CCORDING to United Na- > tions national accounts sta- “ tistics for 1964, Canadians less of their private in- © on the so-called good 8S of life — food, drink, en- Ament — than any other €tn industrial country ex- for the U.S. They spend in the world. . hh Contrast, Canadians spend oot their income on rent; : 8€s and health-care than an gs ~’ ther industrialized country. eM 1964 figures apply to the 19¢5 963 and were published in to ce are based on replies diffe ‘N. questionnaire sent to tog ot national governments “nd out what happens to the leg GUE in different couin- duce, *S Well as how it is pro- and et the Soe € enterpri wi ‘he Shares, pax ree panda, private expendi- r reak down like this: a $5,926 million. — $1,381 million. si — $818 million. a 8 ete.—$2,330 million, ete. — $4,460 million. *L light — $952 million. “niture ete.—$1,165 million. : °n clothing than almost any Less on food and clothing, more on rent and health-care than any Western country, says a United Nations survey Household operation — $497 million. Health care — $2,327 million. ‘Entertainment — $1,327 mil- lion. Transportation and communi- cation — $3,877 million. The table below includes the percentage figures for Canada and six other industrial coun- tries, plus one Latin American republic, one liberated African country and one _ unliberated African country for contrast. The South African figures would appear to be unrepresen- tative of the population as a whole. They have South Afri- cans spending half as much as Ghanaians, less than the French and little more than Canadians on food. Low expenditure on food is, at least in part, a clear indica- tion of a high level of develop- ment. Canadians spend more on food than Americans, but far less than countries like France and: Italy. Some of this would be the result of higher wages in Canada, which means it takes a smaller proportion to buy neces- sities. The irregularity of rela- tive food expenditures between - Australia, Sweden, Britain. and France qualify this and it is evi-. dent that taste and price must also enter in. The taste factor is very evi- dent in clothing, where the popu- lation of Canada spends a small- er percentage than that of Bri- tain, although clothes in Britain are considerably cheaper. The reason for high expendi- ture on health-care in Canada is immediately obvious — those who spend less live in countries where governments spend more, and those who spend least have some form of socialized, medi- cine. In the field of rents, on the one hand, Canadians spend a -much higher proportion of their much higher income than do the British; on the other hand, the rental on private buildings in Britain is abnormally high. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the absence of ex- tensive government housing is a significant factor in driving up Canadian expenditure. That the people of Ecuador spend less on _ entertainment than Canadians is understand- able. Culture in Latin America is not so much a question of pay-at-the-door. But low expen- diture in Canada compared with _ other industrial Western states, — even the U.S., must be blamed low do Canadians spend their money? solely on the inadequacy of faci- lities, which drives people to find their entertainment without moving from the television set. Among Western industrial na- tions, only the Dutch and the Americans spend less on bev- erages than Canadians do, and one is tempted to think that this is the after-effect of rigid pro- testant governments at one time or another, especially when South Africa, where the figures must mainly reflect English and Boer cultural patterns, fits in so ~ neatly. The main. problem with these and other similar statistics, is that they are neither adjusted to price, nor broken down in terms of class. As,a result they can only give a sketchy idea of the general standard of living and general cultural priorities, and cannot really shed very much light on the lives of aver- age workers and peasants in different countries. 2 Personal spending in 10 countries iJ < s Ste 8 See Woe em ee: hy 3 2 2 4 “ < wi x : : vi 5 5 % of total spending Food =e 23 21 44 30 54 42 28 26 27 20 Beverages 6 5 } 6 : 5 : 6 4 6 6 3 Tobacco 3 3 2 1 J werd 4 =! 6 2 Clothing, etc. sme 11 8 14 12. 12 9 13 12 10 8 Rent’ fic Og = OF. 9 : Pee eg Se SS FRE TN Sa RD. es ele Reet FS Re Sale OES AR “Furniture, etc. 2-99, 4 2 6 =} 3 7 7 6 6 ' Household ) if © Operation orcmnm —— 132-4 Set 4 15°3 7 2 3 4 - Health ee ae 5 8 | ts 5 er 8 _ Transport, © “Communication .... 14» 14 4 8 4 10 14 14 11 BS... “Recreation, Entertainment ........ 4. 4 2 6 — 8 5 7 z 5 * “Includes mortages. The statistics from South Africa are disputable, although is less than the Pretoria b of isti ti of the they correspond fairly closely to those from Rhodesia. and Gross Domestic Product for the Republic alone. Nyasaland. It is doubtful whether the entire African population exerts They were compiled by the South African Reserve Bank, ony real effect on the p ges. In Rhodesia and Nyasaland Pretoria. They exclude “foreign” labor employed in the mines, the government estimates the entire rural African economy at «and probably also exclude a large part of the rural economy. Seas Dy Cate pi a set ee : fing From the very outset, they are based on an estimate of the the ane ‘of the crelage ekobiont at Scone Africa Panding Gross National Product for the Republic of South Africa, South 14 percent of his resources on furniture and household opera- West Africa, B land, Bech land and Swaziland, which tion Is ludicrous. By DENISE GREGOIRE Pecig] to the Tribune T MONTREAL sue €nd of August, at the ae centre of the Uni- rad of Montreal, the Fe, Générale des Etu- (A ae Université de Mon- etic OD held its annual On. Seated around the ~ 1t table of the centre’s ss Toom some 50 dele- ( oe different faculties Binaries poroval to a number ane bly progressive pro- ee the AGEUM execu- “Sign, ““Nted at the first ony, Am hege® the more significant duce Were: (1) that the fishing DERE be Nationalized; (2) that ley” pepes's new steel » ’€come social proper- lontreal university students speak their mind ty, and (3) that the AGEUM call on the municipal authorities to condemn the behavior of the police force during the most re- cent demonstrations and its re- cent “attempts to put the brakes on the free distribution of the opposition press”. In the course of a lively de- bate about the status of SIDBEC, the delegate-president from the polytechnical school—dressed in a magnificent. Royal Canadian Airforce uniform—asked the sec- retary of the executive to ex- plain the difference between the nationalization advocated in its proposal and the nationalization proposed by a communist sys- tem. Michael McAndrew replied that a communist system maintained that violence was necessary for realizing such re- forms, while thé executive want- ed everything to be done peace- fully. He noted, however, that the Communist Party of Quebec rejects terrorism as a_ prelimi- nary to revolution, claiming vio- lence only becomes necessary to overcome the violence of the bourgeoisie. The convention showed how student organizations have de- cided to reach outside the arena limited by narrow student inter- ests. The student world intends, henceforth, to participate demo- cratically in the life of the gene- ral community, and to scorn any form—political or otherwise—of “bourgeois paternalism”. The AGEUM stated: “Even if the government offers. us mil- lions of dollars in bursaries, we will be back in Quebec, if it does not decide to abandon its bourgeois policies.” The convention recognized the immediate need for a democra- tization of education: From the economic aspect: by the access of every citizen to a complete education. From the structural aspect: by a method of reconciling the in- terests of students and profes- sors with those of the society as a whole. From the educational aspect: by attention to preserving the freedom of professors and stu- dents while reconciling the ob- jectives of knowledge and of service to the community. The AGEUM affirmed the > September 24, necessity of student social action and asked the government of Quebec to intensify its policies in this field. This summer, for the first time, 48 “student laborers” of Quebec went to Lac St. Jean, Gaspésie, the Bas du Fleuve, Quebec City and St. Henri—a Montreal slum area — to engage in popular education. This was an enriching experience for both the population and the students. The student union of the Uni- versity of Montreal opposed the Company of Young Canadians, “that imitation of the Peace Corps”. The working class opens its eyes to exploitation; the stu- dents unite for a more exacting field of action. 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5 ae aes