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A people’s coalition
must lead Canada

CRITIC

Sal A TT By T IM B U C K TNAVARTUTUUT

The leader of the LPP appeals to the Nation to form an anti-monopolist
coalition to defeat Big Business in Canada.

The following is an abridged text of the radio broadcast de-
livered by Tim Buck, national leader of the Labor-Progressive
Party, over the CBC network on Wednesday, Aug. 28. Accord-
ing to the Elliot Haynes Radio Services, Toronto, which spe-
cializes in the analysis of radio programs, nearly 750,000 Cana-

dians listened to Mr. Buck’s

message.

J | “HANK you for giving me this opportunity to speak to

you.

The overwhelming majority of us; of all Ca-

nadians; are united in the hope that during the years ahead
we shall be able to utilize our wartime experience and
technical progress to secure for ourselves and our children
the four freedoms proclaimed by the late President Roose-
velt as the sacred aims of the war.

The Mabor-Progressive Party
holds that, haying won the war
for freedom from MHitlerism, we
should secure, for every Cana-
Gian, freedom from want. That
is what most people have in
mind when they speak of the
need to “Win the Peace.”

As a nation we enjoy a unique
advantages.
technical
by any

combination of
Large-scale industry,
efficiency unsurpassed

country, vast 1esoureces of po-
tential farm iands and forest
end mineral wealth. here is

Elenty of scope for the energy
which transformed our land from
Virgin wilderness to a nighiy de-
veloped industrial country in 50
years although the circumstances
are different. Canada can be-
come great beyond all expecta-
diens if peace is maintained and
we utilize the possibilities naw

epern to us.
During the wa: we were fre-
cuently assured that these

things would de done. The prime
minister declared himself in fa-
vor of the principle of govern-
mental responsibility for the
physical and social well-being of
the people Mr. ©. D. Howe en-
dorsed that principle in 1944,
when he assured Canadians that
the postwar task of the King
government would be to ensure
“a fair income for everybody
able and willing to work.” The
government as a whole endorsed
that principle when it announced
a@ postwar program which, we
were told, would guarantee full
employment farm incomes, sn-
cial security, medical service
and hospitalization, homes for
the people and other far-reach-
ing reforms. These wartime
promises were not impractical,
they could all be kept today if

the government desired—or if
public pressure were strong
enough. Not only are they pos-

sible, failure to introduce them
is hastening the day when re-
conversion will end in mass un-
employment,

These things must be emphas-
ized now. They illustrate how
correct was the Labor-Progres-
Sive Party when we urged the
electors to “Make Labor a Part-
ner in Government!” Failure to
do that is reflected in the trend
of postwar development. ‘The
monopoly interests, become im-
mensely rich through the war,
are arrogant in their drive for
national policies under which
they can be a law unto them-
selves. The King government,
which made high-sounding prom-
ises to the people during the
War, is now competing with the
Tories in its effort to satisfy.
the leaders of big business_

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 10

iH Progressive - Conservative
Party declared that all the
wartime controls should be ab-

olished as quickly as possible

and the King government
promptly started abolishing:
them: Instead of measures to

inerease popular purchasing pow-
er, price increases are being
authorized and controls removed
continuously. There are strong
indications that government pol-
icy is to allow our prices to rise
close to the leyel of prices in
the United States. But, while
raising the national price level,
the government is striving to
prevent an equivalent rise in
workers’ purchasing power,

The members of the House
of Commons are failing the peo-
ple in this crisis. Not a single
member of parliament has di-
rectly challenged the govern-
ment’s misleading argument that
@ wage increase of more than
ten cents an hour would cause
inflation.

The urgent need for the trade
union movement to development
independent political action was
strikingly illustrated by the pro-
ceedings—and even more — by
the report of the Committee on
Industrial Relations set up by
the House of Commons recently.

That committee was instructed
“to investigate, immediately, all
issues connected with and ap-
pertaining to the present in-
dustrial unrest in Canada.” But
the committee made no attempt
to find out whether the work-
ers’ wage demands are justified,
it made no serious effort to
find out whether corporations
whose employees were on strike
could afford to pay the increases
asked, it made no attempt to in-
vestigate the vital significance
of the relationship between wage
levels and the national income.
Instead the committee consti-
tuted itself a public forum for
Mr. Donald Gordon to popular-
ize a one-sided and therefore
completely misleading picture of
the causes of inflation.

Had the government taken
more from swollen wartime prof-
its by taxation and borrowed less
from the banks there would be
less pressure of inflationary
tendencies in Canadian economy
today. The pretence that the
workers’ search for a decent liv-
ing is the cause of inflation com-
pletely misrepresents the prob-
lem.

The Committee did not report
on the causes of the industrial
unrest. Accepting as its guiding
principle Mr. Gordon’s thorough-
ly misleading suggestion that
wage increases of more than ten

cents an hour would cause in-
flation, its report is distinctive
only in its sixth point—which
proposes that the minister of
labor should be given a new and
essentially strike-breaking func-
tion,

Groups in the House of Com-
mons had representatives on the
Committee but there was no mi-
nority report. To the credit of
the CCF and Social Credit mem-
bers be it said that all but one
or two of them voted against

the report. But no group or
member challenged the false
_ thesis upon which the report is
based.
@
the labor movement

i eae
hich

Ww adhered to its

strike pledge during the war is
now. opposed by a united front
of big business and government
when it demands adequate wage
inereases and union security. Its
contribution to victory is ig-
nored. Food now costs forty-five
percent more than before the
war, and prices are still going
up. Dividend payments to share-
holders are up more than thirty-
three percent, but the Rubber,
Textile, Electrical, Steel and
other workers on strike are
treated almost as though they
were enemies of Canada. Five
hundred Royal Canadian Mount-
ed and Ontario Provincial Police
are being sent to Hamilton to
help Steleo break the strike.

ONSIDER

facts. The dollar value of
our national production has
doubled. To buy all the goods
we produce requires, now, twice
as many dollars as it did before
the war. The level of our eco-
nomic activity and therefore of
employment depends, ultimately,
upon -how much is purchased.
But the shocking contrast be-
tween the riches of the few and
the poverty of the many stulti-
fies the national economy as
well as the health and vwell-
being of millions of Canadians.
The most recent figures pub-
lished by the government report
that forty-four percent of all
wage and salary earners in the
country, including hundreds of
thousands of heads of families,
still earn less than twenty dol-
lars a week. Is this what the
war was fought for? fIsn’t it
clear that national prospects for
postwar prosperity would be
much better if all those workers
received substantial wage in-
ereases,

no-

the following

Canada needs policies which
will establish an equitable bal-
ance between our ability to pro-
duce and the ability of the
masses of the people to con-
sume. 3

The shame of wages too low
to maintain a decent standard
of life should be wiped out. With
the exception of a numerical mi-
nority of the workers, there is
need for wage increases all
round. We should abolish the
discrimination against agricul-
ture. At present Canadian farm-
ers receive from forty to fifty

eents per bushel less than world
price for most of the wheat
they export. As a result their
aggregate income will be re-
duced by about seventy million
dollars this year. It is wrong.
When agricultural are
above the floor, farmers should
receive the full price. Assistance
to the United Kingdom, or other

prices —

countries, should be financed
from the national treasury.
=
e@

ANADBDA needs the social leg-
islation that was so much
talked about during the war.
As a nation we could give an
old age pension of forty dollars
per month to every Canadian
at the age of sixty-five. It would
require less goods than we gave
away during the war The na-
tional economy would benefit,
our physical and moral health
as a nation demands that we

ensure Canadians security in
their old age. For the same
reason we need a National

Health Scheme; government ac-
tion to provide “Homes for the
People;” and elimination of the
obstacles to complete civil re-
establishment for our veterans.

To prevent destruction of the
value of such measures by sky-
rocketing prices. price control
must be maintained. Where ne-
cessary as-in the case of milk,
subsidies should be continued.
We shouldn’t hesitate to use
Subsidies to keep down the prices
of things the people use.

How will the government fi-
mance such a program? you ask.
In the same way that they fi-
maneced our war effort. Let the
government enact progressive
measures and the people will
subscribe to loans to win the
peace as we did to win the war;
although, if production is ex-
panded and progressive taxation
applied to high profits and big
incomes, such loans may not be
necessary.

The monopolists and the lead-
ers of the Tory and Liberal par-
ties* are against such a pro-
gram_ They fear that it would
strengthen support for Social-
ism. They want to accomplish
exactly the opposite results. This
is precisely the issue. The de-
cisive question confronting all
of us is “Forward or Back?”
We cannot stand still. The mon-
opolists are trying to restore
pre-war policies and people like
you and me must choose what
sort of post-war Canada to
Strive for. Shall we revert back

_ shall

TIM BUCK
to the old order of scarcity,
want, insecurity and war, or

we march forward to a
new age of abundance; of free-

dom from want and of peace

_for many generations?

Canadian Labor has this in
common with labor all over the
world, with the people who sup-
port coalition governments of
the parties of the left in Eur-
ope and the national independ-
ence movements in the colonial
countries: we and they want
lasting peace and the benefits
that can be secured if the mir-
acle of atomic energy is used
to advance the welfare of man-
Kind.

eo

db release of atomic enersy
is the great technical achieve-—

ment of man. It will eventu-
ally bring greater changes than
were brought by the steam en-
gine. We are on the threshold
of a new age but only through
policies which can be truly de-
seribed as ‘People’s Policies”
can the new age be achieved. The
domestic and foreign policies
which the Dominion government
is pursuing today are barriers
against progress to the new age.
They are policies aimed to stop
the advance of labor at home
and to help re-establish the pow-
er and privileges of finance cap-
ital—in the liberated countries
of HBurope and throughout the
world. Peace and MReconstruc-
tion is in danger today because
the world aims of finance-capi-
tal and the new reckless at-
tempts to isolate the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics point
directly to erisis and a third
world war.

If a third world war is allow-
ed to develop it will be fought
very largely in Canada: that is
why my strongest appeal to you
this evening is to support the
world-wide demand to Ban the
Atomic Bomb! Harness the mir
acle of Atomic Energy in the
service of mankind.

Because I am convinced that
the things IT have spoken of are
vital to Canada I appeal to you
to support the proposal of the
Labor-Progressive Party for a
coalition of all the progressive
forces: trade unions farm org-
anizations, anti-monopolist politi-
cal parties. There is still time,
and such a People’s Goalition
could lead Canada forward to
true national greatness,

LPP Membership Meeting

AT HASTINGS AUDITORIUM

828 East Hastings Street

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 — 8 P.M.

Admission by Membership Card Only

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FRIDAY; SEPTEMBER, 13, 1946