SNR ELAR OARS RR LR RN RS Powerful peace movement is developing in French Canada The beginning of pre-convention discussion 01 the Draft Resolution has already revealed that some comrades do not grasp easily and fully the cen.ral point in the document. ' underlined by Comrade Buck in his article on pre-convention discussion as follows: “While emphasizing the im- minence and magnitude of the danger confronting Canadian de- mocracy, the resolution places equal emphasis upon the fact that the danger of war can be headed off; atomic war can be prevented, the warmongers de. feated. The resolution shows how a third world war can be pre- vented and indicates the tasks that our party must undertake in its struggle to preserve peace.” By HARRY BINDER and the Liberals, although possi- bilities existed in Quebec at that time. * * * Developments since the provin- cial elections in the province of Quebec all indicate the urgent need for a political movement or party, based on the organized labor move- ment, which can offer the possi- Gerard Picard, president of the Catholic Syndicates, clared that the Premier “is an en- emy of the working class of Que- bec.” His stand was endorsed by other labor leaders in the AFL and ‘COL. bility of defeating the Duplessis; CCF, stated that his party “views is growing in the ranks of labor. publicly de- ° Guy Desaulniers, president of the - —MONTREAL That central thesis was and would line the pockets of the war profiteers, e@ So strong has the sentiment for Canadian abstention from war become in French Canada that Ivan Sabourin, the head of the Tory Party in the province made a de- magogic statement to the effect that “neutrality” was possible. That Sabourin, supporter and represen- tative of George Drew should find it necessary ‘to take issue with St. Laurent on this matter, is a fact regime. Since the elections, Duplessis has opened an all-out offensive against the labor movement. It is not lim- ited, as it was before the elections, to attacks upon the left wing. Cer- Canada. ity must not however, blind us to the fact that they are genuinely interested in peace, and are a most important part of the gathering front of peace and democracy in Another weakness in the peace movement in French Canada is the fact that the labor movement, over 200,000 strong, is not’as yet playing tification of unions, even such as the ILGWU, is revoked without notice. By the machinations of the Labor Relations Board, the CBRE’ union of the tramway workers was split, and the bus drivers became prevent loss of labor's rights. of the CCL-CIO unions in Montreal | With grave concern recent develop- |ments in the field of organized la- bor.” He appealed “to all those who are concerned with social justice and the improvement of living con- ditions for people in the lower in- come brackets to join forces” to The recent emergency conference members of a company union un- der. the lead of Marquette. Duplessis launched a brazen at- tack upon the CCL and Catholic Syndicates, which are the bargain- ing agents for municipal em- ployees in various parts of the pro- vince, and said that municipal em- Feb 4-8 date set for LPP convention The national office of the the great role which it should in| ployees shall be deprived of the It is not enough to accept these concepts in words. Unless we un- derstand them fully, and are com-!. pletely convinced that they are correct, we will not be able to ful- fill our responsibilities in the strug- gle to defeat the warmongers. For the entire weight of the war pro- paganda in Canada is today di- rected to convincing the people that war is inevitable; that nothing the people can do will prevent the ap- parently inexorable drive towards war, A section of the working class is unquestionably being infected by this fatalistic propaganda. And, here and there, Party members themselves are being swayed by the volume and persistence of the press, platforms and radio in seek- ing to drive this viewpoint home. The Draft Resolution refutes and rejects these propositions of the bourgeoisie. In so doing it is in line with the resolution of the nine- party conference which warned sharply against any tendency to over-estimate the strength of im- perialism and to under-estimate the strength of the camp of peace and democracy, The latent power of the peace camp in Canada has been demon- strated, not only by the resolution on peace, passed at the Victoria convention of the Trades and Labor Congress, and by the mass response to the message of the Dean of Can- terbury in his tour across Canada, but also by many additional devel- opments in different parts of the country including significant events taking place in the province of Quebec. bal * *« * Some comrades had expected that the traditional anti-war and anti- imperialist sentiments of ‘the French-Canadian people would be easily turned, by the propaganda of the bourgeoisie, into the channels of anti-Sovietism and in favor of atomic war. But this is not the case. The war propaganda is not falling on fertile ground. The movement for peace in Quebec is growing rapidly, and new forces are becom- ing vocal in their opposition to em: broilment of Canada in war. The following developments, among others are an indication of the trend: @ Le Devoir, organ of a national- ist group, closely allied with a Section of the Catholic clergy, and the old daily of Henri Bourassa, is conducting a powerful campaign for an immediate declaration of neutrality by the Canadian govern- ment. In one editorial, Gerard Fil- ion, the editor, argues that a de- claration of neutrality by Canada now would have an important ef- upon the drive to war, and Would help to cool the ardor of those who are planning boa an. a ing St. Laurent’s notoriou ‘Statement that even if 11,999,999 Canadians were for peace, we were too far committed to be able to Avoid being drawn into war, Le r has received some support €ven from the Liberal daily in Que- bee Le Soleil, and from Le Droit in Hull. ate The Union des aageeend is Paigning around two gans: qauerre a la Guerre” and ae de Service obligatoire.” (War on War; and No Conscription). Its weekly _Tadio broadcasts assert that war is no defense against communism, that speaks volumes for the anti- war feeling in French Canada. 2 @ Pierre Lefevre the editor of Quartier Latin, student paper in the University of Montreal, wrote a Satirical article recently on “The Threat of Peace.” Among other things the article said: “Ignoring any decency, and bas- ing themselves on the lowest in- stincts of the masses, certain ex- tremists go as far as talking about lasting peace... “To destroy homes, | shops, churches with bombs; to disperse families; to throw chaos into the economy; to sharpen by war profits the antagonism between classes; here is the answer you are giving to Marxist postulates.” @ A manifesto issued by Ray- mond Mondor, in a special supple- ment to the St. Henri paper, Voix Populaire, is evoking great response among the workers, and a number of sharp articles by the capitalist press, particularly the Montreal Herald. Mondor, an organizer of the Office and Professional Work- By arrangement with the national office of the Labor- broeressive -rarty,: the Pacific Tribune is devoting. its cdlumns to a discussion of the Dratt Resolution pre- pared by the national execu- tive of the LPP for the 3rd Convention which takes place February 4 to 8 in Toronto. All LPP clubs and mem- e bers are invited to send in their comments, criticisms and proposals. All such communications should be addressed to William Kash- tan, LPP national office, 73 Adelaide St. W., Toronto. ers Union, is calling on the work- ers to oppose war, and to organize a mass campaign against the “mon- sters of finance” who are acting to- gether with American imperialism to make Canada a battlefield in an atomic war. Committees for peace are spring: ing up among the youth and wom: en, as well as among English speaking middle 2 * These facts go to prove the cor- rectness of the .resolution in em- phasizing that the peace camp is powerful in Canada, as it is strong- er on a world scale than the camp of imperialism. It is true that the peace move- ment in Quebec, as elsewhere, has some serious weaknesses. For in- stance, we Communists in Quebec differ with the proponents of a pol- icy of “neutrality.” To advocate neutrality is to assume that war is coming, and that our task is to as sure that Canada should not be in- volved. We Communists state on the contrary that our task as fight- ers for peace is to demand a policy by our government which would help prevent a world war. We de- mand positive action for peace; the Draft Resolution outlines an 11 point program of governmental ac- tion which would help save the world from war. 7 Our disagreements with many French- Canadians who express their desire for peace in terms of t a war against the Soviet would Only help to spread communism the fight for peace. Although the rank and file workers are over- whelmingly for a peace policy by Canada, against the subservience of our country to American imper- ialism, the official bodies of the TLC-AFL, CCL-CIO and the Cath- olic Syndicates are not giving that dynamic léad which is required to save our country from the disaster of atomic war. It is here that our Party can make its greatest contribution to- wards helping unite the peace movement, giving it the clarity and power which the working class can lend to a great people’s movement. Our Party, acting even now on the policy indicated by the Draft Resolution, must boldly advocate the mobilization of the trade un- ions in the struggle for peace. Our selves convinced that the people can defeat the warmongers, we must patiently and consistently ex- pose the war propaganda, and im- bue the workers in the plants and unions, with faith in the ability of the labor movement to express the desire for peace of the French- Canadian people; and give the lead to unifying the whole peace camp, in Quebec and Canada as a whole. ‘ a In both tongues right to belong to unions affiliated FFICE The growing movement for peace in the province of Quebec high- lights the correctness of the per- spective indicated in the draft re- solution of the provincial commit- tee of the Party in Quebec, pre- pared for examination and discus- sion, in the period up to the pro- vincial convention, held December 10-12. The desire of the people of French Canada for peace and social progress will ultimately be ex- pressed in political form, through support for a political movement that can offer an alternative to the “No help wanted” means the Same to French and English- speaking workers, just like “No vacancies.” Unemployment, as seen in the above bilingual sign, has hit Montreal as well as Van- couver. The trusts saddle French- Canadian workers with the heavy burden of national inequality through intensiled exploitation. While this is a key to monopoly’s power in Canada, it also creates ‘the conditions for the growing peace movement discussed on this page. parties of reaction and war. The resolution of the provincial committee declares: “Thus the responsibility of our Party in Quebec is to intensify the fight for labor political action and to help find the means for rapidly crystallizing a_ political movement which would provide a real alternative to the parties of the trusts. “Nor must this task be long sale unions. Wherever a union organ- izes workers and applies for cer- tification, with the rest of the labor move ment. The Catholic School teachers, led by Leo Guindon, who may be forced to strike to obtain an increase in their salaries, are threatened by Duplessis with sions. loss of their pen- Duplessis is sponsoring the whole- establishment of company the Labor’ Relations Labor-Progressive Party an- delayed, It cannot be regarded as a perspective of the distant fu ture. It has become an urgent political problem of the day.” The factors which point to this sentiment for peace among the people of Quebec are indicated in the resolution. that the main electoral slogan of at the polls to elect CCF govern: ment” was at variance with a per- spective of the development of a new political movement in Quebec. The Party noted, of course, that the application of the slogan, so far as Quebec was concerned could not be the same as it was in Ontario, or Saskatchewan, where the CCF has the support of great masses of workers and farmers. But the leadership of the Party in Quebec allowed the slogan to divert the attention of the Party from the need to conduct a serious struggle for the launching of a e the demand for Canadian neutral- alternative to the Union Nationale conclusion, in addition to the rising It should be pointed out however, our Party on a national scale “unite |. Board gives direct assistance to the employer in setting up company unions. Many unions under honest leadership are simply told that they need not apply for certification in plants newly-organized because it will not be granted. In these and numerous other ways the Duplessis regime, flushed with its victory in the provincial destroy the labor movement. CARD OF THANKS We wish to sincerely thank our comrades and friends for the beautiful flewers, and for the cards, letters and other ex- pressions of sympathy in the loss of our beloved Malcolm. Ina MacLeod and family. elections, is seeking to split and Opposition to Duplessis’ policies | nounced this week that the date of the national convention of the LPP has been finally set for Feb- ruary 4 to 8 and not as previously oop announced, : : urged a public campaign to win popular support against the anti- labor policies of the Duplessis re- gime. ’ These are but early indications of — the fact that the people of Quebec face increasingly sharp struggles for improved conditions of life and in defence of their elementary rights to maintain and build their organizations, to defend their rights _ of freedom of speech, assembly and press. : The two previous conventions of the Party in Quebec recognized that the working people of the province, __ in their fight for improved condi- tions and for national : with . the rest of the Dominion, would advance through ultimate forma- tion of a “people’s coalition.” = The present resolution goes ther: it proposes that the Party, and all democratic and progressive elements in the province shall be- steps which it is possible to to launch such a movement. The lessons of the Wallace move- ment in the U.S. should not be for- gotten in consideration of - ities in Quebec, While it would be _ mechanical to draw a close ecom- Parison, it is a fact that there ar@ some similarities in the situation, especially in the 'y known right-wing limited influence of Social democracy in the province. The support given to the Marshall | Plan by the CCF national conven- _ tion, and the general support to the _ war policy of the St. Laurent gov-— ernment by the Coldwells and Scotts, will even further isolate _ the CCF from the masses of French-Canadian people. gee Ce Thus the resoiution is, in my opinion, correct in stating that the _ time is ripe for a new political — movement, based upon the trade unions, but allying itself with the growing peace forces. Such a move- _ ment, championing the cause of _ poner democracy and — ed soc. and economic conditions, would for the first time speak for the genuine national interests of French Canada. — SOOO PORT ALBERNI DIRECTORY 2% HOUR SERVICE» : UNION TAXY. Phone 137 Harris, Ist & Argyl