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By TOM MORRIS
This government may well be
remembered as one of the most
inept, cynical and disgraceful the
country has seen.

In sheer numbers alone, Ot-
tawa has surpassed itself in the
creation of a crisis of massive
proportions. Trudeau’s regime
has engineered an incredible de-
bacle; it is directly responsible for
widespread misery, anxiety and
hopelessness. It has wreaked
havoc with Canada’s economy. It
has mobilized a jobless army
more than 1,000,000 strong.

Millions of families suffer un-'
der the double blows of unem-
ployment and inflation. Young
people by the hundreds of
thousands face each day in the
hopeless task of searching for
jobs that don’t exist. Hundreds of
thousands more at schools and
universities have the same dismal
prospect when they complete
their studies.

Workers and their unions are
under a full-blown attack by gov-
ernment and employers who are
well aware how to use the
economic picture to drive down
wage demands, undercut collec-
tive bargaining agreements and
black mail the labor movement.

The economic scene is a sham-
bles and there’s worse to come.
- Forsheer greed and cynicism the
federal government and corpo-
rations get full marks. Trudeau,
speaking to students at the Uni-
versity of Toronto March 24, says
“to get out and slug it” on the job
market. And, says he, if they

don't like it, they should leave
Canada. Not bad, coming from
an arrogant, well-fed millionaire.

Corporate profits are healthy

and banks especially have hit pay _

dirt. Still, Gerald Bouey, gover-
nor of the Bank of Canada warns
the government against spend-
ing to deal with unemployment.
He says “the struggle must go on
for years” in this sham battle
against inflation. The terrible so-
cial consequences of present
corporate-government policies
don’t bother Bouey.

So here we have it: Trudeau
telling the country to go to hell
and the big banks telling the un-
employed to stop being greedy.

Bigger Jobless Rate Predicted

Never in Statistics Canada’s

24-year history. has the jobless
figure been as high. The official
rate is 932,000, a number de-
scribed as “a disgrace and a na-
tional tragedy” by CLC president
Joe Morris. But there’s the hid-
den 291,000 not counted in this
figure who have stopped receiv-

ing unemployment payments. .

There are many thousands more
faceless, nameless people who
have never registered and don't
exist in Ottawa’s computers.
Add to this the 600,000 high
school and university students
the National Union of Students
says will be without work this
summer. There are an estimated
100,000 women with children
who would work but for the lack
of daycare — ‘they are not
counted by Statscan. If the full
story were told, the impact of this
crisis would be truly staggering.

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And yet the Conference Board
of Canada tells us we can expect
higher unemployment in 1977.
The current official figure of
932,000 is calculated at 7.9% and
we're told to expect an 8.3% job-
less rate. That would officially
put us over the one million mark.
Unofficially we will climb to al-
most two million Canadians
without work in this land of op-

portunity. :

The Story in Figures

We must remember: the of-
ficial figure represents only those
who are listed as actually having
looked for work and leaves out
the hundreds of thousands de-
scribed above. On this basis
here’s the picture (in official
Statistics only) across Canada —

Newfoundland 15.1%; PEI
9%; Nova Scotia 11%; New
Brunswick 13%; Quebec 9.7%;
Ontario 6.8%; Manitoba 6%;
Saskatchewan 3.7%; Alberta 4%
and British Colombia 8.2%

For young people, 14-24, the
Trudeau government has
created a nightmare. In 1961 the
youth jobless rate was about 80%
higher than that of adults. Today
that rate is a whopping 250%
higher. The effects in social
terms, in terms also of their con-
fidence in the future will be with
us for decades.

Fighting Inflation?

This crisis was manufactured
by Ottawa under the guise of
‘fighting inflation’. People are
denied their right to a job,
abused by Unemployment In-
surance investigators, forced into
poverty in a cold, calculated
manner by government policy.

But inflation keeps right on
climbing. Your 1961 dollar is to-
day worth 48 cents and your
1971 dollar is worth 64 cents.
The reduced purchasing power
of the more than one million job-
less itself creates more jobless.
But inflation keeps soaring. Cor-
porations boost prices and profits
at will without interference from
Trudeau and Company.

They and their hacks deliber-
ately created this jobless crisis —
and then tell the unemployed to
“slug it out”. They allow unli-
mited profits by corporations —

“I am one of the 900,000
Canadians who are unem-
ployed. Each turn-down, each
rejection, each unanswered let-
ter kills a bit of us.

“Each time we have to ans-
wer our children when they ask:
‘Daddy, why can’t we!’ some of
our strength and perseverance
is killed, because we remember
our hopes and dreams which
have been dashed...

“For you unemployment is a
human interest story. It is a
good topic for a learned
treatise. by an economist,
sociologist or some other so-
cial scientist. For the 900,000
Canadians it is stark reality. We
don’t need your sympathy, we
need jobs. We don’t need
well-meaning but useless ad-
vice, we need jobs.”

Letter in Toronto Globe & Mail

and tell the people it’s their “high
living” that’s to blame. They
create the crisis in Canadian edu-
cation — and tell students to
leave if they don't like it.
Trudeau jacks: up the arms

-THE ECONOMY
is A MESS
BECAUSE YOU'RE
LIVING BEYOND

YOUR MEANS/

budget to a record-breaking)
$3.4-billion and says thé
economic pot can’t provide fol
people's crying needs. This gov i
ernment and the capitalist system™ my
it serves is rotten to the core. th
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on

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THE ECONOMY |o
ISAMESS _[F
BECAUSE VOU‘RE |.
SAVING TOO §— |x.
MUCH -MONEY,,/ bo

COMADI AA) The BUA

How the UIC ched

By MIKE PHILLIPS

As ifthe cruel indignity of being
denied the right to earn a living in
this rich country wasn’t enough,
thousands among Canada’s 1.5
million unemployed also have to
deal with a deliberate and con-
certed campaign by the federal
government and the Unemploy-
ment Insurance Commission
(UIC) to deny them the benefits to
which hard-working years of con-
tributions to the plan entitle them.

The ‘‘honorable’’ J. S. G.
Cullen, minister of manpower and
immigration, responded to the
latest official Statistics Canada
record of the country’s unem-
ployed, with an announcement
that tighter control would be
exercised over UIC benefits to

- weed out the so-called “‘rip-off”’

artists supposedly abusing the
system and, in the process, saving
the government $300-million.

“After hiding about halfa million
unemployed through statistical
hocus pocus, Statistics Canada
officially estimates 932,000 Cana-
dians are presently looking for a
job — any job. Cullen has a run-
ning battle with Statscan as he
claims the existence of about
94,000 job vacancies, to the statis-
tics agency’s estimated 38,000.

Jobs Don’t Exist
Even accepting Cullen’s highly

vest

questionable figures, that lea te
at least 838,000 Canadians out 0),
work, fruitlessly looking for jobS
which don’t exist.
Canada’s unemployed have the
right to ask where Cullen is goin8
to get that $300-million? The /
answer quite bluntly, is that he 'e
and the UIC will literally steal it

-from the pockets of the unem:!

ployed, and the food it would”
have bought from the mouths of
their families. © 70

By disentitling and disqualify: >
ing large numbers of the unem *T
ployed from the receipt of thei!
UIC benefits the government ex

_ pects to pick up that $300-million. *

Evelyn Armstrong national rep’ §
resentative of the United Electt tt
cal workers’ union told thé
Tribune her office comes int0 la
contact with an average of /?
cases per week, — workelS”
whose benefits have been terml "

nated or who have been dis ig

qualified. E
The most common excuse 8”

‘ven by-the UIC, she said, is that 3

the claimants weren't trying haf
enough to look for the 838,
non-existent jobs. ‘
Only about 20% of the claim
ants cut off by the UIC bother 0
appeal the action to a Board % }q
Referees. She added that this wa |
deliberate on the part of the UI