EDITORIAL _

Lamontagne on war chariot

Canada’s defence minister, Gilles
Lamontagne, is behaving more and more
like a salesman for Reagan’s military
policies. The defence minister offers
Canadians false information to justify
committing Canada to U.S. imperial-
ism’s world domination fantasies.

The old saying — figures don’t lie, but
liars can figure — applies very well to
CIA and Pentagon methods of “estimat-
ing” Soviet and Warsaw Treaty coun-
tries’ armed might as compared to that of
the USA and the NATO countries. On
the basis of these lying figures, Lamon-
tagne justifies his anti-Soviet insolence.

Not long ago he sent his parliamentary
secretary out with the same pack of mis-
information and her own vivid imagina-
tion to mislead the Canadian public. On
the same war chariot is external affairs
minister Mark MacGuigan.

They rant against some unnamed
peace forces who, they say, want “un-
ilateral” disarmament. They don’t ex-
plain just what they mean — Canada
alone disarming, USA alone disarming,
or NATO alone disarming. Whichever it
is, who is making such demands? Not the
peace forces either in Canada or in
Europe. Certainly not: the vast peace
movements of the socialist countries who

would greet wildly the freeing of funds
from defence for other needs.

Why do Lamontagne and MacGuigan
invent this “unilateral” nonsense? Is it to

_ try to frighten Canadians into believing

there is some kind of plot, so that they'll
willingly “sacrifice” themselves to the
U.S. war build-up? Is it concocted to dis-
tract Canadian workers from the mass
unemployment, the wave of layoffs, the.
inflation robbery,.loss of homes, ruina-
tion of family life and health, that are the
“gifts” of the capitalist system?
Lamontagne’s NATO boss Joseph

Luns, spreads the poisonous notion that
“the Soviet Union is manipulating the
peace and anti-A-bomb groups. ..” It is
not that Luns and Lamontagne really be-
lieve that millions of people in Europe,
east and west, are too stupid to realize for
themselves that the nuclear holocaust
being contemplated means pain and
death for humanity. :

What the missile-pushers fear is that
peace will seize the whole of mankind —
and sweep aside both the multi-billion-
dollar profits of the war monopolies, and
imperialism’s plans for reshaping th
world.

Canada’s defence budget, which de-
fends nothing but those two concepts,
soared from the $5.7-billion budgeted
for 1981-82 to $7-billion for 1982-83,
with a minimum $8.5-billion earmarked
for 1984-85. The USA’s monstrous war
budget, for which Canadians help pay on
every imported U.S. item, is $220-billion
for 1982, to be boosted to $543.5-billion
for 1983-84.

This utter theft from the lives of
Canadians and the people of the USA is
what we are burdened with by Reagan
and his lieutenants like Lamontagne. —

Any threats Canadians face are not
from the peace movement, nor from the
socialist countries’ defence pre-
paredness; they are from these U.S.,

NATO and Canadian promotors of war

against socialism, and economic war
against their own people.

‘Canadians should respond by chal-
lenging the real threats, by throwing
every possible effort into work for peace
and disarmament; by strengthening
their unity in the fightback for jobs, liv-
ing standards, the protection of dem-
ocratic rights — and against the false ac-
cusations and incitements of Reagan’s

helpers in our midst.

Realism in foreign trade

Exports account for one-third of
Canada’s Gross National Product,
Trade Minister Edward Lumley has
recently reminded us. Some 70% of our
trade is with the United States. The
United States, as External Affairs Minis-
ter-)MacGuigan said in a published
Interview as-recently as Dec. 28, if rife
with moves toward protectionism.

The dangers inherent in the growing .

U.S. pressures on its, trading partners
came to the surface ,at. this month’s
meeting in Key Biscayne, Florida, of
trade ministers of the USA, Canada, the
European Economic Community and
Japan.

The U.S. special trade representative
William Brock stated that Washington’s
‘response must come soon” for those
trading partners who “are unwilling to

Teciprocate” by throwing their markets
Open to the USA. This, while the USA 1s
ughtening controlson imports.

The message to Canada, if it didn’t
et a message by not being invited to the
Meet until it complained to the U.S.
ambassador in Canada, should be read
as: Don’t put all your trade eggs in the
U.S. basket. If something of this kind
was in the mind of the government
when it recently made the minister of

trade responsible to the external affairs
department, that may prove to be a
timely.shift. :

One sometimes gets the impression
listening to spokesmen for the Reagan
administration and the U.S. Congress,
that Canada is here primarily to fulfill
the needs of U.S. economic and political
policies. On the contrary, what Ottawa
has to be constantly reminded of, is the
primary needs of Canadian workers for
jobs and the fruits of their labors. This
goal, it should be understood is not
served by artificial restrictions put on
our trade with socialist countries to
further Washington’s world political
outlook.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire, it’s
said; and where there is constant talk
about wage controls, somebody is toying
with the idea. Both Michael Tremblay, a
Royal Bank economist, and W.F. Empey,
vice-president of Data Resources of
Canada, a forecasting outfit, say Ottawa
is either considering, or will consider if
inflation goes on, the reimposition of
wage controls. That kind of threat de-
serves a response. |

. a oe.
Tye,

ited

“Fantastic! We only planted those rumors this morning and the Defense Department

2 PSSCCW BEERS up ~ Annee
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Flashbacks

THE PEOPLE

- VS. APARTHEID

JOHANNESBURG — Six-
teen more people were arrested
Jan. 10 outside the court here
where 156 are appearing on
“treason” charges.

Thousands demonstrated
outside the court, including
many who gave the thumbs-up

sign of the African National

Congress. There are now 103
Africans, 22 Indians and eight
“colored” people on trial. All
face charges under the Suppres-
sion of Communism Act and the
Riotous Assemblies Act,

Defence counsel told the
court, “What is on trial is not just
the individuals arrested, but
ideas that they and thousands of
others in our land have openly

espoused and expressed ... the.

battle of ideas has indeed started
in our country.” :
. Tribune,

January 21, 1957

has already swamped us with orders!”

25 years ago... 50 years ago...

FLOPHOUSE

HOSPITAL

MONTREAL — Seven more
dead men were carried out of
the flophouse at St. Vitre St., the
place where the charitable city of
Montreal houses the men who in
years gone by brought wealth to
the bosses of the country.

These men fell sick and, on
reporting, are consigned to a

~ filthy bed in a filthy flophouse. A

horse doctor looks them over
sometimes, and sometimes not
and prescribes two pills. The
men get steadily worse and,
abandoned by everyone, they
perish in agony.

We tried to get one man into
Montreal General Hospital but
were told that St. Vitre St. was
good enough for bums. These
bums are the men who pro-
duced the country’s wealth and
the food that’s rotting in ele-
vators while people starve.

The Worker,
January 23, 1932

It’s costing us all a whole lot more to buy food these days — and

what we hear about is the crops in Florida, tales about farmers —

getting rich, and greedy food workers demanding too much. Let’s
turn to Canada Packers Inc., Toronto, who in 39 weeks had an_
after-tax profit of $21,111,000. In the same weeks a year earlier
consumers handed them a $20,511,000 profit, so that’s where

some dollars go.

Figures used are from the company's financial statements.

- . Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186 ~

Subscription Rate: Canada $12 one year; $7 for six months.
All other countries, $15 oné year.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 29, 1982—Page 3