the
political-constitutional crisis facing
the two nations of Canada; Larry
Anderson, self-proclaimed catabolic
(i.e, “necessarily  destructive’’)
agent at Lakehead University; and
many others, helped give students
substance for thought and direction.

By the fifth day between 80 and
100 of the total 250 member delega-
tions decided something more than
a national student union comprising
university student councils was
needed in English Canada. All agreed
CUS was necessary to service its
members and it should continue to
dissent actively for democratic re-
form of financing, structure and

-content of the nation’s universities.

They argued that, in addition, stu-
dents who see university reform as
part of workers’ struggle for democ-
racy in factories to make them
“their: own” and French Canada’s
fight for independence to make Que-
bec “its own’—i.e., the fight of
Canadians for a different, democra-
tic and (oh sinful though it sounds)
socialist future—such students must
have their own organization and
program.

police intimidation in many Cana-

Wernick’s prophecy becomes a fact.

munist Party believes that it is th,
duty of the government to provid,
youth with the prospect of full em
ployment. The Communist Party be
lieves that it is the duty of the govern
ment to provide a free, or inexpensiy,
education to students at a trad,
school, a technical institute, or univey
sity. :

At the present time, hundreds 9;
thousands of young Canadians arg
enrolled at universities, second
schools, and trade schools. At the
present time, many of these institu,
tions are nothing but knowledge fac,
tories at which students are expecteq
to take in large amounts of facts anq
skills so that they can be willing,
docile servants of the capitalists. They
are expected to do what the non,
democratic administrators of the in-
stitutions demand of them, without
questioning the orders passed down to
them from high. They are often bur-
dened: with stupid, out-dated, meaning-
less rules and regulations which make
learning not the exciting task it should
be, but a boring type. of enslavement
which drains the creativity and en-
thusiasm out of some of the cleverest
students. They are deprived of the
power to make decisions which affect
their lives, and the lives of their teach-
ers, who are also burdened by many
of the same rules and regulations
which oppress the students.

We, in the Communist Party, believe
that the power to make decisions in
schools, technical institutions, and uni-
versities, must not just reside with
deans, principals, boards of governors,
and what have you. Teachers and stu-
dents must also be granted real deci-
sion-making power which will have a
real influence in the running of the
schools. Democracy must be_ intro-
duced into high schools and univer-
Sities.

Fortunately no one tried to.
““putsch” such a movement, to ver-
balize a structure that had no con-
ent. But the direction is clear. And
step one has been the establish-
ment of a student power bulletin in
Waterloo to service radical students
across Canada. As well the radical
students agreed to organize this
summer among the thousands of un-
employed students not only for jobs,
but for protection from increasing

dian cities. Where possible too, the
pundits for The Two Great Men will
be confronted until June 25 with the
slogan “Issues not Images.”

Like all student seminars, how-
ever, unity of thought and practice,
the big P for praxis, often floated in
clouds of euphoria billowed in by
an environment of total irresponsi-
bility to human labor. As one deéle-
gate placed it, “Our notions of free-
dom are too abstract. While we
make talk, love, and_ revolution,
several dozen workers are enslaved
to wage labor to feed us, clean up
our beds and beer battles.”

As students jet back home, Hali-
fax to Victoria, they’ll have to re-
enter an environment somewhat
short of being revolutionary. But for
many there’s been a revolution of
the mind. As Farber states, ‘For stu-
dents as for black people, the hard-
est battle isn’t with Mr. Charlie. It’s
with what Mr. Charlie has done to
your mind.”

And when a lot of Mr. Charlies’
minds are blown at one time, Andy

“Some campus is just going to have
to blow.” .

STUART MHP EULA LLH UOT TTT TTT TMT