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- Paci

Tom McEwen

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Vote labor and progress

EXT Wednesday the people of Vancouver will go to
N the polls to choose a new civic government. The choice
is a momentous one, and the issues are very clear. It will
determine whether a highly-organized clique of tory and
liberal politicians, labelled the Civic Non-Partisan Associa-
tion (CNIPA), spokesmen for big business, is to retain its
10-year old stranglehold on civic administration, or whether
labor and progressive people will have representation on the
third largest Civic government in Canada.

Phe CNPA, which might more accurately be called the
‘civic non-principled association, has done a good inside
job for big business—mulcting the low-income taxpayers of
millions of dollars, neglecting civic utilities, giving big
business a free hand in the exploitation and destruction of

Civic resources. It has contrived this by masquerading as_

the upholder of a city hall free of politics, the while it has
engaged in the most corrupt brand of partisan politics. Its
subservience to the monopolistic demands of the BCE Jectric
and its proposal to grant that power octopus another 20-
year transit franchise—a deal consummated in secret—is a
glaring illustration of the ‘no-politics’ dictum of the CNPA.
Its selection of McGeer, the strikebreaker of the hungry
‘thirties, is indicative of its real perspectives for Vancouver
labor in the maturing crisis of 1947.

On December 11 the common people of Wancouver
have an opportunity to break this evil combination. The
trade unions of our city which have played such a magnifi-
cent role in the field of economic advancement, together
with all progressive citizens, can put a major Gent in the
CNPA political machine. They can smash the CNPA
McGeer-Wilson setup by electing Tom Alsbury for mayor—
mot because he speaks for the CCF, but because he is a
progressive alternative to the CNPA civic plunderbund.

- The people can break open the CNPA conspiracy by
electing Elgin Ruddell, John Turner and Effie Jones. These
labor men and women who are running under the ‘banner
of Civic Reform, fought on the side of progress when the
ECNPA and its forerunners were giving the unemployed
‘riot acts’ instead of work and wages. They were fighting
evictions while the CNPA was promoting them. They were
playing -an active role in the fight for higher wages and
improved conditions while the CNPA was conspiring to
keep the wages of civic employees at starvation levels. And,
most important, they were prying open CNPA maladminis-
tration of civic revenues and utilities, while these CNPA
gentlemen from Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale were doing
their damnedest to keep the lid on their secret deals with
the monopoly interests, so that the robbery of civic resources
could proceed unchallenged. j

On December 11 register your vote for A. T. Alsbury
for mayor; Elgin Ruddell and John Turner for aldermen,
and indomitable Effie Jones for school trustee. With these
representatives of the common people in the city hall the
needs of our city and its working people will be advanced
and a decade of monopoly conspiracy and graft ended.

_Lesson for Franco

WIFT action by organized labor in Vancouver blocked

an immigration ruling which would have returned four
anti-fascist( Spanish stowaways, now in Vancouver, to
Franco’s firing squad. Members of AFL-CCIL unions and
veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the Inter-
national Brigade which fought Franco in the war of 1936-38,
intervened on behalf of the Spanish refugees. :

Tim Buck, LPP national leader, wired Natural Re-
sources Minister Glen that, “in view of the fact that the
Canadian government has seen fit to allow 4000 Anders’
Poles to enter the country, many of whom were in the
German army fighting against Canada, apparently intends
to grant entry to other such elements and has given sanctu-
ary to a notorious German fascist like Gregori Strasser, ele-
mentary justice would demand that these Spanish refugees
be allowed to stay in Canada.”

The government’s readiness to permit fascist elements
to enter the country stands in sharp contrast to its indif-
ference to the fate of anti-fascist refugees.

Vancouver labor and the veterans of the Mackenzie-
Papineau Battalion are to be congratulated for their speedy
action in coming to the rescue of these four Spanish anti-
fascists. Continued vigilance will win for them the freedom
they sought as refugees until democracy triumphs in their
Own country.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4

Sa

Belsen to Cyprus

—-

AUDUVVTEUEDUCAOEDAOEDANADUEA HTT

As we see it

TIDVUEDEGAOEODODY EEE by Tom Mec Ewen

Le week a new body was

formed in Saskatoon, Sask—
the Western Canada Federation.
Inthe design of its promoters
it will include the three prairie
provinces, British Columbia, and
the Canadian Arctic. It will de-
velop ae self-sufficient economy
and cut the Gordian Knot which
ties Western Canada to eastern
monopoly capital. In short, a
separatist movement, aimed to
split Canada into two economic
entities.

The idea isn’t new. A similar
movement sprang up in West-
ern Canada during the crisis
years of 1920-23. Led by groups
of farmers whose intentions to
break the grip of monopoly
domination on Western agricul-
ture were worthy of the highest
commendation, but whose short-
Sighted policies in seeking to
achieve this end could only re-
bound against themselves and
the common people of the Do-
Minion. The movement petered
out. Then as now, the concept
of a Western Federation was
and is a protest against the con-
tinued plunder of Western Can-
ada by eastern interests, but
the answer to this problem can
only be found in a greater mea-
Sure of people’s unity, and pri-
marily between organized labor
and farmers—but never in iso-
lationist or separatist movements.
But as Marx points out, the tra-
ditions of the past hang heavily
upon those who plant their feet
on the ‘path of the future with
uncertainty and trepidation.

@

AST week the Vancouver Sun

Ottawa bureau answered a
question that has been disturb-
ing Canadians ever since VJ-
Day. To the thousands of war
veterans and their families, to-
gether with scores of hundreds
of others who are in desperate
need of homes; to those who
have looked forward to the re-
eonversion of industry from a
war to a peacetime basis and
the creation of new industries;
to all who have looked upon
the postwar as a period of ex-
pansion, when the great produc-
tive capacity of Canadians vill
be utilized for peacetime recon-

struction and advancement, the
dificulty is now succinctly ex-
plained by the ‘Sun’ Ottawa bur-
eau. “Qne of the reasons Can-
ada (read the King government)
has not proceeded with needed
public works, is that they are

~being held in reserve against

depression times.”

Now isn’t that just. ducky?
The wartime sacrifices to de-
feat fascism

and make Can-
ada a land fit
for heroes and

others to live
in, are not
enough. Woe

must wait while
grasping mon-
opoly or so-
called private
enterprise has
precipitated us
into an economic depression.
Government policy is based upon
conceding the right of private
enterprise te handle the job of
post-war reconstruction, but
knowing full well, and stating
so, that a depression must in-
evitably follow such a policy;
then giving us the ‘assurance’
that when the inevitable hap-
pens, it will bring up its public
works ‘reserve.’ Doubtless such
a government has also in mind
that wages will be on a depres-
sion level, thus Suaranteeing to
monopoly, that regardless of ‘the

Tom McEwen

times, their profits shall not
suffer.

Two weeks ago when Tim
Buck, national leader of the
LPP declared that monopoly
interests were driving Canada
into an economic erisis, the

commercial press took occasion
to distort and ridicule Buck’s
statements. Two weeks later 13
out of 14 leading U.S. economists
declared that the USA — which
means the capitalist world, was
heading into a crisis equal in
intensity te the hungry 30's.
Thus there is little encourage-
ment to be found in the goy-
ernment’s ‘reserve against de
pression times’ except to find
that road to a broad labor-farm-
er unity that will heave the
crisismakers into the ashcan of
bistory, as the peoples of Euro-

pean lands are doing daily. We
didn’t fight a major war agains?
fascism to preserve a set-up
which breeds economic stazgna-
tion and fascism :

e ee
| fee an exchange of telegrams
_with the Canadian Jewish

Congress on alleged anti-semetic
statements attributed te Inspec-
tor N. F. Anthony of the RCMP
in Wancouver, .Commissicner 5S.
T. Wood wired: “I have noted
Inspector Anthnoy’s public de
Nial of anti-semetic statements
attributed to him by evidence
given during the Nightingste
trial. As is well known there
is an old and well established
policy under which members of
this force must never permit
racial, religious or political con-
Siderations to sway them in the
performance of their duties, No

deviation from this policy would

be tolerated ‘and complete im-
partiality is a vital standard af
this force.” @ Ws :

Whether Inspector Anthony
stated to ex-Squadron Leader
M. S. Nightingale, framed on 42
trumped up charge of espionage,
te “send these damm Jews back
where they came from” or not,
is not the point. The point is
that the RCMP commissioner's
statement to the Canadian Jew-
ish Congress is, in our opinion,
the finest bucketful of official
whitewash that has been thrown
in one direction for some time.

Remembering the star cham-
ber methods of extorting state
ments from those charged with
espionage, under the direction
ef the professional labor stool
pigeon, RCMP inspector John
Leopold, alias Esselwein, and™
ably aided by the Russian trai-
tor and embezzler Gouzenko,
One Can hardly regard the
RCMP as politically ‘neutral’. Et
makes a pretty story of course,
but it is just plain eyewash.
The force that shot Bill Davis
and the Estevan miners to-
death; that has smashed count-
less picket lines and earned fer
itself the unenviable title of
‘Canada’s strike-breaking police’
from Nova Scotia to Vancouver
Island, can hardly be rateg as
a politically ‘neutral? body.

ERIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1946