By MARIA DUBOIS

CONTROVERSY OVER A $4 AN HOUR MINIMUM
WAGE, and the call for condemnation of the government's anti-
inflation policy drew some of the major attention of women
attending the National Action Committee on the Status of Wo-
men’s annual conference in Ottawa. With over 200 participants,
about half were official delegates, representing Status of Women
- Committees from every province and the territories, and a vari-
ety of organizations — women’s, feminist, religious, trade union,
and political, including the Communist Party.

With excellent translation facilities, enabling good communt-
Cation among the women of our two nations, in French and
English, the conference provided workshops on four general
subject areas: :

Women and Employment, was led by two panelists, Grace
Hartman, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees
and a CLC vice-president, and Madeleine Parent, Textile Union
organizer. Pie 3
Women and Social Development Programs, which considered
education, training, social assistance, child care, family planning
and abortion, crisis centres and services. ss

Women and Family Law looked at marriage and divorce, and
other matters of federal and provincial legislation. One of its
recommendations met defeat in the vote of the general assembly,
as women recognized its unacceptable stand for a change in

half of the salary direct to the homemaker, with each half of the
Wage being taxed on an individual basis. :

Women and Money dealt with Canada and Quebec Pension Plans,
part-time work and fringe benefits, unemployment insurance and
matemity benefits, taxation, and income support and supplemen-
tation. Although it might have been expected that this workshop
would deal with the anti-inflation policy and its effects on wages,
the panelists, experts in their own fields, and the range of topics
kept the discussion confined. Nevertheless, some good recom-
mendations from this workshop were approved by the general
assembly. They opposed the amendment of the Unemployment
Insurance Act to increase the number-of weeks for establishing
eligibility from eight weeks to twelve. They recommend that the
discriminatory practice of the Unemployment Insurance Com-
mission as it affects particularly immigrants and women with
children, be dealt with by requiring the UIC to inform all claim-
ants that any statement they make may be used to disentitle them.
Specifically, UIC questions whether a claimant has child care,
and the result is that many women, who may have had to stop
paying for child care while unemployed, are then considered
“not available” for work. Delegates also recommend deletion of
the UIC discriminatory section 30 (1) which penalizes expectant
mothers.

There was a unanimous call on Warren Almond, Minister of
Indian Affairs, to prevent the eviction of Native women married
to white men from their Reserves, and for a change to the Indian
Act, Section 12 B1.

a ae oe

THE AIB AND GOVERNMENTAL POLICY drew the
heaviest fire, although with a strongly vocal minority supporting
the federal government. It called on the National Action Commit-
tee, in its Lobby of Members of Parliament, “‘to condemn its
anti-inflation policy for its discriminatory treatment of all work-
ers and espcially women, and reaffirm its 1975 resolution for the
following reasons: :
a) it limits low-income workers to smaller allowances than high
income earners and women are the largest group of low income
workers : ss
b) it encourages negotiation of percentage increases which in-
crease the gap between low and high income earners

c) it places the onus on employers to apply for the exemption for
payments to eliminate sex discrimination — the same employers
who profit by paying women cheap wages

d) there has been very little publicity on the exemption and no
guidelines as to its application and experience shows the nar-
rowest definition of discrimination is used :

€) the computer studies of income do,not provide a male-female
breakdown.”

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PEACE,’ INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY, AND THE
FEDERAL BUDGET’S PRIORITIES, with increases for “'de-
fence” as against restrictions for social benefits, subjects gained
support in the 1976 NAC Conference and discussion 1n the Par-
liamentary Lobby, were “‘tabu topics’ this year in the minds of
workshop planners. Nevertheless there was obvious support or
them in the closing hours of the general assembly, and a propos:
for expansion on ‘‘the rights of children’’, as the conference
oe that 1979 has been declared the Year of the Child by the

nited Nations.
. The Natonal Action Committee on the Status of Women, an
umbrella group with over 100 affiliates whose members total
about two million, is now recognized as a weighty lobbying body.
Tribune readers interested in further information or the NAC
NEWS may write the NAC office, 40 St. Clair Ave. East, Toron-
to.

Ee

income tax law whereby a wage-earner’s employer would pay ~

question,

‘and office workers,

Communist Party
issues of const

TORONTO — Communist
Party policy on the constitutional
crisis — based on the right of
self-determination for the French
Canadian nation, and recognition
of two nations in a single, united
Canada — was reinforced at a
day-long seminar here, April 16.

Some 80 men and women from
all levels of Party leadership ac-
ross southern Ontario and in
Metro Toronto, met with Party
leader William Kashtan,
other members of the Party’s
highest political body, for discus-
sion ‘‘to strengthen our ideologi-
cal understanding of the Party’s
position on the constitutional
crisis.”’

The seminar, organized under
the direction of the Central
Executive Committee of the
Communist Party of Canada, and
one of several scheduled across
the country, was under the
chairmanship of William Stewart,

Ontario leader of the CPC.
Another is in preparation for —

north and north-west Ontario.
In the course of his remarks,
Kashtan was critical of those like
Tory leader Clark, who still toy
with the idea of armed force to
‘settle’ to status of Quebec. The
federal government is suspect be-
cause it has never repealled the
War Measures Act under which
arrests were made in Quebec in
1970; and there is open recogni-
tion that the 700 armored person-
nel carriers ordered by the gov-
ernment are for possible use
against the. civilian population.
He also took to task the social
reformists — the New Democra-
tic Party leadership — who refuse
to see the essense of the national
the right to self-
determination, and the link-up of
this with economics, and the ef-
forts of the national bourgeoisie to
seduce workers into supporting
‘their own state.’’ On this basis
the French Canadian bourgeoisie
calls for support of its demands by
workers. Instead, what is needed
is to preserve the unity of Canada,
on a foundation of the unity of the
working class in its struggle

, against monopoly, Kashtan said.

A number of salient points were
made in discussion:

e A made-in-Canada constitu-
tion, called for by the Communist
Party, would be designed to come
to grips with questions of concern
to all Canadians — independent
Canadian development, control
of our own resources, public
ownership under democratic con-
trol of key areas of the economy
— as well as the national ques-
tion.

e Full support for the idea of
French as the language of work in
Quebec must be coupled with in-
sistence on the rights of the
minorities in both nations.

The bourgeois concept that na-
tion and state are the same thing

has to be seen through by workers .

as a false concept.

_ The participants in the semi-
nar, trade unionists, industrial
students,
workers in the professions, and

- Party functionaries, made both
theoretical and practical points,

as well as raising useful questions
for answering.

In a brief summary, William
Kashtan noted that through all the
discussion and opinion offered,
‘no comrade -argued with the

Party policy, or disagreed with

it,’’ and that this was a vindication
of the decisions of the Central

and fj

seminar debates
itutional crisis

William Kashtan said in his concluding remarks that the right to self-
determination can be won in conditions of bourgeois democracy, but
only socialism can guarantee it.

Committee meeting in February.

He recalled: *‘Our Party has for
many, many years argued out the
national question.’’ He referred
to the long record of the Com-

munist Party on French Canada, -

in the Jan.-Feb. issue of Com-
munist Viewpoint.
“The right. to national self-

determination is not a socialist
demand;”’ said Kashtan, “‘it can
be won in conditions of bourgeois
democracy, but only socialism
can guarantee it.”’

Communists reject the idea that
separatism must be the end pro-
duct of exercising sovereignty, he
said. :

Winnipeg meet demands
disarmament conference

WINNIPEG — Some 200 citi-
zens came to a concert-meeting
sponsored by the Congress of
Canadian Women to mark Inter-
national Women’s Day. They
were welcomed by Ann
Jackson,CCW Winnipeg chapter
president and heard greetings
from representatives of its af-
filiates — Association of United
Ukrainian Canadians, Federation
of Russian Canadians and United
Jewish People’s Order. Carol
Swan, president of the Manitoba
Action Committee Status of Wo-
men, stated she was pleased to
bring greetings and best wishes on
this important occasion.

The event took on a truly inter-
national character with the par-
ticipation of members of the Chi-
lean Association and the Afro-
Caribbean Singers. a

Particularly moving was the
greeting given by Anna Maria
Santinole of the Chilean Associa-
tion and- her description of the
conditions of terror in her coun-
try, which she, along with
thousands were forced to leave.
The meeting
adopted a resolution expressing
concem over the violations of
human rights and the continuing
reign of torture and demanding
the release of over 2,000 missing
patriots and all political prisoners
incarcerated by Pinochet’s fascist
junta in Chile.

The guest speaker, Mary De-

unanimously ©

nis, national president of the Con-
gress of Canadian Women, gave
an account of her visit to Portugal,
where she attended a Council
meeting of the Women’s Interna-
tional Democratic Federation.
Reports from women of many
countries, she said, showed the

‘growing active involvement of

women throughout the world in
the people’s struggles for
economic security, national liber-
ation and independence, peace
and détente. This will certainly
bring many achievements in the
struggle for women’s equal rights
in the Decade of Development
1975-1985.

A resolution calling on the
Canadian government to press for
a world disarmament conference
and another for the implementa-
tion of universal day care services
to meet the needs. of working
mothers by both federal and pro-
vincial governments were unani-
mously adopted.

An enjoyable concert program
was provided by the AUUC Bar-
vinok Women’s Choir, conducted
by Wm. Philipowich, skits by the
Nellie McClung Theatre, folk
dances by Chilean Association, °
selections by the Afro-Caribbean
Singers and songs by Olga Botan
of the Federation of Russian
Canadians and by folk singers
Elena Greenberg and Tusia
Kozub. 5

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1977—Page 5