Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 19, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba I september Winnipeg free press Freedom of f fade Equality of civil rights Liberty of religion published and printed a week at 300 Carw Oft wifi Peg r3c 3g1 by Canadian company limited Telephone 9439331 Jonald Nicol John Dafoe Edt Worfel f4i editor Murray Burt managing editor Rudy Redekop Ceri troller editorials Little help on mortgages it is now Eleaf that Federal housing minister Paul cos Grove was motivated chiefly by a concern of saving his own skin when he promised earlier this week that help was on the Way Tor families faced with the Prospect of losing their Homes because they could not Cope with immense increases in their mortgage who is regarded As something of a weak fish in the Federal was tossed out by his colleagues to appease the angry crowd which gathered on the Steps of parliament to demand action on interest faced with the Choice Between promising something anything or being torn Cosgrove prudently decided to the rest of the safely behind locked was deciding that the promises would be largely just How empty began to emerge during the by we were Back in dire the minister was conceding in the vast majority of homeowners could expect no that at the moment the government has no idea of what to do about the problem but within a few it just might think of by All the government could produce was an invitation to the Heads of lending institutions to meet finance minister Allan Maceachen next week to discuss the at that Maceachen no urge the Banks and Trust companies to show sensitivity and compas Sion when dealing with customers who Are having trouble meeting mortgages since the Heads of the Banks and Trust companies have announced that they Are already acting with sensitivity and and since people Are already losing their that Promise offers Little some Short term action is apparently being considered by the the most popular already put into effect by one would have part of the mortgage payment rolled into the principal amount of the this would make monthly payments lower but at the Cost of increasing the amount of the in the More they the deeper in debt the homeowners would find that sort of expensive Stopgap Relief would be useful Only if there were some Assurance that mortgage rates would decline in the near whatever limited help it gave it would do nothing to meet the problems of Small businessmen who Are being forced into the Only real answer to the problem is policies which will relieve the pressure on interest rates in Canada and to increase this country ability to resist pressure to make its interest rates March in lockstep with those in the United rates have begun to decline marginally but not enough to provide any real if the trend is to there will have to be a realistic budget to moderate the size of the Federal so Long As inflation continues to grow at a rate of 12 or 13 per interest rates Are Likely to stay painfully so Long As Large amounts of capital flow out of we Are Likely to be tied closely to Energy minister Marc Lalonde will have to put off his ambitious plans to Export More billions of Canadian capital to buy out More foreign owned Oil that will not provide any Quick end to the agony but Quick solutions do not the Best we can Hope is that the government which spent a Long time getting us into this mess is now determined to spend some time getting us out of a worthy appointment it is the Fate of Winnipeg civic government to see Many of its Star performers picked off for appointments to other no one can blame Peark councillor for Stevenson Deputy mayor and chairman of the councils executive policy for accepting the Job of Lieuten an governor of her instinctive her sense of occasion and her familiarity with the Workings of politics suit her admirably for Herne even As a practising she has always Given the impression of being somehow above she has prefer red to defend her own ideas rather than attack those of she has habitually sought consensus without falling into stated her Case in a Way that invites assent rather than she has left to others the Handt hand political combat that inflicts scars and it is impossible for a reasonable person to dislike Pearl that personal style has served her Well in civic politics and is tailor made for her new she will be an excellent she will be Able to Converse easily and intelligently with Manitoban of All sorts and conditions and with politicians of All she will receive distinguished visitors with she will win friends across the province As easily As she has in she will discharge her ceremonial duties with Grace and Good she will keep out of sight when the occasion demands As it often does of lieutenant governors and resist the temptation to thrust herself into political Contro she will uphold the dignity of the while Mcgonigal cannot be her City Hall colleagues and her constituents in Stevenson Ward Are entitled to complain a is it really necessary for the senior time after to pillage City Hall in their endless search for lieutenant Over nors can they not enrich the province As they have done in Mcgonigall impoverishing the City problems not All imported Britain new Alliance the continued domination of Britain National politics by the labor and conservative parties looks less secure follow ing last weeks decision of the tiny Liberal party to undertake an electoral Alliance with the fast growing social opinion polls indicate that the electorate is tired of politicians with an unswerving belief in doctrinaire solutions to complicated social and economic voters Are showing Strong support for the social democratic born last because its reason for existence is a revulsion against extremist tendencies in the labor party and against the hard faced conservatism being Practised by prime minister Margaret for the social democrats have been conducting a difficult mating dance with the who have been outsiders in the political Power game since 1922 and who have Only 11 elected there Are Many areas of agreement Between the two the most important ones Are their Mutual desire to smash the two party Hegemony and their delighted discovery that voters Tell pollsters that they would be prepared to put a Liberal and social democratic Alliance into now that delegates to the Liberal annual conference have overwhelmingly backed the electoral Alliance the Way is Clear for a hardheaded allocation of constituencies in which the stronger candidate of either party will be Given a Clear once the official candidate is both party organizations will Combine to work for his or her it is a development to be feared by the conservative and labor parties in Many marginal if there really is a fundamental shift in voter it is to be feared in virtually every this has All happened so quickly that the new allies do not have detailed policy positions on every they Are not completely Clear on How they would share should they be called on to form the National the electorate does not seem to they would Garner 41 per cent of the vote just compared to 31 per cent for labor and 25 per cent for the governing conserva those plus the new electoral Are the most important developments in British party politics in 60 by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa High interest rates have done far More than chronic inflation to awaken the Canadian people to the fact that this country has severe economic problems that cannot be left to Drift along without serious especially since the economic sum Mit in july it has been popular Dogma in Ottawa that this aspect of our prob Lem is an overflow from the United states and that if Only american rates would be allowed to drop our most problems would that is another example of the great International influence of Chancellor Schmidt of West he was vocal at the Summit because High american rates have the Side effect of forcing the Dollar up and of Deva Luing the German with unwelcome consequences for the sum met was not Over before the chancellors protests became the offi Cial Canadian it is True enough in today this country has no alternative except to follow slavishly Ameri can rates because not to do so would Force the already weak Dollar Down further and shove the rate of inflation up still what is not True is the proposition that this is the official government line fails to come to grips with the underlying ques Tion Why is the Dollar so weak that we cannot afford to swerve even marginally away from american interest Pat terns that is not a Sid effect of Washington it is a Canadian problem and one with which the finance Allan should Deal in his next he is most unlikely to do so because Marc Lalonde National Energy pro Gram is at the heart of when it was introduced a year the Dollar was firm at the 87cent level and not Long afterwards the greatest Trade surplus in Canadian history billion came along As a strengthening once that very Large sur plus became the Dollar should have strengthened especially since it Cut the Overall Bai Anceo payments deficit to the lowest it has been since yet in it did nothing to Stop the dollars slide Down to the 81to83cent unless it disbelieves the Bank of Cana on which it relies for its main economic the government knows that the Oij question is at the heart of the the unnecessarily Long dispute with Alberta was a the reaction of International Money markets to the discriminatory features of the Nep was because Confidence in the country policies was the delay in the Energy which May have killed them was a if Maceachen wanted to release Canada from the Iron grip of interest rates set by the Federal Reserve Board in Washington he would first have to take Steps to strengthen the Dollar and that could Only be achieved by dealing with the causes of its those will not be dealt with in the Maceachen budget because to do so would involve Radical surgery on the his goal of canadians nation of the Oil Industry is popular in the country and it is not seriously disputed even by Sharp critics of the it is the discriminatory methods chosen that Are under on the eve of Trudeau latest meeting with president the external affairs Mark said it is inconceivable that any Canadian government would change this if he had said that no Canadian government would change the goal but would look at the methods used to achieve it he would have been on solid there Are obvious ways of using the tax system to achieve the goal without against the owners of foreign capital who were welcomed into Canada with open but the mindset is solid against the use of positive rather than negative Means of achieving that is the Roadblock Between Allan Maceachen and a budget that meets our National needs and it would be a pipe dream to believe that he will be Able to remove ramp Security files boggle the imagination Mcdonald report individual rights in files Are kept on canadians by the Security service of the a figure that boggles the the function of the Security service is to collect and Analyse information on those who Are a threat to the Security of As the Mcdonald commission on the activities of the ramp has files Are kept on canadians simply because they May have Radical Are or even because they criticize the revelation the report is a revelation of the unwarranted intrusion into the privacy and Freedom of expression of one Section in the report discloses that even members of Parlia ment Are subjects of secret maps should be treated no differently than others if they Are a grave threat to the Security of the to maintain these files on members of parliament for no justifiable reason is Wanton and it smacks of a police it challenges the supremacy of the report takes the unusual step of providing a synopsis of 16 files on Here is Case 4 the file was opened on an my when he declined an invitation to a communist country embassy he later became a minister and his file records contacts with soviet bloc officials and visits to several communist countries on official it is incredible that a Cabinet minis ters official business should be consid ered worthy of a secret and Why was it recorded that he declined an invitation to an embassy reception of a communist country that apparently is a Merit Mark acceptance would draw a Here we have the spectacle of the Security service Mark ing maps for their who is watching the Security shop while they Are recording such innocuous information other cases recorded any association with communists Case 3 the file was opened on the Val Werler my when he called on an officer of the Security service with regard to a pro posed visit to Canada of a certain group of persons from a communist Many persons who had emigrated to Canada from that country resided in the maps the my and other maps had visited Case 5 the file was opened on an my because a woman had contacted a communist bloc Agency on behalf of the my with regard to visas for cons tit the my had declined an invitation to a communist country embassy cocktail Case 6 a file was kept Active because of the maps frequent Atten dance at soviet bloc embassy fun the file noted that our sole concern in this regard is that the my May be the target of an agent of influence Campaign on the part of the soviet the Mcdonald report discloses that the Security service collects information on All persons who travel to communist bloc it says that this will deter canadians from having desirable contacts with the communist says the report if it is thought that one earns a plus Mark for declining an invitation to a reception at a communist bloc embassy but a minus Mark for accepting an then our politicians and other if they wish to Rise to positions of responsibility in Canadian will be careful to avoid All contacts and communication with the communist world and its this would be extremely detrimental to the Opportunity of All files Are opened on maps purely be cause of expressions of political Opin the Security service apparently equates grass roots politics with subversion Case 8 an maps file was opened because an article in a communist party newspaper reported that speeches delivered by him recognized a need for a grassroots peace move Case 9 a file was opened on a person prior to his election to Parlia ment when a Security clearance was the report praised his Char later when he was elected to Par the file was transferred to the maps category of the next item on file records his Public criticism of certain several years later the continuance of the file was justified in part by the fact that he supported grass roots files Are opened on maps and others just because they have criticized the Security which the Mcdonald report labels a particularly dangerous it is More than that it is a negation of the essence of Freedom of Case 11 a file was opened Many years ago when a person was elected to a municipal when he was elected to his election was As were the results for other candidates of certain of the political several years after Public statements of the my had been recorded on a review memo stated that his reputation was that he was Antis purity and Case 12 a file was opened on an my because after being interviewed by a Security service member to whom his name had been Given As a reference by a person who had applied for Security the ramp officer reported he considered the my to be somewhat officious and the memo on the file noted that the maps attitude May have been due to the fact that the House of commons was about to meet and time was the Mcdonald report says that the Security member in question advised us that he recorded his impression As it might Alert someone else in a future there is no basis for recording any of these says the Mcdonald the cases show the Security service has not understood the differ ence Between legitimate political Dis which is essential to our demo cratic and such political advocacy or action As would constitute a threat to the Security of the kind of thinking in these files show both an ant left Bias and a tendency towards the worst kind of guilt by these files should be homosexual suspicion any homosexual suspicion is recorded in these files Case 15 the sole reason for opening a file on an my was that his name appeared on a list of known or suspected homosexuals prepared by another police Case 16 the sole reason for a file on an my was a memo that an informer of unknown reliability had said that a second person had told him that the my was All these cases illustrate an unjustified and dangerous surveillance of the ramp has an important role in protecting the National Security with All the terrorism and violence in the it is the ultimate responsibility of government to spell out the direction and control of the Security we must not tolerate such secret files As the Mcdonald reports Many should be destroyed and others vetted periodically by an Independent review the files Are a grave violation of civil liberties and should not be countenanced in an open and free a Cornerstone of our democratic sys tem is the right to privacy and the right to free expression of these Are great and vulnerable which government must uphold and Safe ;