)\ Nov. 10, sam walsh, Quebec leader of the Communist Party, was in- toa Meeting of the Que- €gislative Committee on Constitution to answer jos about the party’s a for French Canada’s 'o self-determination as a . The proposals had been ted in a brief to the “Nittee, his answers, published alsh throws some light Communist point of 1 this and related ques- few do you understand , Perative federalism?” Practice it seems to mean Onsultation between fe- his ;¢ Provincial govern- Pre any important le- ne 1s adopted, and the Y On the part of the fe- m covernment to resign m pain responsibilities, to the of them over to the tal governments, assign- €m the requisite tax Tesources. a no way recognizes 8ht of the French Cana- a “Union Generale des Udiants du Quebec” has ®en founded at a con- peel in Montreal Nov. i iPating in the founding een were 166 delegates Niversities, classical col- rg chnical schools and Bn olleges across Quebec. fe ish Canadian universi- a Uebec, who are consid- of bership, sent a num- \ pescrvers, ‘ ne the observers also M paves Larue. Langlois, of ne ment for Nuclear Dis- af ht, Pierre Valieres, edit- ‘be ie monthly Revolution Ree Pear auretson one r acia quality, ‘hy Andre Pelletier, of the - ~Ommunist League. f iy ccision to form a com- tig, Pendent student or- “4 in Quebec crystallized (ae year, when students thn Niversities of Montreal, € and Laval withdrew - anadian Union of Stu- Pie grounds that it did ‘Uo. their needs and did ‘al ’ them to exercise their “ghts, shes How do you see the rights of dian nation while it arouses the hostility of those English Cana- dians living in the poor provin- ces who obviously do not favor decentralibation. The stress on cooperative fe- deralism neither assures the right to self-determination for French Canada nor the social wellbeing of the people of Eng- lish Canada. It mixes up the question of the equal rights of the two nations with dominion- provincial affairs and thus harms the cause of the unity of the two nations. In your proposal that the ethnic groups should have the rights to the development of their own culture, do you sug- gest that they should have the same rights as the English and French Canadian peo- ples? No. The English and French Canadian peoples constitute na- tions. The only nations in Can- ada. As such they must have the right to self-determination, to sovereignty, and to separate if they wish. But we must guarantee the right of all ethnic groups to the use of their language and cul- ture’ which is different than the right of sovereignty or the right to separate. Do you advocate a one- party system? No. We do not advocate a one-party system. Nothing in Marxist theory upholds the one- party system. In Russia parti- cular circumstances brought it about. But we believe that socialism can be built and should be built by any number of parties who are interested in the crea- tion of a democratic and social- ist system. Socialism is the ex- pression and the amplification of democracy. It is not the ne- gation of it. Do you advocate this be- cause of the two nations here? Not because of the two na- tions here, but because of the development of democracy in both nations. In what way does the pre- sent Constitution fail to pro- tect Canadian independence? In that it weakens. the strength of Canada by not re- cognizing French Canadians as a nation and laying us open to military, economic and political The militancy of Quebec students in the fight for peace as well as economic and national rights goes back for-many years. Above: Montreal students stand before the cenotaph on Dominion Square during a demonstration on Aug. 6, 1960 in honor of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A charter adopted at the con- vention describes the UGEQ as a democratic, non-confessional student union, free of partisan interests and rejecting all poli- tical affiliation. The charter bases itself on the concept of “Syndicalisme Etudiant,” and has for its aim the. grouping of students into a “common front,” directed toward their involve- ment in political action on every level. (“Syndicalisme Etudiant” has been a basic concept in the phi- losophy of Quebec students. A commission appointed by the convention to discuss the sub- ject defined the student as a penetration of the United States as a result of the division of the two nations. Genuine unity can only be built on complete equality and genuine unity is our best de- fense against foreign penetra- tion and control. The major weakness of Confederation is that it does not recognize the two Canadian nations. This re- quires a new constitution. How would you apply equality to the two nations in the matter of education, for instance, within other pro- vinces? Whether English Canada would' like to have education handled centrally between the various sections of English Can- ada, or continue as a respon- sibility of the different regions or provinces, is a matter for themselves to decide. I would think this would re- quire more centralization to equalize opportunities through- out English-speaking Canada. But in no way can you central- ize the direction of education for the two nations. Canada would no longer be an agglomeration of 10 provinces, “young intellectual worker’ whose “rights and duties” are exactly the same as a “young manual worker.” It proposed that these two species of young worker be recognized as the most dynamic element in our so- ciety and the most likely to real- ize the necessary transformation of it.) Action was promised on the international scene directed at “the establishment of a new or- der of cooperation among men, without distinction of race, lan- guage or belief.” The most controversial point in the discussion on the propos- ed charter was that of “free- - dom” — academic freedom, the right to private institutions, the availability of education, state control, etc. In the end, the resolution adopted called for the ‘freedom of academic institutions without excluding the control and co- ordination of the state.” Two films were shown the delegates: the much-discussed documentary, “Jeunesse Annee Zero,” previously shown to the December 4, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5 Quebec? but an association of two equal and sovereign nations. The ac- tual senate would be abolished and replaced by an elected body of representatives from French and English.Canada in equal numbers while retaining a House of Commons elected on the basis of population. All matters relinquished by the governments of the two na- tional communities to this truly confederal government would be legislated only with the ap- proval of these two houses. If your solution to the crisis of Confederation did not ma- terialize, would you advocate separatism? Contrary to Bona Arsenault’s statement (the provincial secre- tary) that an independent Que- bec would necessarily be a Com- munist Quebec, we believe that a separate Quebec may well be a fascist state. Independence by itself does not decide the social system. We do not, therefore, advocate separatism. The main enemies of French and English Canada, however, are not the separat- ists, but the monopolies, whether they are American, Canadian, or French Canadian. or action Quebec Liberal Federation, which portrays the burning dis- content with which many young French Canadians view their government, and the film of the March on Washington. Following the latter, dele- gates heard a speech by John Patterson of CORE, who ex- pressed the opinion that if the Negroes in the United States were to liberate themselves, they would have to liberate the entire American nation. Elected president of the new organization was Jacques Des- jardins, former vice-president of the Association Generale des Etudiants de l'Universite de Montreal. In a_ pre-election speech to delegates, Desjardin rejected both the International Union of Students and the In- ternational Student Conference and called for closer ties be- tween the “Latin” students of Quebec and the “third world”, He maintained it was “incon- ceivable that the government should maintain a_ bourgeois policy . . . to the detriment of Other classes such as the farm- ers and workers.”