Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 7, 1980, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free january 1980 How wide is the Gap Between by Walter Stewart up news service Ottawa politics lives on two favourites read dont blame me and do As i not As i both Are getting a workout in the cur rent Federal the conservatives say it is not their fault that they had such a dismal parliamentary record in their 205 Days of a disruptive opposition hampered their plans to build a better tomorrow for All the Liber als contend that sheer incompetence explains the Lack of legislative a com and that prime minister Joe Clarks flip flops have left the nation in fair but it seems As to look Back at the first 205 Days of Liberal Rule after the Victory of prime minister Trudeau was reelected on july with a Clear Majori he had been the Leader of his party for six and that party had been in office for he had two enormous advantages Over the minority conservative government of 1979 parliamentary control and a background of even the liberals didst accomplish a whole lot in their first seven months of and much of what they did accomplish contradicted their Campaign that where do As i not As i the record july the May Campaign pledge to wrestle inflation to the 18 budget Cut inflation pledge to avoid wage and Price controls were imposed pledge to establish a Crown corporation for passenger under via rail established june pledge to spend million on Urban under million eventually pledge to end freight rate Dis under com Bill never pledge to establish pet Rocana Bill passed july pledge to give income supple ments to the working pledge to provide a National Energy policy aimed at self sufficiency and prices below world a goals changed to self Reliance and moving to Ward world pledge to establish a 200mile offshore com Trudeau later rejected unilateral action still Canada took pledge to give Grants to purchasers of new in oneyear plan pledge to establish a National Home warranty pledge to pass anti profiteer ing com pledge to bring in a two stage Competition stage one stage one later passed stage two pledge to stabilize farm in comes at 90 per cent of previous five year legislation in passed july pledge to require All new re source projects to be 50 per cent Ca Campaign pledge to Cut government dec 11 Bud budget pledge to provided billion Cut in personal income pledge to lower interest interest rates raised four pledge to move the Canadian embassy in Israel to a Stanfield pledge to legislate Freedom of Bill passed second killed by pledge tax credits for mortgage interest and realty Sec Ond killed by elec pledge to sell off a under now pro pose to sell Only part of pledge to Reform a under position paper far policy paying off at last do comes the liberals would like the nation to condemn the conserva Tives for their but they Are not anxious to have their own record held up to the the table attempts to do just it sets Down 15 major Campaign promises made by Trudeau in the 1974 and compares them with the action taken in his first 205 Days of the same process is then applied to the Clark the results Are Edi but not pledge to make Canada self suf Focient in Energy by incentives in Defeated goal changed to move towards self pledge to move to world prices in budget based on such a no agreement with pledge to establish a Public interest disputes commission to curb Public sector under pledge to freeze Public service pledge to increase budget deficit if needed to stimulate budget proposed to Cut com pledge to reduce scrapped in Short pledge to share More with the resources ceded to provincial policy changed now More Power demanded for by Dan Fisher soviet Union opponents derided the plan As Nikita Khrushchev great leap More than Square Miles of Vir Gin lands were to be transformed virtually overnight into a vast Early failures threatened to topple then the head of the soviet communist and to starve his but that was 25 years the much maligned Virgin lands program is hailed Here As a master this the Virgin lands produced a bumper Grain crop that prevented a disappointing nationwide Harvest from becoming a disastrous about 40 per cent of the country Grain this year came from the Virgin lands of soviet Central the urals and Southwest Ern nearly 20 per cent of it came from Kazakhstan the Central asian Republic that forms the Corner Stone of the Khrushchev dream transformed Kazakhstan As much As it did soviet agriculture in the second largest of the 15 soviet re pub once was primarily known for its Coal Fields and prison Alex Ander Solzhenitsyn served time retains asian character there were earlier migrations into the including one in czarist times when Farmers were promised free Homestead but on the eve of the 1954 communist party Resolution that established the Virgin lands pro Gram the program is called Kazakhstan retained a distinctly Central asian the Popula Tion was about six about 60 per cent of whom were kazakhs a Turk mongol people descended from pastoral nomads who emerged As a distinct nationality in the within five the republics popu lation grew to and kazakhs represented Only 30 per cent of the we used to have a quiet life Vladimir a 52yearold native of the recalled recent you could go by horseback for 80 or 100 Kilometres and see nothing just empty but it was As if we lived in a big railway beginning in March the party poured men and machinery into a about youths recruited by Young communist league Chap ters All Over the Saviet Union came by the Boxcar Load in the first few youths arrive to help Savva Galusha worked in the tiny District Centre Northwest of during that Winter of within three he Young people three times the local Popup Tion to help conquer the we would just take the wheels off the freight trains they came put runners on them and pull them by tractor to the As fast As we Galusha they lived in the freight cars until warm weather came they could build temporary the treeless Steppes offered Little raw materials for construction materials had to be brought in from the in the mean the or residents of the Virgin lived in tents or dug some built houses out of the rushes that grew along the Rivers and compressing them into slabs and whitewashing soviet presi Dent Leonid who ran the program in Kazakhstan for the National communist recalled in his memoirs that the party even organized a seminar on Rush lab construction at a local collective in the first Galusha More than tractors along with pieces of smaller farm the entire town was pressed into service loading Khrushchev had ordered that virtually All new agricultural equipment coming off the Assem Bly lines be sent to the Virgin it was a desperate but the food situation in the was Desper ate the 1953 Grain Harvest was on a per capita than it was in dissident historian Roy med Dev there was no Quick Way to increase agricultural output in the poorly fertilized and overused ukrainian and Central russian farm lands that had been the country traditional the Virgin lands program was Origi Nally drafted As a temporary a Stopgap to gain time while the traditional Foo producing areas were developed to full capacity through the use of modern fertilizers and the latest technical Medvedev and his Zhores wrote in Khrushchev the years in the Virgin lands yielded a Harvest although a Small one in the first but the real test of the program was to come in 1955 when the party planned a on a crop of 20 million tons from the Newlands 1955 turned into a drought plagued the newly cultivated Steppes and most of the Grain was thousands of recent emigres to the new regions began to unable to Deal with the severe inadequate food supplies and deplorable Liv ing Many died in the sudden and blinding snowstorms that characterize this land and that gave tse Winograd Virgin lands its former name of aka Molinsky White it was after the setbacks of 1955 that Khrushchev opponents openly criticized him for the Khrushchev survived the political and in 1956 the Virgin lands Harvest was a Bountiful As it did this to offset a poor crop in the traditional Grain growing but the Virgin lands have continued to be plagued by some of the same problems that beset All soviet agriculture insufficient modern inadequate storage and drying facile an underdeveloped transportation network increasingly a Short age of As a yield per acre is still lower than it should and much of the Grain is left in the Fields or spills before it can be weather has been a constant prob this is a zone of risky Agricula Obla Khan chairman of the tse Winograd regional executive precipitation is Summers Are hot and win ters bitingly High winds strip away the topsoil if it is not slowed and cultivated we have years where there is no rain at in such years no fertilizers would but of course if we had More the average yield would be now the soviet government is talking about diverting some of its northward flowing siberian Rivers to bring additional water to the Virgin the effects on farming of the fickle Kazakhstan weather Are apparent in the fluctuating Harvest for the 1976 record crop was followed by a decrease of 40 per cent in the huge size of the typical Virgin lands farm and the Short growing sea son still Combine to tax both men and a farm is not that is two or three times the size of the largest state and collective farms in the the los Angeles times How by on paints an impressionist economic picture Sterling Lyon has a fondness for painting works of economic Art otherwise known As filling in the at least twice a year since coming to the Premier has displayed an ability to take figures from various economic forecasts and artistically apply them to the provincial the Ourine provided by groups such As the Toronto Dominion Bank was rather with a prediction of less than one per cent rate of economic growth for Manitoba in while the Banks study foresaw a lower than under the pome Arlene average unemployment rate in the province because of the relatively unchanging numbers in it also indicated that same situation would limit the expansion in service Indus some Progress was forecast in min ing and along with Strong growth in hydroelectric Power Genera but the positive Side appeared to be outweighed by the predicted weak expansion in service pressed activity in construction and a drop in manufacturing despite a decrease in agricultural production last due mainly to Spring the Cash position of Farmers had improved and Lyon was certain agriculture would play a grow ing role As the world demand for products increased in the similarly he saw manufacturing shipments in creasing above the National level and a significant improvement in according to his the prov Ince had Many strengths on which to with a diversified Economy and a great potential for future resource de it placed Manitoba in a very favourable Light on the International because of his governments More people were employed and the rate was the lowest since while Oil and Mineral exploration activity were he would not be a but there was every reason to look Forward with some the predicted economic downswing really did not mean a Heck of a Lyon noting that when one compared previous predictions to actual there was Little they were merely value judgments which covered the unlike fellow Western Saskatchewan and who had temporary Beneficence of Windfall reve Manitoba was on a steady and less dramatic he and its base would remain when the Oil and Potash had the future looked Good and Manitoban were in a very enviable the picture was completed and while it might not win any the artist appeared to be satisfied with his Crea Tio after Art was not required to be a True representation of obviously Lyon was More of an impressionist and it was his impression that despite the negative predictions about the economic Manitoban had every reason for considerable opt would the picture sell ;