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2

Tue first Session of the 27th

Legislature of British Columbia
will open Thursday of this week.

Aside from whatever “goodies”
may be promised in the Socred

“Speech from the Throne” pack-
age, expressing the “open-handed-
ness’ of the Bennett government,

one important item of the ‘‘peo-
ple’s business” will be kept as far
as possible from the people's
MLA’s; that is the Columbia River
sellout.

Almost simultaneously with the
opening of the Legislature, Socred
government officials will be jour-
neying to Washington, D.C. along
with their Liberal “honest brok-
ers’ from Ottawa, to put their sig-
natures to the “protocol” recom-
mending the confirmation of this
infamous Columbia River Treaty
sellout to U.S. monopoly.

Hence any debate or opportun-
ity to debate the Columbia River
resources issue in the Legislature
will be something less than “‘aca-
demic’ as far as the MLA’s en-
trusted with the people’s business
are concerned: A situation which
points up only one conclusion; that
the Bennett government regards
a Socred-loaded legislature as a
handy rubber stamp for Socred
policies—nothing more.

Perhaps some of Bennett’s ex-
travagant pre-election “promises”
may find some faint echo in this
legislative session. Some are al-
ready disposed of. Promised grants
to education have already been
well pruned. Bridges galore to span
the traffic-congested First Nar-
rows have already been cancelled
out by the exhuberant Gaglardi,
who now insists Lion’s Gate Bridge
is sufficient for ‘“‘the next five

years.” That assures a Socred
“promise” of more bridges—come
the next election.

The deplorable state of social
welfare in B.C., made known by
those engaged in this increasingly
demanding work, is becoming
chronic, both as to staffing and
government financing. But, says a

Socred Minister of Health and
Welfare, that’s all. poppycock.
British Columbia “never-had it so
good.”

And so it goes. What the
“Speech from the Throne” may

contain is anybody’s guess, but it’s
a certainty much of the “‘people’s
business” will be omitted, with the

|rvicToRIA students or any
other body of Canadians want
factual information on anti-Negro
racism in the U.S. don’t import a
silver-tongued racist like Governor

EDITORIAL PAGE *

Too much left out!

non-Socred MiijA’s condemned to
a session of frustration.

Nor is labor likely to fare any
better during the life of this Legis-
lature than in the past. Bills 42-43
to restrict wage struggles and inde-
pendent political action, still re-
main on the Socred statute books,
with every indication of a “tighten-
ing-up” rather than a recognition
of basic workingclass rights.
Socred Labor Minister Peterson
has said as much.

Extract these and other vital
issues affecting the peace and well-
being of the people of B.C. from
the anticipated ‘Speech from the
Throne’ and what is left?

A close study of the Communist
Party brief forwarded this week to
Premier Bennett and all MLA’s
presents a good outline of what
should be legislative policies to.
meet the conditions of the time.

The need to repeal the Ottawa-
Washington nuclear arms deal,
which now brings these deadly
weapons as close to home as
Comox.

An end to Socred policies of
sellout and the disposal of our
great natural resources heritage to
U.S. and home-grown monopoly.

Policies designed to primarily
serve British Columbia industry,
agriculture, and small business,
rather than the grasping greed of
big monopoly interests.

These and similar proposals are
what would make the “Speech
from the Throne” correspond with
the ‘‘people’s business” and the
people’s interests. Anything short
of that will provide little more
than a Socred legislative fanfare,
and the negation of the historic
purpose of a democratic legisla-
ture; a negation which cannot be
compensated for by the empty
“promises” of holier-than-thou
Socred cabal which hides its politi-
cal sellout artistry behind a dis-
arming grin.

Unprr the direction of the so-
called “National Emergency Man-
power Authority ’ the Peargon gov-
ernment plans to conduct a “reg-
istration” of the entire Canadian
work force, reported to begin April
1, and covering some 6¥%-million
workers.

In typical Liberal double-talk
this “registration” is weaseled in
under the pretext of facilitating
national health or other central-
ized pension schemes. Its more
sinister aspects, that of compul-
sory mobilization in the event of
a ‘national emergency.’ is being
kept under tight “secrecy” wraps.

Under wartime emergency reg-
ulations, valid arguments can be
advanced for the full registration
of the nation’s manpower. In peace
time however, such “‘registration”’
smacks of the police state.

‘All in the the family”

ME Pearson De Gaullpichit=
chat in Paris last week was re-
ported as being “cwarmly cordial,”

De GAULLE

Register - for what?

Comment

There are many dangerous fa-
cets bearing on the civil rights of
the individual in this “crisis” plan
for registration, not the least of
these that duplicates of 6% million
registration cards may become a
ready-made file for the scrutiny of
a political police on the hunt for
socalled ‘‘subversives,” or just
plain citizens who may regard a
government-made “‘crisis”’ as an
end product of its U.S. nuclear
warhead importations.

As we have said no one will
argue against a national registra-

tion to facilitate a national pen-

sions or health scheme. ;

Without more clarification from
the government however, on its
“emergency” pretext for registra-
tion, Canadian workers will con*
tinue to see the registration as an-
other step téwards a “police state”
rather than a move to advance the
nation’s social welfare.

“helpful,” etc. and so forth. The
fact that le bon Charles didn’t
even bother going to meet Can-

ada’s No. 1 “honest broker” at the

Paris airport didn’t appear overly
“warm” to us, but then modern

Sa a

terminology means different things: f

to different people.
Tn one of his numerous orations
in Paris LBP referred to France as

Canada’s “second motherland.”

So with two “motherlands” in the
family circle, one (Britain) ‘“rec-

ognizing”’ People’s China long ago,

and our new “motherland” getting
set to follow suit, why not Canada
doing likewise, thereby keeping
the family tradition intact?

Or is that another decision for
Washington to make when LBP
reports this week to LBJ on the
state of the De Gaulle “apres moi
le deluge” (after me, the deluge)?

Tom :
McEwen |

George Wallace of Alabama to
cover up the ugly truth with his
spell-binding oratory.

In his own country students and
other American audiences invari-
ably give “white supremacist”
Wallace a rough ride. In Victoria,
according to all reports, his audi-
ence permitted themselves to be
hypnotized.

Pacific Tibuie

Editor — TOM McEWEN*
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Phone MUtual 5-5288
Subscription Rates:
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Australia, United States and all other
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as second class mail by the Post Office
Department, Ottawa and for payment

of postage in cash.

Be aes

his business of ‘‘catching up with

the Russians’’, best illustrated
in the educational chaos now obtaining

in some of our institutions of ‘‘higher.

learning’’ now finds something of a
parallel in the hectic effort to ‘*catch
up with ourselves.’’ :

Three years from now we will be
celebrating the centennial of Confed-
eration, sometimes loosely and
mistakenly referred to by our ‘‘intel-
legensia’’ as the ‘‘confederation of
Canada’’, conveniently forgetting that
Canada, with a preponderance of
French and Indian peoples, was here
long before Confederation. But as we
said, we will celebrate Confederation
as best we can, that is unless some
nuclear schizophrenic in the Pentagon
blows us all to hell and gone mean-
time.

Short of that possibility however, we |

have a lot of ‘catching up’’ to do
during the next three years, ninety-
seven years of it in fact, with a Royal
Commission on ‘‘bi-lingualism and
bi-culturalism’’ obligingly set up by
*peace-with-bombs’ Pearson to help
along on this historic sprint.

Just take a gander at what we have
to ‘*catch up’’ with. Not the Russians
but a home-grown bourgeoisie well
matured in parasitism, the monopoly
‘‘erab’? and a ready reach for the
fast buck. A brougeoisie somewhat
divided, but all endowed with the

natural instincts of a hyena, First
to feed on the ‘‘kills’’ of the British
lion in the heyday ofits earlier colonial
exploitation; then having picked the
bones and offal clean from that source,
to transfer its feeding ground to the
fatty droppings of a foraging American
‘eagle’!

Hardly a fertile soil for the develop-
ment of a strong healthy Canadian
patriotism or pride of nationhood, But
on the eve of Confederation it does
give Canada a unique ‘‘distinction’”’
among modern states.

The ‘‘distinction’’ of having no Can-

_ adian national anthem, but instead a
conglomeration of three. No distinct
Canadian flag, but also no lack of
‘*heraldry’’ banners with which to dis-~
play our mulitple divided ‘‘loyalties’’.
And no Canadian Constitution or Bill
of Rights designed to safeguard the
sovereign rights of the individual or
the nation—a handy omission of the
oft-repeated sellout of both.

In our ealier years of ‘pioneer buc-
caneers’’, the CPR, the ‘‘Gentlemen
Adventurers of England Trading into
Hudson’s Bay’’, the MacKenzie’s and
Mann’s of railroad-rooking fame, the
Dunsmuirs and kindred specie of land
grabbers and financial sharks stole
millions of acres of Canada’s most
fertile lands, This ‘‘legalized’’ theft
is entered in our law books as *‘grants
in perpetuity’’. A nice mouthful to
cover a nice handful,

Today their successors still fill
the role of ‘hold-up’ brigands to put
the financial squeeze on any and every
community where their ‘interests’ pre-
vail. And they all have their own flags,
anthems and constitutions which canbe
boiled into one syllable. . . ‘Gimmee’!

But if these early day Canadian ‘‘pay-
triots’’ were crude and brash in their
resources steals giveaways, it must be

admitted they were small peanuts com-
pared to the monopoly ‘‘pay-triots’’
of today. Now, aided by governments,
local, central and foreign, our modern
hyenas steal whole rivers, forests,
mines, lands, industrial enterprises,
etc., and do it with a polish and
*‘savoir faire’? that would make a
professional Judas blush.

To such specie the survival of
Confederation or the unity and equality
of a great two-nation Canada is not
half so important as ‘*how much’’
profit can be extracted from it; how
much of it can be sold out to Yankee
imperialism for a quick dollar—‘‘on
the barrel-head;’’as B.C.’s hydro boss
Gordon Shrum so aptly put it, in voicing”
his glee at the hoped-for sellout of the
Columbia River!

On the whole, a sorry mess indeed,
with barely three years left to ‘‘catch-
up’’ with the cleaning up and cleaning
out process required to assure that
Confederation survivies. Thus while we
are not likely to ‘catch up with the
Russians’’, time and opportunity is
running out for ‘‘catching up’’ with
ourselves,

To put an end to the rule of U.S.
and home-grown monopoly and
its political hucksters in and out of
Parliament; to end U.S. domination,
resources hijacking and nuclear bomb
diplomacy. To restore Canada to its
two-nation peoples,

Then we can design a flag, write a

Constitution, and an anthem, all sym-

“bolic of a great two-nation state, living |

|

in harmony and equality.

/ January 24, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page ©

FL a aa

PARP BMOQUWHHHRYS