BRITISH COLUMBIA

American peace activist Marie Hammer displays proclamation of family day for
world peace at the Women’s International Peace Gathering which drew Amer-
icans and Canadians to the Peace Arch border park Saturday. Hammer
authored the document and was instrumental in its adoption by Bellingham
city council and Whatcom County executive. The gathering, held in recognition
of the 1985 United Nations World Conference on Women, featured parts of a
“peace ribbon” with which U.S. peace activists plan to ring the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C. on Hiroshima Day in August. :

“Cut tie to U.S. foreign
policy, Liberals told

_ Ifthe federal Liberal Party wants to back
its proclaimed peace sentiments with deeds,
It should oppose further testing of the U.S.
Cruise missile in Canada and unequivocally
Oppose Canada’s involvement in the U.S.
Star Wars scheme, party external affairs
Critic Jean Chretien was told.

End the Arms Race, the Vancouver-
based umbrella organization of almost 200
member groups, and the B.C. Peace Coun-
cil criticized the former Liberal govern-
Ment’s signing of the weapons-testing
accord with the United States and the
agreement to allow cruise testing, in Van-
Couver May 27.

Chretien, heading the party’s task force
on peace, security and world disarmament,
claimed the Liberals oppose Star Wars but
defended the initial agreement allowing
Cruise testing.

_The task force is seeking public input in
Liberal Party foreign policy, and peace
ffoups attending the first hearing gave

hretien an earful.

Dr. James Foulks of the B.C. Peace
Council hit Star Wars — the popular name
Or the Reagan administration’s space-
based Strategic Defence Initiative — as a
Move “fraught with dangerous consequen-
ces,

“Tt will greatly accelerate the production
and deployment of offensive nuclear wea-
Pons of all types as a compensatory move,
driving the arms race to an ever higher level
of intensity while serving to ally public anx-
leties by offering an illusory hope that pro-
tection from its consequences is near at
hand,” said Foulks.

Foulks said Star Wars threatens the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty “‘which has been an
important bulwark to constrain the arms
race” and the current disarmament talks at
Geneva.

Instead, Canada should pursue an inde-

pendent foreign policy “less subservient” to

U.S. interests, said Foulks, asserting, “We
agree with the conclusion reached by such
prominent Canadians as Walter Gordon
— that Canada should withdraw from
NATO and NORAD), and we believe that
the cause of peace would be better served by
the dissolution of all military blocs and
alliances.”

End the Arms Race in its brief called the
technology behind Star Wars part of the
“first strike” strategy for a nuclear war, and
called on the government and all political
parties to cancel the cruise tests, halt pro-
duction of nuclear weapon components,
refuse involvement in Star Wars and estab-
lish Canada as nuclear-weapons free.

Chretien said Liberals now regret signing
the cruise agreement. But his reasoning was
based on the so-called need “to achieve the
balance” in arms arsenals. The trouble with
Star Wars is that it threw ‘“‘out the window
the NATO policy in one shot,” said the task
force chairman.

Chretien’s argument ignored the point
made continually by peace groups that the
cruise itself was a destabilizer and part of the
US. first-strike strategy, and the often-
repeated fact that the air-launched cruise
missile tested here has nothing to do with
NATO, but is part of the U.S.’ own arsenal.

to go,

Taise more.

So. Every dollar counts.

Fifty years hanging
on next three weeks

Last week we appealed to our readers and supporters to help raise
an average of $2,000 a day — the amount that was needed to

guarantee a victorious banquet June 22.
Well, we didn’t quite make it. In fact, a little over $7,000 came in,

Putting our total up to $57,050. And that means we still have $42,950

This week, Prince George and Powell River press clubs went over
their targets, adding their names to the list of seven clubs who are
already into the race for the shields. And all of them have pledged to

That’s the spirit we need. We’re calling on you — in fact, we're
Counting on you — to make every effort you can, to find another |
dollar or two to make that donation now if you haven’t already done

Fifty years of tradition is hanging on the next three weeks.

Wilson’s pay-the-rich
budget: fight it now
or face more later

What are the main features of the May
23 federal budget that Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney described as “tough but
fair,’ and which Finance Minister
Michael Wilson described as ‘“‘a funda-
mental break with the past,” a ““compre-
hensive economic strategy” designed to
deal with “high unemployment and our
spiralling national debt?”

The many new taxes being imposed
on working people will cost the average
family at least $1,000 a year. These
include a two-cents per litre tax on gaso-
line, a two-per cent increase in the tax on
alcoholic drinks, a 25-cent per package
additional tax on cigarettes, a one-per
cent increase in the sales tax (with many
new items now being included in the
taxable list), the tax deductible Regis-
tered Home Ownership Savings Plan
(RHOSP) has been eliminated, and last
but not least, income taxes will be greatly
increased.

In addition, old age pensions and fam-
ily allowances will be decreased by three
per cent through a limitation on the sys-
tem of indexing.

But while taxes on working people are
being raised, taxes on big corporations
are being lowered.

A $500,000 lifetime exemption has
been placed on capital gains. Taxes being

Harry

Rankin

removed from the oil corporations
amount to $3.3 billion annually as a
result of the so-called Western Accord
signed between Ottawa and the three
western provinces.

Corproate conglomerates may reduce
their federal profit taxes by transferring
the losses incurred by one of their com-
panies to another making a _ profit.
Finance Minister Wilson said that in
1981 corporations had $13.8 billion in
such unused tax credits which they may
now use.

He specified, however, that co-
operatives and credit unions will not be
permitted to do this. The budget speech
said nothing about the $30 billion a year
in special tax exemptions now being
enjoyed by big corporations, or about
collecting the $40 billion they owe in
deferred taxes. However, Wilson did
admit that today 60 per cent of corpora-
tions pay no income tax at all.

The May 23 budget did not create one

- new job. On the contrary, Wilson made

it very clear that he does not consider
that the government has any responsibil-
ity for job creation, and that the way to
create new jobs is to give more tax con-
cessions to big business, on the theory
that they would then be encouraged to
invest and expand employment.

That, of course, is plain political
deceit. Corporations will invest their

additional profits where they can make
the most money — by taking over other
companies, by investing in another coun-
try, or by introducing technological
change and laying off still more people.
Furthermore, Canadian manufacturing
industries are operating at about 80 per
cent of capacity now — they won’t
expand production until new markets
are assured.

Finance Minister Wilson did an-
nounce, however, that 15,000 more jobs
in the civil service will be eliminated.
Federal Liberal leader, John Turner
estimates that the actual job loss from
this budget will be 125,000. NDP leader
Ed Broadbent estimates the loss at
150,000. I think it could easily be double
that.

Wilson announced that 13 more
Crown corporations, all of them making
high profits which now go into the fed-
eral treasury, will be put on the auction
block and sold to the private sector — at
fire-sale prices that will amount to a gift
to the buyers.

Finance Minister Wilson claimed that

the measures he took in the budget will |

reduce the federal deficit this year by $4.4
billion and next year by $8.3 billion. This
is pure financial fiction. His own budget
figures. prove that the actual reduction

this year will be only $1.1 billion and next
year it will be only $2.2 billion.

The deficit was only used as a smoke-
screen to carry out his program of more
taxes on working people and more tax
concessions for the wealthy. The budget
proves once again that figures can lie and
liars can figure.

The budget also contains a whole host
of cuts in government programs,
amounting to billions of dollars. The
only program not being cut is military
spending.

It is clear that the new taxes imposed
on working people and the cuts in
government programs are being made to
cover the huge tax breaks given to the big
corporations. The budget is being used
to redistribute the income of Canadians,
to take it away from working people and
put it into the pockets of the rich.

This sell out, this betrayal of all the

election promises of the Tories, should |

be met with a huge wave of protest
actions to let them know we won't stand
for it. If we don’t we will get more and
more of the same.

The corporate elite of this country is
determined to take away all the gains we
have made in the last 45 years, to reduce
our living standards to Third-World lev-
els. That’s why they put the Mulroney
government and the Bennett govern-
ment into office. ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 5, 1985 « 3