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EDITORIAL

Broaden Nov. 21 demo

The Canadian Labor Congress call for
a mass demonstration on Parliament
Hill, November 21, has the potential for
starting a protest tidal wave rolling into
Ottawa — and with good reason.

The demo’s purpose, to slam the
government's high interest rates policy
and demand changes rates the personal
approval and backing of millions. They

are millions who make up the families of ©

workers, farmers, pensioners, small bus-
iness operators, anyone trying to main-
tain a hearth and home..

What have the big shots done for any
of us lately? The government, the Bank
of Canada, the multi-national cor-
porations, the hungry Canadian mono-
polies — and each of them spread
concoctions like spreading manure, to
justify the big business assault on
working-class living standards. Or, they
excuse themselves as being unable to do
anything about it.

While one part of the big business
clique — including government min-
isters — blames high interest rates on the
USA and regrets it can do nothing, it
refuses to break with its own ruinous
policies which tie Canada to Reagan-
omics, and to-unhitch Canada from the
Reagan war chariot.

Others, like Bank of Canada president
Bouey insinuates that ordinary Cana-
dians must lower inflation before inter-

est rates can be dropped. It’s the old fairy

tale about “high” wages and extravagant
living by workers being the root of in-
flation.

As part of the preparations to get
100,000 and more people out on
November 21, an educational campaign

is needed to blow away this smakescden
of blaming the workers. :

The fact is that the interests of the
working class are at the same time the

interests of Canada as a sovereign, inde- -

pendent country. The jobs, the produc-
tion, the consumer dollars that workers’
lives revolve around, make the country
healthy. Policies which tie us to the costly

— and deadly — U.S. war machine, and | '

to Washington’s delusions of spiritual
leadership of the world, are policies
destroying Canada, and demolishing liv-

ing standards. In fact, the assault is on.

such a broad front that workers cannot
help concluding that the mass protest
called by the CLC must not limit itself to
interest rates, but hit back at all the
prongs of the attack.

That could mean demands for slash-
ing interest rates (not just subsidizing the
present extortion); meanwhile a
moratorium on mortgages; an end to
cutbacks in social programs including all
aspects of health and hospital care, and
education; controls on investment dol-
lars fleeing Canada for a bigger killing;
and a beefing up of the Foreign Invest-
ment Review Act. This latter would cut
the number of U.S. take-overs of Cana-
dian companies, and reduce the number
of layoffs and closures by foreign bosses.

Interest rate excesses are hitting a lot

_of working people, but they should be

united on November 21 with the tens of
thousands struggling with food prices,
rents, heating bills, transportation and a
host of impossible. prices for necessities.

The time is more than ripe for work-
ers, trade unionists and all their allies to
let their anger be known.

Unblock arms cuts talks

It has been agreed between the USA
and the Soviet Union that they will sit
down together in November in Geneva
and discuss reduction of medium-range
missiles. That is all to the good.

But what is ensuing in the meantime?
The Soviet Union, through the United
Nations and other channels has prop-
osed dozens of ways to work toward de-

tente, disarmament and peace. That also:

makes sense. Negotiations have all the
advantages over body counts and the
dehumanizing catastrophe of nuclear
war.

Yet, the Reagan administration has
demonstrated that it is positioned on war
— unless the unlikely happens and the
whole world bows to Washington’s
commands.

The USA is creating the mirage of

negotiating even while it throws road- .

blocks in the way of disarmament and
peace. It has defied humanity in its deci-
sions to manufacture and deploy — and
eventually use — the neutron bomb.
This despite Soviet willingness to ban
this weapon on both sides. Behind what-
ever facades the U.S. scene painters de-
vise, is the notion that by stealth and fire-
power the USA can somehow eliminate

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 9, 1881—Page 4

socialism from the planet. It gives evi-
dence of being prepared to try even if it
means eliminating human life as a whole.

World public opinion insists that the
Gromyko-Haig talks ensure a peaceful
future for the human race — by curbing
the arms race.

But what we have is Soviet peace offers
face to face with escalating U.S. threats.
Why? It is a fact that any serious study of
socialism shows that socialism needs a
world without war, a world of detente nd
mutually beneficial exchange (economic,
cultural, educational, scientific) in order
to exist and progress. So do working
people everywhere.

One does not have to like socialism to
see that competition in peaceful human
pursuits makes sense, whereas the mul-
tiplication tholisands of times of the
radiation horror of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki does not. .

If this means binding the hands of the
multi-national corporations who scream
for arms profits and the U.S. and NATO
generals pushing toward war, then that
should be the policy of Canada. It’s time
to shift the policies of this country away
from the blind following of
Washington’s hare-brained plans.

Flashbacks |

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

FOOD STAMPS
A BIG RACKET

According to representations
being made to the federal de-
partment of justice, the great
give-away “trade stamp” fever
now raging in Canada’s super-
market trade violates the Crimi-
nal Code.

“It's a multi-million dollar
racket,” according to T.G.
McCormack, president of
Dominion Stores, who charges
the racket will raise Canadian
food bills by 2%. The General
Manager of the Retail Mer-
chants’ Association told the
Tribune the whole matter of
trading stamp schemes demands
federal prosecution through the
attorney generals of the prov-
inces in which the schemes
operate.

“It’s a cancerous growth on
the supermarket industry,” he
said.

Tribune,
October 1, 1956

Profiteer of the week

George Weston Ltd., the food people, can’t be accused of

MINERS’ BLOOD
AT ESTEVAN

ESTEVAN — Three miners
are murdered and 12 maimed in
a brutal attack on a strikers’
parade here by the RCMP. Many ~
more are severely injured, more
than 50 arrested.

Bienfait, Estevan and Taylor-
town are armed camps; carloads
and train loads of Mounted
Police armed with clubs, whips,
rifles, revolvers, bombs and ma-
chine guns are gripping the
towns now under marshall law. —

The attack Sept. 29 came as
workers marched peacefully. -
The police opened fire, workers
fell. They fought back bravely
under the murderous assault. —
Warrants are now out for mine-
workers’ leader Jim Sloan and
Sam Scarlett, organizer of the
Workers Unity League. A
house-to-house search is
underway. ‘

The Worker,
October 3, 1981

single-handedly causing food prices to soar. Having said that,
however, we do present this aggregation with our award this week
for the significant part they played to that end. After-tax profit for
the first half of 1981 was $30,176,000.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON

Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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