Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 28, 1968, Winnipeg, Manitoba Printed and published Dally except by the Winnipeg free press company limited 300. Carlton Street Winnipeg Manitoba. John Sifton president a s. Malone publisher and Peter Mclintock executive editor Maurice Western Ottawa editor Winnipeg free press i _ i Friday june Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights or. Trudeau s options after the generalities of the election prime minister Trudeau must now confront the specifics of an urgent economic problem. The coast to coast quarrels Between management and labor will convenience of the government. It must act without delay and the electorate has. Given full mandate for action. Seldom in Canadian history new prime minister been plunged so quickly into National crisis and a Clear test of his Wisdom. Such. Is or. Trudeau s position today. The nation will soon know what sort at Man it has elected. Assuredly or. Trudeau cannot be held responsible for the wage Price spiral which began Long before his entry into politics. As he Well knows the financial policies of the former conservative and Liberal governments encouraged inflation. The prodigal wage settlements in the St. Lawrence ports and on the Seaway set a pattern widely duplicated elsewhere with familiar results. No nation of the Western world has been so reckless As Canada in raising wages far beyond any possible growth of productivity and thus com Pelling Price increases. Or. Trudeau and the Canadian people inherit the Harvest of this Folly. It would be useless at this late Date to lament the mistakes of government management labor arid the Public. The prime minister s task is to prevent More mistakes if he can and. Contain the inflationary strains before they pro Duce an economic explosion. Apparently he has. Three options. The government can do nothing allow the spiral to Rise unchecked until it provides its own inevitable cure in a grand smash As has happened so often in the past. But this non policy of cowardice fits neither the character of or. Trudeau nor the needs of the nation. It can be ruled out at once secondly the government can move As former govern ments hesitated to move into the Field of new labor legislation that daunting no mans land where politicians usually fear to tread. Up to How Canada has devised no permanent method of settling great National strikes that imperil the Public interest. When such strikes Tiave Cuccur red on the railways for instance the Federal government has intervened indirectly by using its private influence on management and labor. Or if influence failed it has hastily established some temporary and hoc device of arbitration. No fair and durable rules of settlement have been established not because they Are unnecessary in a modern society but because they Are difficult in politics and their need has riot been sufficiently understood by the Public. The record of the last few years however and the current rash of strikes or threatened strikes should have taught govern ment and Public that the Lack of Legal machinery to Deal with Industrial warfare where it clearly endangers society can no longer be accepted. In the Canadian Federal system this problem is complicated by a divided authority. The National government cannot interfere in labor disputes under provincial jurisdiction. The provinces have no Power outside their own bound government in its separate jurisdictions has the Power to Settle Industrial disputes by orderly procedures Short of strikes and with one exception it has failed to do so. The exception is British Columbia where a new Law recently proclaimed establishes a mediation commission whose findings in any dispute must carry great weight with both sides and in a serious emergency can be made binding. It is in this general direction that the Federal govern ment and the provinces must move if they intend to move at All. They would have preferred to wait and watch the British Columbia Experiment before venturing into a highly sensitive area but for the at least no Long delay is possible when the Seaway the Central economic artery of Canada is closed when the railways which carry most of. The nation s essential goods Are threatened with paralysis when the letter carriers propose to. Stop the movement of mail the government must protect society by one Means or another. Since it lacks any effective the govern ment could be Well justified in calling parliament together sooner than september and asking it to pass legislation similar in principle to that of British Columbia. Admittedly this would raise a .controversial1 Issue and under Ordinary circumstances no government would care to risk it. But the circumstances Are not Ordinary for two reasons the nation faces a grave emergency and it has fully entrusted its affairs to a government with a Power of action limited Only to its support in parliament. Given the unquestionable need of action and a government with a working majority or. Trudeau has every right to do what he thinks Best. May be sure that the people will Back his Strong leadership. There is a and Canada will certainly Drift into it if the inflationary fire in not soon cooled. At some Point in the spiral prices will be controlled by Law Federal provincial or both. Prices of course cannot be controlled unless wages their largest element Are controlled also. It is toward this ultimate freeze an Economy of rigid stagnation and widespread unemployment that unreasonable wage de mands Are driving Canada. After the bitter experience of Britain under its socialist government a Rich Canadian nation will not wish nor does it need to imitate the British ordeal. Yet it Wil be repeated 1 Here a Little later on if Canada fails to act now while it still has the Chance. I i a the making of a Cabinet 1 the exercise of Power conversion Premier Walter Weir has been Swift to snatch at one of the larger straws blowing in this week s ejection winds. On the morning after the vote or. Weir stepped from his formerly Adamant position that his government did not like the Federal medicare plan and was not prepared to go along with it.1 now suddenly the Premier finds that Mani Toba May be ready to participate by the end of the year. True or Weir in his morning after statement on medicare made some of the familiar noises about discus sing the subject with Ottawa. But prime minister Trudeau s position on medicare is firm and unequivocal throughout the Campaign he responded to questions about medicare with the Flat statement that. It s the Law of the the Liberal government now has a comfortable mandate. Or. Weir knows full Well that or. Trudeau is unlikely to change his position simply to enable a provincial Premier to save face perhaps or. Weir has been listening to Alvin Hamilton in his own Post election afterthoughts indicted his party s stand on medicare As a major cause of the conservatives ill fortunes on june 25. Perhaps the Premier was listening to local radio on thursday morning a and heard what some Long faithful tories had to say about Why they switched their allegiance. Or perhaps it has finally occurred to or. Weir that Manitoban May resent shelling out some s2.5. Million in taxes to support a scheme from which they will not Benefit. Whatever accounts for the Premier s apparent conversion Manitoban will. Be unable to resist a chuckle Over the haste it was announced. Today s scripture Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word Liat proceed eth out of the Mouth of god. Matthew the Cabinet like Topsy just it is the most powerful instrument of political action in our system of government yet it exists in fact rather than in Law. There is no to any such instrument of Power in the ban act and one would Seaich a Long time to find acknowledgement of it in the statute Book. Cabinet is a convenient fact rather than a Legal instrument of representative government. It reflects the other Side of representative government government responsible that is those who for the actual exercise of Power answer to the people s representatives in the House of commons. The Legal instrument of the exercise of Power in our. System is the privy Council. The in a constitutional monarchy is really the objective state the collective personality and the collective interest of All the people the Crown is the umbrella under which. We practise the Art and science of partisan politics like every thing else in our system the Crown has. Evolved beyond the personality and Powers of the Monarch in the Days when the Monarch s private councillors had their own private Power bases land wealth influence or the personal Confidence of the Monarch t h r o u g h. The growth and development of party politics in which the Crown is utterly powerless to select its own private councillors. So where once the Crown selected its own private councillors and dismissed them at will now the people present to the Crown the state those persons who will hold and exercise the powers., of decision and action arid the people also dismiss. Them. Therefore the. Crown s privy Council of Canada consists of All office in the Federal government plus a few nominees ministers of and. Nominees of successive f e Deral govern ments. Have there fore in our monarchy and in the privy Council Are two useful and protective symbols the Crown the collective state which is partisan politics arid and within which we above under carry on our party disputations and rivalries and the privy Council of Canada made up of All those persons chosen by the parties to exercise Power in our disputations or decision the political this is obviously useful As an umbrella under which we carry on our political struggles without shredding the fabric of our common life or the institutional state. But in practical terms somebody has to exercise Power in our name until we choose to withdraw that Power. All the surviving ministers and nominees of All the parties cannot do h. The Cabinet does it. And essentially the Cabinet is the body of men women to whom the party which has won an election gives the Power to govern which has been Given to it by the people. Somebody principally from the House of commons has to run a government department somebody has to formulate policy and pursue it not in by Shaun Herron terms of election promises pipe dreams illusions or Hopes but according to the economic and political facts As they actually exist and be cause the Power exercised is the people s Power and not the Power of the party or the Crown somebody has to be responsible to the people for its exercise. The Leader the winning party becomes prime minister and chooses these men almost always from the commons to work with him run depart ments discuss and formulate policy according to the facts and their Best judgment on them and to answer for. Their stewardship directly and. Collectively in. The House of commons. The Cabinet just grower because work had1 to be done and answered the real contribution of the British to government was not representative government. Representation does not necessarily mean much the signing of Magna Charta was the fruit of backed by Power. But in the evolution of representative government As we think of it now representation Long before there was re possibility or Power. The fundamental British contribution was responsible govern ment arid the Cabinet system As it has emerged in our practice is the most direct exercise of responsibility and the., most directly accountable form of Respo visibility in any existing system. Even so representation has meaning within the Cabinet itself. In a country like Small arid compacted together and in which residential and regional qualifications Are unimportant where a Cabine minister comes from is of no consequence tit the Secretary of state for Scotland will always be a in Britain the Tion within the Cabinet will be factional not regional for a labor prime min ister must reflect in his Choice of ministers the composition of his party which is not really a party but a coalition of several parties and several doctrines the co operative party the old Independent labor party the labor party Rhode up of the labor left the labor the labor Centre and the unions. The old party fragments surviving in cashier with the new surtax added to your you owe i conglomerate labor May not get Cabinet posts and hardly expect them but the party factions and the unions must be balanced in the Cabinet. In Canada the matter is much More Complex. Left right and Centre must be but so also must the regions. In a country so Large and so regionally divided with Stark. Population disparities Between regions the balance of representation within the Cabinet is delicate and. Hardly makes for a numerically manageable group. When prime minister Trudeau. A n no c de his interim Cabinet before calling the general election there was in it a shortage1 of representation Columbia. On ground s of. Reason and under the interim circumstances that might not seem to matter. It mattered in . And a minister without portfolio emerged from the ranks of . S Liberal strength in the commons. The demand for regional representation in the Cabinet works roughly like this it was not so Long ago usual for Quebec to have in the Cabinet three or four French speaking members and one English speaking member the number Rose under prime ministers Diefenbaker and Pearson to. Ontario therefore required at least one More each province insisted upon representation and some provinces needed regional representation within the pro Vince. But ministries Vional themselves overtones had re fisheries letter from Paris Shakespeare on the Couch by Leo Ryan Paris a certain revolutionary fever still rages in the theatrical circles of Paris and half the capital s 60-Odd theatres Are still on strike or have closed Down till the fall. For the others the show must go on if Only to collapse. With things revolutionary now More than Ever in High fashion seems fitting that the strangest production imaginable of Shakespeare s mid summer night s dream has provided the most significant feature of the 1967-68 season. Shakespeare May after All be As Avant Garde As any of the modems but one wonders what he would think of play being performed his by . Or the maritime Agri culture before Joe Greene the Prairies. But it goes far beyond this. As Well As provincial sub provincial and regional representation there is a. Kind of proportional representation Lor c sex Tain religions and i ethnic groups so Many Anglo Irish cat holies French catholics anglicans United churchmen. John Diefken Tanker extended this aspect and brought Michael Starr into his Cabinet under his anti hyphenated Canadian pro Given All the possible claims that May and often do demand to be met the Miracle is that the Canadian Cabinet under prime minister Pearson numbered 26, and not 126. John a. Macdonald s first ministry from 1s67 to 1873, had a 17-Man Cabinet. The population it governed was about a Quarter million. Those were simpler Days. Prime minister Pearson governed for 20 million with a 26 Man Cabinet. I but the complaint was from inside the Cabinet of .26, that it was too Large a body for effective policy and decision making even for fruitful policy discussion. Prime min ister Trudeau is one of Many who hold this View. First of four articles barefooted amorous by and hat fully tilt ing on an old circus ring which has been littered with Gray and White Goatskin such is the awesome spectacle that is drawing capacity audiences every night in the old Cirque de Montmartre. The troupe of the theatre Dusoleil has no Star actors but it does have an exceptional producer and founder in the person of 29-year-old ariane Monou Chine of eng Lish and russian parentage who gave up her studies in psychology at the sorbonne to enter the Jungle world of the Paris boards. According to her statement released on opening night Midsummer night s dream is the most Savage violent play you could dream of a fabulous bestiary of the Depths whose subject is the god of fury that slumbers in men s hearts. No fairy tale marvels but a fantasy made of Poison anguish and terror in which our dreams uncensored take physical All the males in the cast Are dressed alike in White Nehru Coats and tight trousers and step to the rhythm of a huge drum lapped by a bearded hindu. Exhausting the Audi ence As much As surely himself puck All red spots on White skin runs full Speed up the Arena rim to make his exits or somersaults Back Down to wrestle and Roll around the Goatskin with Jris cohorts. The Only scene that shake Speare might recognize is the a Yarnis and Thisbe play let. Miss Monou Chine s production shows something of Peter Brook As Well As of Maurice Bojart the flamboyant French choreographer. But the per formers most of whom Are amateurs sometimes Lack conviction and polish. It is really a director s evening. Experimental theatre continues to display a wide Range in Paris though things Are a far cry from the flourishing Avant Garde Days of the 1950s. The theatrical Absurdity of yesteryear has lost some of its momentum and two plays by dramatists in f la e n ced by Lonosco roman Weingarten and Philippe Adrian enjoyed merely Brief runs Early in the season. More successful was Garabal s be Cimetiere Des full of violence necrophilia and nudity. Since the algerian War there had not until the events of May and june been any deep social or political upheavals to stimulate the Crea Tive urges of native Talent. Theatre directors have had to turn abroad on frequent occasions to fill the Gap which is in fact Only partially explicable by internal conditions in France. Looking Back one has to allow the season began rather disastrously. Inside of six weeks in the autumn ten plays bit the dust some in less than a week. Among the notable victims were Rosen Cranz and Guilde Stern Are dead which scored in London and new York the latest comedy by the talented Peter Ustinov and the birthday party of Harold Pinter. Comedy continues o reign supreme. In these Complex and worrying times and in this nerve wrecking and pensive City parisians on their night out Are mainly looking for a Good laugh. La puce a 1 Oreille the Georges Fey Deau comedy of 1907, has been one of the year s great hits. Jean Claude Bialy playing the role of both the pompous husband and the moronic Valet of a Shady hotel is unquestionably the Star in this rollicking edwardian frolic about suspecting wives and suspect ing husbands. Another deserving hit is Quarant e carats one of the few French. Barillet and creations by Grady which features Jacqueline Gauthier a striking and immensely communicative actress. Also worthy of mention is Shaw s pygmalion which has been intelligently adapted and which reveals the charming talents of Caroline Cellier who plays the Cockney Flower girl. Perhaps it is a question of mood but i was disappointed in two plays that were hailed Asun Succes fou interdict a Public by Jean Marsan and the French version of Charles Dyer s the staircase. The former a satire on theatre was Only moderately funny. The latter a tragic comic scene de menage Between two homosexuals is splendidly acted by Paul Meurisse and Daniel Ivernell but in the translated rendition o f the original crackling dialogue often descends into a kind of linguistic no Man s land. Conservatives lose the cities 0 Ottawa the popular vote in the 1968 election is now. Sufficiently Complete to suggest a number of conclusions at variance with some assumptions which seemed plausible in the course of the Campaign. From the size of the rallies and demonstrations which greeted the party leaders it seemed reasonable to expect Ai. Unusually Large turn put of voters on june 25. Or. Small Wood of Newfoundland went so far at one Point As to predict that or. Trudeau s magnetism would summon to the polls a million additional voters most of them Young people who in. Other Circum stances would have remained at Home. It is probably quite True that the prime minister1 kindled an interest in politics in the minds of Many persons not yet of voting age. In fact the percentage of citizens casting ballots was approximately the same As in 1965 and Well below that of 19s3. It is. Rather startling after All the political electricity of recent months to discover that messes. Trudeau and Stanfield were proper less successful than messes. Pearson and die Fen in. Luring eligible voters to the polls. But the present which take account of the expected service tally show a 1968. Voting percentage of -75 As compared to the figure of-79 reported by the chief electoral officer for 1963. Since Issue of the Campaign concerned the relation of Quebec to the rest of Canada and the most publicized since the prime minister is an eminent French Canadian it. Would have been natural to expect a particularly heavy by Maurice Western the voting count in tuesday s election Indi Cates that the conservatives Are on their Way to becoming a purely Rural party. Quebec response. Total votes cast in that province in 1965 were on tuesday this increased to according to the final Tabula Tion. Even with allowance for Quebec s share of the service Only about for entire it is doubtful if the increase kept Pace with eligible population. Even moire instructive Are the Quebec party totals. The nip made a special Appeal to Quebec with the offer of a particular status which would have permitted the province to go its own Way in various Fields while Ottawa achieved greater centralization for other provinces. The conservatives also made a special Appeal by enlisting or. Fari Bault whose theories would also ensure a greater degree of Quebec autonomy. It appears from the returns that Quebec was singularly unimpressed by All this Atten Tion. The nip vote fell from to the conservative vote Rose Only slightly to this comparison does not take account of the service vote but it can scarcely alter matters very much the Only p arty to substantial though not gain was or. Tru Deau s. glance it appears surprising that the conserva Tives who carried Only four Quebec seats out polled the credit stes who elected 15. The explanation is that the conservative vote was spread across the province while or. Caouette s strength was heavily concentrated in favourable Rural areas. It is an interest ing sidelight that or. Caouette managed six More seats with about fewer votes than in 1965. It was widely suggested after the 1965 election that the virtual exclusion of the conservatives from the metropolitan areas of Canada was attributable in great part to the unpopularity of or. Diefenbaker and the Diefenbaker policies among City voters. Whether this is True or not it is apparent that the new Stanfield leadership has not yet been Able to reverse or even to Check the Strong anti conservative Urban trend. The five largest Urban concentrations in Canada Mon Treal Toronto Oshawa Van Couver new Westminster the Burnaby and Winnipeg and Ottawa Hull account for 65 seats in the new House of commons. Of these Only five remained to the conservatives after 1965 Only one today. What happened on tuesday was apparently that the Urban rejection of the conservatives already apparent in 1965, spread to smaller cities to constituencies surrounding the cities and especially in Ontario to Rural areas with substantial town populations. At. Least half or. Stanfield s losses were attributable to City reverses. Winnipeg Portage la Prairie Regina Saskatoon Moose jaw Calgary Edmon ton London Ottawa West the toll is Long and significant. Similar influences were doubt less at work in City bordering constituencies such As Esqui malt s a a n i c a Grenville Carleton Middlesex and Peel Dufferin Simcoe. In addition the conservatives gave up some country seats with sub Stantial Urban populations such As Yorkton Melville Kamloops and a scarcely believable loss Lanark and Renfrew. As. Always there were some compensations. In the Atlantic provinces town and country alike were for or. Stanfield As shown gains by in the St. Conservative John s and Moncton. There was also an exceptional and popular development in Hamilton where Lincoln Alexander won election As the first negro member of the House of commons., but the Challenge to or. Stanfield could scarcely be plainer. Unless the conserva Tives find some Means of reversing the Strong trend of recent elections and clearly they have not found it yet they Are in danger of becom ing not the regional party which they were in or. Drew s Day but a purely Rural party. There was a time when a party with such a following might reasonably have aspired to govern Canada. With the great and continuing shifts of population to Urban centres this has ceased to be a practical proposition in National politics ;