THEYRE HAVING |

PROBLEMS WITH ”

THEIR ECONOMY - -AGAI P

25 years ago...

LAYOFF WAVES HIT AS PREMIERS MEET When the premiers of Cana- da’s ten provinces meet with Prime Minister St. Laurent at Ottawa on Tuesday April 26, there will be uninvited guests at the conference table: unem- ployment, hunger and poverty. Called to discuss an agenda for a federal-provincial confer- ence in the fall, the meeting will be faced with the task of solving Canada’s No. 1 problem — what to do about the 650,000 unem- ployed men and women. From unemployment organizations — a delegation of them will be in Ottawa at conference time — from municipal and provincial governments, from the leading trade union organizations and from hard pressed welfare agencies, has come an ‘insistent demand that the conference agree on a plan to provide immediate relief and jobs.

Tribune, April 25, 1955

FLASHBACKS FROM THE COMMUNIST PRESS

50 years ago...

MAY DAY PREPARATIONS

On May Day the workers of Canada will rally to the banner of working class unity in their thousands. May Day 1930, will witness a greater display of working class solidarity and mili- tancy than any previous May Day in Canada.

From Nova Scotia, on the At- lantic, where the miners are en- gaged in a determined struggle against the corrupt alliance of their boss union, matching forces in Vancouver, on the Pacific, where the workers are struggling against the in- tensifying police terror of Chief Bingham and his labor-faker al- lies, the workers of Canada are mobilizing their forces with the

_purpose of displaying on May

Day a united working class battle front of such magnitude as to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of the working class. The Worker,

April 26, 1930

Profiteer of the week: |

USA.

Standard Brands Ltd., which brings you Fleischmann’s, Blue Bonnet, Planters, Chase & Sanborn, Dr. Ballard’s, Lowney’s and much more — including wines and spirits, thanks you for a 1979 after-tax profit of $14,070,000. The company is owned 100% by Standard Brands Inc., New York, which means we’ve been doing our bit for the old home office,

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Associate Editor — FRED WILSON Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 25, 1980—Page 4

EIDIITORILAIL COMIWIENT

Promise of more struggle |

Canada’s 32nd Parliament opened April 14, with the Speech from the Throne offering two colliding impres- sions to millions of concerned, working- class citizens who want rational answers to the crisis of jobs, homes, inflation, so- cial services, and détente on a world scale.

On the face of it the Speech appears to

eo

concern itself with realistic programs: .

expansion of Petrocan, a made-in- Canada oil price,’ increased Canadian control over the economy, increases in» old-age supplements, .“low’ interest loans to small businessmen and farmers,

_ a gas pipeline to the Maritimes (this falls

short of the Communist proposal for a

double pipeline — gas and oil — from

coast to coast), the post office as a crown corporation, etc.

But these potentially useful measures are buried in contradictions. Against them are counterposed reactionary fea- tures of the worst kind dominating plans of the Trudeau Liberals. =

They seem intent on squandering $4- to $5-billion on the McDonnell-Douglas, problem-prone Hornet F18A war plane at the behest of the U.S. Pentagon and NATO’s top brass, while workers’ living standards are forced ever lower. The government jumps to orders from abroad to push up arms spending by 3% every year — to threaten Europe and the Middle East — at the expense of Cana- dian families and children. Nor has Canada dissociated itself from the hor- rendous U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

These and many more features of the Throne Speech suggest that if any good is to come out of it there will have to be

Canadian Olympic policy ©

The Liberal government’s decision to

mass people’s pressure — determined mass action ‘by the working class, whos€ livelihood is being wrecked by the drive to war and resultant bulging profits. .

Almost at the same time that parlia- ment was opening, with its vague prom: ises of a jobs program — and 1.2 million are jobless in Canada — the Ford Motor Co. was announcing (from Dearborn, Mich., USA) that 2,500 more Canadian workers would be thrown on the street a5

- Ford consolidates its. production in the — USA. This is the company which, 1 —

1978, got $68-million in government monies on the pretext of creating jobs in Canada! Hypocrisy in government and hyprocrisy in the board room. It shows the starkly negative effects of U.S. “in- vestment” in Canada. a

Beyond what the Liberals have im

store, the Tories, those arch reac tionaries , domestically and interna- tionally, though defeated, have not given

up their plans and raucous hate prop-

aganda against the working class and against détente. .

It is for working men and women to be

- alert and demand both their rights and

join the Carter boycott, a decision an- .

nounced Tuesday under the shadow of the big stick wielded in Ottawa by USS. secretary of state Cyrus Vance, ‘is an ac- tion which betrays the independence of Canada as a country and betrays the in- terests of its people and its athletes. Worse, it betrays the cause of world peace.

There is no question that the decision was timed so as to exert maximum pressure on the Canadian Olympic Association which is to meet this weekend on the Olympic invitation and whose ex- ecutive committee has already voted to at- tend the Moscow Games. But with the Olympic Trust clamoring for a boycott and now with Trudeau’s announcement, the COA faces blackmail.

When he was returned as prime minister, not least because his party had implied a saner foreign policy than the Tory hawks, Trudeau said that he would seek to mediate between the two super- powers. But with the Olympic boycott decision, he has lined Canada up with the U.S., whose policies have touched off wars all over the globe; a country which has used the pretext of Afghanistan to’

‘deflect world attention from the 2,500

military bases it maintains around the world, and its nuclear missiles targeted ominously on the socialist world.

the returns from their contribution tO

society. The working class has a duty t0 prepare the ground for fundamental change, for the advance to socialism.

The Speech from the Throne is an indi-

cator of what can be fought for and won and what will forever be denied the working class by governments of monopoly-capitalism.

The point is to fight today for every

concession that can be won, given the

present strength of the workers’ move-

ment.

That is what the Liberal government — decision means. It is an echo of the cold

war policy of Carter and Brzezinski.

But it is still not too late. Dick Pound, ©

‘

A

* |

P.3

t

the president of the COA, has condemned the boycott as ‘‘the most flagrant use of — the Games for political purposes that has — occurred in modern times.’’? Greg Joy, —

one of the country’s outstanding athletes and a silver medalist, called the decision “‘hypocritical.”’

Other athletes have long spoken out 3 against Canadian support of a boycott — and thousands of people across the coun- —

try have expressed opposition to the

Carter boycott in opinion polls, letters to

the editor and letters directly to the government. In fact, the ‘‘public_

opinion’’ so: often invoked by boycott — supporters has been that orchestrated by —

- the big business Olympic Trust and the —

ultra right wing National Citizens Coali- tion.

No, Trudeau made no reference to the — Canadian people when he announced his ~

decision. A resounding protest in letters,

telegrams, resolutions from unions and —

other democratic organizations might re-- mind him that he has no mandate to tie this country to the tail of president

Carter. For the sake of Canadian in- —

dependence — and Canada’s athletes — the boycott decision must be rescinded.