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NEW B.C. N

SKELLY ON PEACE

Many British Columbians believe that our country has a special role to play in reducing the growing risk of nuclear war.

The arms race has reached alarming proportions. More than the total income of the two billion people in the world’s poorest countries, almost $600 billion per year, is being spent on military buildup.

Military action by the major superpowers, has raised rather than lowered the world tension levels and the United Nations has warned ‘mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihila- tion.”

It is for these reasons that British Colum- bians should assess the position of the various federal political parties as we move toward an almost certain 1984 federal election.

Canada’s record as a force for peace and disarmament has been blemished by the Liberal government’s decision to test the cruise missile system in Canada and this reputation is further compromised by continued use of tax dollars to build nuclear weapons com- ponents and guidance systems in Can- ada. It is not helped by the continuing policy of allowing armed American war- eee eon Canadian

The record of the Conservative oppo- sition under Brian Mulroney is no

better. The Conservative leader has suggested that Canada should enter the arms race on the side of the Ameri- cans and the Conservatives have also announced on several occasions that they support massive rearmament of Canadian forces.

On June 14, 1983, a crucial vote occurred in the House of Commons on the issue of cruise missile testing. Voting against the cruise tests were 29 New Democrats, four Conservatives and one Liberal. Voting for the cruise tests were 76 Conservatives and 138 Liberals; not one New Demo- crat voted in favour.

It is time that the government of Canada had a clear policy of promoting nuclear disarmament through a program of bal- anced, verifiable reductions.

As the former NDP leader Tommy Doug- las said:

“Did you ever stop to think about what would happen if we were to do that? Did you ever stop to think about the billions upon billions of dollars that would be liberated to destroy poverty, to rid the earth of misery, to provide health care for the people in the far corners of the earth, to build decent homes and schools and hospitals, to train nurses and doctors and teachers, to raise the standard of living of man- kind so humanity could go marching forward to the great goal towards which we ought to be marching.”

SKELLY ON JOBS

The effect of high interest policies and cutbacks which have become the trade- marks of right wing governments in both Ottawa and Victoria can be clearly seen where ordinary citizens live. -

The latest housing statistics from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation show that in the first five months of 1984 only 6,130 dwelling units of all types had been started in all the communities of British Columbia, down a sharp 21%.

Worse still, single family detached house starts — the type of home almost all ordi- nary familes dream of and work for — have plummetted even more drastically. In the first five months construction of this type of dwelling plunged 47% in B.C. and it was down a whopping 60% from the May level of one year ago.

These serious declines have helped stall such economic activity as forestry, construc- tion, appliance and furniture plant and retail trade. It is largely traceable to the foolish cutback of the Canadian Home Own- ership Stimulation Program grants which had invested some of our resources towards meeting two fundamental needs of ordinary Canadians, homes to live in and jobs to work in.

The right wing ideologues didn’t see those needs as priorities and now we’re all suffer- ing for it, including businesses forced into bankruptcy. Yet worse is to come because of their tight monetary policies. CMHC says that May’s poor construction figures do not yet reflect the coming impact of higher interest levels!

Both the Liberals and Tories are high- interest parties. And Premier Bennett is on record personally urging support for Bank of Canada monetary decisions to use high interest policies to ‘wring out’ the economy, as the imported gurus advocate. Is it surpris- ing then to learn of huge political donations to these parties from the profit-laden banks?

These policies of program cutbacks and high interest have been devastating to consumer confidence and construction, the two principal reasons identified by the Conference Board of Canada for current economic decline despite last year’s increased resource exports.

No wonder CMHC has revised its forecast for 1984 dwelling construction in B.C., with single detached homes being cut almost in half to only 8,500. The sharply reduced total forecast for all new dwellings this year is a mere 16,000 units. CMHC says that will be “the lowest annual starts figures ince 1962” — when B.C.’s population was barely half the present size!

Under an NDP government, Manitoba’s housing starts increased in the last year, and their share of Canada’s total housing starts also increased. There is only one party that advocates stimulation for home construction and a ‘‘made-in-Canada” lower interest rate policy. That is the New Democratic Party.

THE EXPERTS IN 1895

“In Russia, fortunately, there is no

’ working class in the western sense, there- fore, there is no labour problem.”

Sergei Witte,

Czarist Minister of Finance,

Circular dated December 5, 1895

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THE EXPERTS IN 1932

‘The day when they [the Nazis] were a vital threat is gone Hitler will end his career as an old man in some Bavarian village who, in the bier- garten in the evening, tells his intimates

“how he nearly overturned the German Reich. —Harold Laski, from the Atlantic, June/84

... [I]t is not unlikely that ©

Lumber Worker/Summer, 1984/3