The Canadian Scene-Big Business Opens Drive
ANDRAS, A.
The Canadian Scene-Big Business Opens Drive By A. Andras /YTTAWA—The New Deal, officially declared defunct in the U.S.A., has been exhumed by the Liberal government and is being used to stem the...
...The Prime Minister has stated that he does not wish an election and will not call one if possible until the expiration of the government's term in 1946...
...harsh penalties are provided and unions are being made financially responsible for breaches of the law by their members or locals...
...They are excluded from this country as though they had some disease...
...union recognition is hedged about by undemocratic restrictions...
...As a result labor is up in arms, tension is mounting and a good deal of industrial unrest is to be expected...
...The preoccupation of the government, Us official Conservative opposition, in fact every party but the C.C.F...
...As a rule a government will go to the people foi a mandate before its term of office is over...
...The fTC.F., stronger now than ever before, is girding its loins for this decisive struggle...
...Compulsory registration of unions is required and, contrary to all democratic practice, the unions are being treated as corporate in that they are serving to unite the rival trade union bodies in the province...
...It is empirical in its approach, and ha> no lied, immutable doctrines...
...and the possibility of the C.C.F, attaining power, has become an obsession—well-founded in view of the party's consistent record of election victories during *he past two year...
...He is being backed by considerable sums of money supplied by people whose names read like a Who's Who of the directorates of Canada's major corporations...
...The Third International may be dead but its ghost is still haunting the scene...
...Those two words have become a mighty drum which is being beaten up and down the country by reactionaries of every stripe...
...The C.C.F...
...Recently the government put fur, ther restrictions on opportunities for wage adjustments, freezing wages more solidly than heretofore, eliminating even the Canadian equivalent of the Little Steel formula for sub-standard wages...
...We shall be acting in our best tradition if, later on when Japan has rewon her place among civilized democratic nations, we should recognize her nationals as members of the human' race...
...Murray's address, of letters in similar vein addressed to businessmen, and the names of his backers were recently exposed in the C.C.F...
...But under the urge furnished by their heroic part in the war, we finally did repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act...
...It breaks down some of the inherited inhibitions with regard to other races, nations and colors...
...Now that this great venture has been msde, our minds naturally turn to further measures in the same .direction...
...Coldwell on the investigating committee whose determined efforts resulted in his dismissal from the CBC...
...It is already a major political force in Cansda...
...and growing rapidly...
...For example, a union must enroll as members at least 00 per cent of eligible workers in order to gain recognition...
...For the farmers, a floor under farm product prices is...
...The big business interests are no longer satisfied to let Parliament defend their power...
...Retention liniler public ownership of government-owned plants and iheir conversion to peacetime use...
...in the industrial-areas, but, unfortunately, the main strength of any government in Quebec is derived from the farmers who elect a majority of the legislature...
...The 106 Orientals may freely enter—do evil threatens to befall us...
...Hailstone Murray is a reactionary who boasts of Ins part in breaking the British general strike of 1926 and in fact uses this as a reference for the dirty job he has undertaken...
...prevents such a step...
...the money to be used in socially-useful public works...
...The establishment of ;i national investment hoard, to.j»nJu»L capital.., investment and direct it into socially desirable ventures...
...While trying to satisfy public desire for security, the very nature of events forces the government to under mine these elements most insistent for social and other legislation—organised labor...
...leader M. J. Coldwell moved an amendment te the Speech as follows: "We respectfully submit to Your Excellency (the Covernoi General) that Your Excellency's advisers have failed to propose the fundamental social changes which alone can hasten the winning of the war and make possible the establishment of a post-war Canada capable of providing full employment and complete social security...
...The second front has been shed and "Teheran" is now the password for the initiate...
...However, experience has shown that such statements must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt and all political parties are laying the groundwork for an imminent federal election...
...to be provided...
...As fsr back as last summer the national leader of the psrty stated in western Canada that capitalism could satisfy the needs of the masses...
...For months now the party hacks have been berating the C.C.F...
...This may serve to strengthen the C.C.F...
...The old-line parties are busily presenting sopi to the people in the hope of blurring the basic differences between the two...
...In the debate following the Speech from the Throne, the C.C.F...
...Unlike the U.S.A., the Canadian constitution enables a government to call an election before its term has expired...
...Suitable tax modifications" are to stimulate free enterprise in the transition from war to peace production—in other words, a reduction in the Excess Profits Tax and the transfer of the burden to the private taxpayer...
...Coldwell as follows: A commitment by Parliament to spend a specific sum, at least five billion dollars, in the immediate posl-war years as a buffer against widespread unemployment...
...For small business, an "industrial development bank" is envisaged, subsidiary to the federallyowned Bank of Canada...
...Consistent as usual, it at the same time denounces the C.C.F...
...The federal government is known to be studying an order-in-council (directive) which, it is understood, will pretty effectively hamstring labor although it will ostensibly seek t<) guarantee collective liargainiug...
...K proposals for social security were outlined by Mr...
...Tfa country can double "or freWe its production snd its nationsl income during wartime," Lewis asserted, "it ran do so in peacetime to create a society of abundance, by planning" He has promised smoother article on the CCF in the near future...
...C.C.F...
...Legislators feared the unhealthy hates and fears of their constituents...
...The text of Mr...
...With the communists on the side of reaction, the lines in Canada are becoming increasingly clear-rut...
...It is hardly surprising that tha^daily press has ignored them...
...press...
...to do otherwise is generally taken as a sign of weakneas...
...enables the Communists to submerge, however superficially, their true identity, the existence in Canada of the C.C.F...
...The party therefore has jumped on the free enterprise bandwagon without ceasing to exist as such...
...The 1941 census, revealed that 85 per cent of the wage earners received under 11..100 per year...
...A''{change of the immigration law to admit them on the same basis as Europeans would mean opening the gates to 105 each year...
...Our Japanese citixens have given a good account of themselves in this struggle against a combination of nations including their motherland...
...has been especially concerned about the disposition of the vast iqve«tment in capital equipment and goods made by the government, amounting to about Ave billion dollars...
...Their soldiers stood by ours through the long African campaign and are distinguishing themselves in the bitter Italian and Burma fighting...
...On the other side stand the champions of chaotic production, inefficient and unjust distribution, social inequality...
...they are marshalling their economic means for a last-ditch fight if necessary...
...They hsve not failed, however, to print his lurid hoax about impending bloody revolution in Canada, involving conspiracies and the general strike...
...A fear of the C.C.F...
...TPHE Browder betrayal should not have come as a surprise to those Canadians who have been follow, ing the not too subtle twists of the local communists, now calling themselves Labor-Progressives...
...The CCF is a thoroughly democratic orpani xation, based on the people—not upon the industrial workers exclusively—the farmers snd middle clans and the workers constitute its mem bership...
...anyone whe> dares miggest methods other than those followed by the Big Four powers, or who questions the efficacy of their procedure, becomes instantly the target for the epithets in which communists specialize...
...If the acts excluding them wye repealed, about 75 of them might be received each year...
...While the absence of a strong socialist party in the U.S.A...
...Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) Members of Parliament have made it plain that nothing short of a planned economy on a socialist basis would s*tisfx.Uicoe«dx.gf,the C%nadihn people...
...Coldwell asssiled (he government for its half-way measeres and criticised it severely for its sppeasement of the monopoly interests...
...Mr...
...The C.C.F., on the one side, stands for democratic socialism: a planned economy, social ownership, national unity...
...His job is neatly summed up bv him in an address he made last summer before a privai* group of interested persons: * * • "IT is my job to do something to see that the * Socialists do not get the chsnce of playing the overture to revolution...
...and including the Communists) is with the survival of "free enterprise...
...and its leaders, and continues to seek affiliation with the C.C.F...
...There is grave danger" he said, "that while we are victorious oa the telds of battle we may lose the no leas vital political warfare...
...There is every indication that this will be Hold to monopolies, csrtels, and big business generally, to be ased by these anti-social interests to consolidate their hold on the people...
...The people of India ace...
...AN EDITORIAL Asiatics Are People •THE one silver lining of the dark cloud of war is that it gives a warm human feeling toward the hundreds of millions fighting on our side...
...They have found a willing tool to front for them in a former manager of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a man*who was compelled to resign following an investigation which revealed very glaringly his unfitness for that office...
...The leaders of industry have to address themselves now te the intangibles...
...Under no circumstances, Lewis declared, will the CCF repeat the mistake of the British Labor Party: it will not assume governmental responsibility until it has a clear majority for its program of drastic social reform...
...for its "unrealistic" and reactionary (sic) attitude in advocating socialist, measures...
...The Province of Quebec has just passed its own bills which strike at the very foundations of trade union practice...
...And in the name of Teheran and, of course, Soviet- Boishi...
...In the Speech from the Throne the government announced its intention to introduce a number of measures to provide "a national minimum of social security and human welfare...
...David lewis, national secretary of the Canadian Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and brother-in-law of A. And ran, spoke at a luncheon of the Social Democratic Federation laat week He predicted that within six months the CCF will be the provincial government of Saskatchewan, and that within a year the CCF will he the second largest party in the Canadian Parliament, if not the largest...
...A plan for rural electrification (the extent of farm electrification in Canade is comparable with the worst of the deep South in the U.S.A...
...It is generally agreed that these are pre-election promises in a desperate attempt to revive the support of a hostile electorate...
...It is not sectarian...
...About fourlift h» of the Cansdian economy is controlled by monopoly or oligopoly with the result thst the vsst majority of the Canadian people are inadequately clothed, fed and housed...
...Many among us upraid the British for their policies toward them.- But we ourselves are guilty of denying them recognition aa human beings...
...Included in the proposals are nutrition and housing legislation, health insurance, contributory old age pensions and children's allowances...
...The Canadian Scene-Big Business Opens Drive By A. Andras /YTTAWA—The New Deal, officially declared defunct in the U.S.A., has been exhumed by the Liberal government and is being used to stem the leftward swing of the Canadian people...
...For decades the Chinese had been asking tor simple justice...
...For a long, long time we denied their plea...
...Psrty politics, of course, rsnnot be neglected but the problem of primsry importance is to see that free enterprise is interpreted correctly and attractively outside the realm of party politics...
...Surely no calamity could result from such an addition to our population...
...Quebec farmers are the backbone of reaction in that proVince...
...Murray's natural reactionism ia somewhat abetted by the fact that it was Mr...
...Coldwell was especially critical of the government's failure to deal realistically With the problem of full employment, a problem which overshadows every other in the minds of the Canadian people...
...The communists are all for the status quo now because it seems to suit Stalin that they should be so...
...Strikes are virtually forbidden...
...that Canada was not ripe for socialism...
...An undertaking by the government to maintain service personnel on full pay and allowance until they have been absorbed in remunerative employment...
...An adequate, well-planned housing program...
...There are 350,000,000 persons in India...
...also our fellow-fighters...
...News from Italy about the character of the American soldiers of Japanese ancestry leads inevitably to carrying this thought one step further...
Vol. 27 • February 1944 • No. 9
