25 years ago...

HOUSING IS CANADA’S
NO. 1 SOCIAL PROBLEM

Housing is Canada’s number
one social problem. That’s the
Conclusion of the Family Wel-
fare Division of the Canadian
Welfare Council which has re-
Ported on a recent survey. The
Situation was “disturbing” the
teport said,

The Council found a pressing
need for a public relief assis-
tance program for jobless work-
€rs’ ineligible for unemploy-
Ment insurance. Aid is also
Needed for many elderly per-
Sons who had no housing, fami-
Y, friends, occupation or
adequate income.

_ The Council’s recommenda-
Hons fell short however of cal-
ing for a massive housing prog-
-Fam for low and middle income:
People as put forward by the
Ommunist Party of Canada.

50 years ago...

WHY COMMUNISM GAINS

In an editorial explaining why
Communist doctrine is getting a
hearing, the Minnesota Union
Advocate, organ of the Min-
nesota and St. Paul labor move-
ment says:

“Communism is striking ter-
ror to the rulers of all capitalist
nations. It is recognized that the
movement. is making progress
and an attempt will soon be
made to block advancement by
resorting to violent suppression.

“There is reason why the
message of Communism is re-
ceiving a favorable hearing. The
rulers of the industrial and polit-
ical world are not concerned
about the welfare of the masses,
only to exploit them and there is
no hope for improvement ex-
cept what is wrung from the
masters. We do not know what
the future of the Communist
movement is, but we do know
that capitalism is doomed to
failure.”

The Tribune The Worker
July 19, 1952 July 9, 1927
THE POLLS

LATVIAN VOTERS GO TO

aS

s ‘ . t
New polls have been set up for the people livi
residential area of Riga in Latvia. Clubs for st A
_ UP where they can meet their candidates for the

ing In imanta, anew
ters have been set
ity and regional

Soviets. Pictured above is Rudzutak Street In Imanta. |

EIDITTOIILAIL
COMIMUEIN TE

Policies for united Canada

Prime Minister Trudeau is still talking ©

about doing alterations on the British
North America Act. He proposed, June

. 23, that the Act be amended to allow the

federal government direct access to

French and English minorities anywhere

in the country in the education field.
The quarrel is not with more uniform

educational standards and opportunities :

across the country, or with the protection
of minority rights. What is out of gear
with the times is the prime minister’s de-
sire to put patches on a document which,
from the start, ignored the rights of the
French Canadian nation, and which pre-
serves regional inequalities in English-
speaking Canada..

A new, made-in-Canada constitution
is needed, as the Communist Party has
long insisted. To achieve it a constituent
assembly of representatives of English-
speaking and French Canada must be
held, not simply of members and friends
of capitalist governments, where rep-
resentatives of the two nations have
equal voting rights, and where funda-
mental matters are decided upon by
unanimous decision.

With a new constitution — enshrining.

Canadian unity in its pages — are
needed new, basic policies: for full
employment, stable prices and an end to
wage restraints, for placing natural re-
sources and energy under public owner-
ship and democratic control.

Policies advocated by the Communist
Party would redistribute the national in-
come in favor of the working people,
guarantee the rights of immigrants and
ethnic communities, and defend the na-
tional identity of the Native Peoples.

The obstacle to such policies and to a
made-in-Canada constitution is the

power of the monopoly corporations”

who profit richly from inequalities and
divisions among working people, as
from inequality of the positions of Cana-
da’s two nations.

The struggle for labor and democratic
unity, and against monopoly policies,
therefore, is an inseparable part of the
struggle for a new Canadian constitution
and for policies which dare to battle to

improve the lives of the Canadian work-

ing people.

Unneighborly projects

The Garrison project is either back or
it never went away. Although the Carter
administration had declared that por-
tions of the North Dakota irrigation plan
affecting Manitoba would not be built,
that is not the way it looks.

Senator Milton Young said on June 22
that $18.6-million had been approved
for fiscal 1978, and he saw it as a step
toward getting the project going again
despite findings that it would be injuri-
ous to Manitoba’s waterways.

Among many U.S. threats to Canada
the polluting of Manitoba’s waterways if

Garrison goes through, the flooding of

5,000 acres of B.C.’s Skagit Valley if the
Ross Dam is heightened, and the build-

ing of the Trident nuclear submarine

base on Vancouver's doorstep show the
extent of U.S. regard for the rights of
Canadians. The Mackenzie Valley pipe-
line is another pro-U.S. plan.

Public pressure on our elected repre-
sentatives to demand they defend Cana-
da’s interests is the only people’s weapon
against the selling off of Canada by the
monopolies, the multi-nationals and
their friends in seats of government.

Canada’s broadcasting and
communications industry

cratic public control. Such
control must include radio and
television’ broadcasting, and
cable delivery systems; film
production and distribution;
and publishing.

It is imperative that this be
done, for a concerted move is

the publicly-owned corpora-
tions in the broadcasting and
film making industries, and to
strengthen the privately-
owned sections of the indus-
try. This is evident in the prop-
osals of the Ontario Royal
Commission on Violence which
advocated setting-up TV
Canada a mixed public and
private corporation to control
all broadcasting. It is likewise
evident by the energetic cam-

should be put under demo-° ~

already under way to undercut”

corporations for Pay TV.

The privately-owned corpo-
rations with the covert assis-
tance of the state are out to
monopolize broadcasting more
tightly in the interest of in-
creased profit-taking, and in
order to mould public opinion

increasingly along the lines

that serve corporate interests.

The federal government
should immediately establish a
Royal Commission on Broad-
casting and Communications
in order to publicly expose the
extent of the private mono-
polization of the industry, and
to examine ways and means to
abolish such control.

For its part, the Communist
Party proposes democratic
public control. For only in this
way can the public have the
means to effect a meaningful
policy directed towards

Put the broadcasting, communications
industry under democratic control

A statement of the Central Executive Committee
Communist Party of Canada, issued June 27.

paign being waged by the cable >

achieving an ever-expanding
democratic and Canadian con-
tent that takes fully into ac-
count the two nation character
of our country, and the cultural
needs of the Native Peoples
and the many and varied ethnic
communities.

Only in this way can the
people have a meaningful say
in securing the elimination
from programing, film and pub-
lishing, themes that glorify vio-
lence, crime, obscenity,
chauvinism, racism and war.

Only in this way can the em-
phasis be turned towards sec-
uring excellence in the produc-
tion of radio and TV programs,
films and literature that serve
to safeguard: the cultural herit-
age of our land, enriched by the
cultural contributions of the
many and varied ethnic com-
munities, augmented by the
best attainable from abroad.

ee

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 8, 1977—Page 3