LPP Electoral Program (1944?)
The Communist Party of Canada adopted the name
"Labor-Progressive Party" when it emerged from illegality in 1943. The
following was published as a 32-page 5.25"x7.25" pamphlet. It is
undated, but on internal evidence must have been written in 1944 or
early 1945.
It appears to have been designed for use by
candidates across the country, with the back cover reserved for
individual candidates in various ridings. The back cover of the edition
in the SHP archives is reproduced at the bottom of this page.
The pamphlet was illustrated with small cartoons on
every page -- we have reproduced only the drawing of LPP leader Tim
Buck, from the first page.
A BETTER CANADA
TO FIGHT FOR, TO WORK FOR, TO VOTE
FOR
Electoral Program of the Labor-Progressive Party
FOREWORD
In the pages of this booklet the Labor-Progressive Party
sets forth for the consideration of every Canadian the concrete things
which must be done to enable our people to reap the harvest of Victory.
When we speak of "a better Canada", as all of us do, these days, there
is need to be very definite about the steps which must be taken to
realize our aims ... Here, between these covers, is our Party’s idea of
those steps. We speak about housing, about health, about culture and
education, about taxes, about foreign trade and our relations with other
countries all around us ...
By acting upon the needs of Canada’s people in these respects, we can
raise the level of Canada’s contribution to the solution of those world
problems which concern us all. And we shall be fulfilling the dreams of
great men who gave their talents, their energies and their very lives,
down through the generations, to make Canada a land that the poet
conceived when he wrote "... But Westward look ... the land is bright!"![](TimBuck-sig.jpg)
REAP THE HARVEST OF VICTORY ...
OUR country is engaged in the final and fiercest battles
of the world-wide people’s war against German and Japanese fascism. Our
country fights for its own national freedom, for the right of Canadians
to say how they shall live and what kind of government they are to have.
In this costly national struggle, for which so many of our young men
have given and are giving their lives, we are winning a glorious
opportunity to open a new era of national greatness.
Our country’s war effort has been magnificent, both in
men and materials. We have built up a mighty production machine in the
cities and on the farms. The conditions for achieving in Canada a real
People’s Peace are ready to our hand, provided we learn the lesson that
the price of national greatness is national unity.
If labor and the farmers, and all the common people,
resolve to strengthen national unity, thrusting aside all those who
threaten it, we can secure those great reforms which will enable our
young country to rise to its full stature in the coming years. That is
the aim of every democratic Canadian in the coming Dominion election.
What are the things that Victory will give us the
opportunity to do?
ü We can elect to
parliament those men and women who are the best fighters for the people,
the truest champions of labor and the farmers and Canadian business —
men and women who are resolved to utilize our labor and national
resources to provide maximum production and employment after the war, to
raise living standards to new high levels, and to enact sweeping reforms
to provide social security for our people.
ü We can take our place as
a sovereign power in the new world organization of the United Nations,
ready to act with them to prevent any further aggression upon the peace
of the world.
ü We can prevent a
recurrence of the conditions in which the needs and just claims of the
ex-service men and women were buried beneath wordy, and ofttimes empty,
tributes to our glorious dead. We can make sure that Canada fulfils her
primary responsibility — the complete civil re-establishment of our
fighting men and women.
ü We can establish a
partnership between labor, management and government for reconversion
from war to peace-time industry.
ü We can maintain in the
peace the high level of national income that has been achieved during
the war.
ü We can restrict
monopolistic practices, protect small business and give full scope to
the development of our natural resources.
ü We can establish the
8-hour day and 40-hour week at decent wages and guarantee, by law, the
right to trade union organization and collective bargaining.
ü We can extend to all of
Canada’s youth the fullest opportunity to learn, to train and to be
usefully employed.
ü We can ensure to the
women of Canada full equality of opportunity, to enable them to play
their rightful part in public affairs and industry.
ü We can safeguard the
right to publish and speak our thoughts, to worship in our own way, and
freely organize politically.
ü We can live together, in
harmony, English and French Canadian, through the enjoyment of equal
rights in a Confederation brought up-to-date by constitutional reforms.
The approaching victory of the peoples will make
possible long years of world prosperity on the secure foundation of
United Nations’ friendship and co-operation. Canada, as a leading
exporting nation, must play her full part in the reconstruction of
liberated Europe and Asia. Increased world trade, together with rising
living standards at home, will enable Canada to maintain her present
national income and a high level of prosperity after the war.
These things can be done, provided there is unity of
the democratic, forward-looking forces in Canadian life. They will not
be done if the tory enemies of the people’s interest and democratic
reforms are allowed to capture federal power through a coalition of
reactionary forces.
Our country in this hour of her greatest opportunity to
achieve a new era of national greatness stands before the ominous threat
of the tory capture of the Dominion government. If the Tories succeed in
subverting Canadian unity, Canada will be driven back to the Hungry
Thirties and will be cheated of the fruits of Victory. The indispensable
condition for the democratic advancement of Canada is the defeat of the
tory menace and the establishment of a coalition of all democratic
forces.
The next Parliament of Canada must have a majority who
stand for this policy of true Canadian greatness; who will be bold and
progressive and not afraid to enact far-reaching reforms; who will unite
regardless of partisanship to form a government of National Unity.
In this situation, Canadian labor must become the very
backbone of national unity.
The Labor-Progressive Party champions labor unity and
independent labor political action. The aim of such a policy is not to
set labor apart from the nation as a whole, but to unite labor with all
other democratic forces to advance the national interest. In this equal
partnership labor will realize its aspirations in the course of
fulfilling the common aims of the nation.
The Labor-Progressive Party is dedicated to the struggle
to abolish all exploitation of man by man through the establishment of
Socialism. We are confident that, with effective work on our part and
through their own experience, the democratic majority of Canadians will
come to recognize the need for such a fundamental change in the economic
basis of our society. Today, however, a realistic appreciation of the
pressing needs and the attitude of the great majority of our fellow
citizens compels recognition of the fact that the issue in the coming
election is not the fundamental character of the social system under
which we live. Canadians will not be voting on the issue of "free
enterprise" vs. Socialism, but to decide whether we can organize
government policy in such a way as to maintain a high level of
production and purchasing power in accord with the people’s needs and
economic interests.
The Labor-Progressive Party, as a vital force in
Canadian democracy, enters the coming Dominion election with its own
platform and candidates. The LPP believes that national unity can be
best expressed in parliament through a coalition of all democratic
forces, including the Labor-Progressive Party, the CCF, the trade
unions, the farmers’ movements, and progressive Liberals of town and
rural districts. Together, these represent the overwhelming majority of
Canadians. Together they can give the necessary leadership, not
surrendering their identities but realizing their common aim —
prosperity and enduring peace.
Only such a democratic coalition, only such a National
Unity parliament and government, can lead Canada forward to that new era
of national greatness which is now within our reach.
Canada can be strong, prosperous and free.
Proud of their victorious defense of freedom in this
war, and confident of continuing prosperity and progress, our people
must march to new horizons in the years to come.
In this spirit, the Labor-Progressive Party herewith
presents its Election Platform, on which its candidates will stand, and
for the enactment of which its elected representatives will fight, as
their contribution to the cause of a United, Prosperous and Peaceful
Canada.
PLATFORM OF THE LABOR-PROGRESSIVE PARTY
1. JOBS FOR ALL IN AN EXPANDING ECONOMY
The central problem of Dominion government policy after
the war will be to maintain the national income and public purchasing
power at a prosperity level. This can be done! The war has proved
that the nation, through its elected government, can direct its economy
so as to maintain any desired level of production within our physical
capacity. To accomplish that in wartime, the Dominion government has
assumed responsibilities and functions which, previously, were
considered to be outside the field of government action. The government
must continue to accept responsibility for maintaining the level of the
national income in peace as well as in war. Government must assume
responsibility for carrying through that measure of economic activity
and purchasing power by which private capital fails to provide full
employment.
The Labor-Progressive Party bases its proposals for
post-war economic action entirely upon the above-stated need. Our
attitude towards the question of "private enterprise" versus "public
ownership" in the period following the war will be determined in every
case by that basic aim. Only in cases where "private enterprise" fails
to maintain a high level of employment, production, or service, or in
which the immediate public interest demands it (as, for example, the
B.C. Electric, the Montreal Light, Heat and Power, etc.) will the
Labor-Progressive Party urge public ownership. In the public interest
which demands a National Coal Policy, the coal mining industry should be
taken under public ownership through the joint actions of the Dominion
and Provincial governments.
Preparation for Reconversion Must Begin Now
To carry through prompt, planned reconversion of
industry from war production to the production of civilian goods, the
Labor-Progressive Party proposes that the new Ministry of
Reconstruction should set up Joint Advisory Committees representing
Labor, Management and the Government, for each industrial region. Each
advisory committee will study all the problems of reconversion in the
industry it represents. It will take into account and plan in the light
of the civilian production possibilities of the industry, the needs of
the workers now employed in it and the communities of which they are a
part, the market possibilities and government plans for expanding them.
In each industry as the need for war material declines
the advisory committees will work out plans for re-tooling for civilian
production, the switch to the production of civilian goods, and any
necessary transfer of labor. In this way we will avoid a general
shutdown of industry and a period of mass unemployment before civilian
production gets under way.
Hand in hand with reconversion the Minister of
Reconstruction should see to the establishment of vital basic
industries in Canada — production of aviation engines, expansion of iron
ore smelting, modern synthetics and plastics, more extensive use of
Canada’s vast resources of coal and petroleum, etc.
Post-war utilization of government-owned plants must be
planned on the basis of national interest and needs with the specific
aim of maintaining a high level of employment. The decisive
consideration must be that those valuable modern plants and machinery
shall be utilized for immediate peace-time production.
Greatly increased governmental assistance must be given
to the development of science, and particularly scientific research, in
Canada.
The Canadian Merchant Marine must be maintained after
the war, so that Canadian goods shall be carried by Canadian ships and
seamen throughout the seven seas.
The trade unions must be given an equal place in such
planned reconversion. The principle of severance (temporary lay-off) pay
as advocated by the unions to be adopted and put into effect by the
Dominion Government.
Expand Our Exports
The Dominion Government must assume responsibility for
maintaining our national exports at a level of two billion dollars per
year. This can be done through government aid in the organization of
private and government large-scale long terms loans, export credits and
lend-lease aid to the countries devastated by the war, to Latin America
and to the economically backward colonies of Asia and Africa.
Build for a Better Life
The Labor-Progressive Party proposes a bold,
comprehensive Dominion-Provincial-Municipal program of large-scale
construction to answer Canada’s long-neglected needs in housing, school,
hospital and town-planning, recreational, highway and other
construction.
Such large-scale public and private works at trade-union
wages will take up the slack of "reconversion" unemployment, build up
urban and rural community life and improve the homes and, the economic
efficiency of our country.
These works must include community planning, slum
clearance, local improvements, hospitals, schools, and community
centres. For our rural areas, highways and, market roads, hospitals,
schools, flood control, electric power development, rural
electrification, and, particularly in the western provinces, water
conservation and irrigation works.
The St. Lawrence Waterway, modern facilities for civil
aviation, and similar great developmental works must be carried through
on a basis of co-operation between Dominion, Provincial and Municipal
governments.
The Yukon, the North and the North-West Territories must
be systematically opened up, their immense natural wealth developed and
settlement encouraged by the establishment of efficient transportation
and community facilities.
Housing
Our post-war public works program must include a
comprehensive slum clearance and housing scheme. The 1944 Federal
Housing Act is a step in that direction; it must be improved and
extended to provide: (a) that the Dominion Government will actually
initiate large-scale housing schemes; (b) that the Dominion Government
gives aid to public low-rental housing projects and to projects
undertaken by private capital, setting up rental reduction funds to
guarantee that tenants whose incomes are in the lower brackets shall not
have to pay more than 20 per cent of their income as rent; (c) national
housing standards which must be met as a condition of receiving Dominion
Government assistance.
2. RE-ESTABLISH OUR FIGHTING MEN
Following the first world war, the needs and the just
claims of the ex-servicemen were systematically evaded behind wordy —
but all too often empty — tributes to our glorious dead. There must be
no recurrence of those conditions: for every service man and woman who
returns to Canada from this war it must be glorious to be alive. That’s
what Canada owes to her heroes and that is the program of the
Labor-Progressive Party.
In the final analysis the best assurance of successful
civil re-establishment for the men and women who offered their lives to
serve Canada in the war will be provided by policies which maintain a
high level of national prosperity with jobs, security and opportunity.
While fighting for policies which will maintain those conditions, the
Labor-Progressive Party pledges its members to fight in the next House
of Commons to improve the War Services Grants and related Acts by
eliminating all discrepancies, by strengthening the sections dealing
with actual process of re-establishment, to secure further
representation from veterans’ organizations on all administrative boards
and to ensure that all the promises of the Acts shall be carried out
without discrimination and free from stifling red tape. The
Labor-Progressive Party fights for the principle that the Dominion
Government shall assume permanent responsibility for the health and
welfare of all war veterans, including the veterans of the first world
war.
3. RAISE CANADIAN LIVING STANDARDS
To maintain full employment after the war living
standards in Canada must be raised to the levels now made possible by
20th century technique and organization.
Canada’s government must ensure that every Canadian
obtains adequate food, clothing and shelter, medical care, opportunities
for education, a career in youth and unworried comfort in old age. The
1944 Family Allowances Act, which raises the standard of life of all
families in the low income group, is an important step in that
direction. The Labor-Progressive Party pledges its candidates to fight
for the enactment of legislation in the next Parliament to provide the
following:
ü Amendment of the
Dominion Labor Code in accord with the proposals of the trade union
movement and legislation to establish a permanent Dominion Labor Code in
agreement with the provinces. A national 40-hour week without reduction
in weekly earnings. Legislation to guarantee two weeks annual vacations
with pay, for all workers and employees, and pay for statutory and civic
holidays.
ü A national minimum
hourly wage and a guaranteed minimum annual income for every worker and
employee. Every wage and salary worker must be assured of an annual
income equal to the basic living standards established by the Dominion
authorities. Our national aim must be directed to the target set by the
Jubilee Convention of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada — a
guaranteed minimum income of $1,500 for every gainfully employed adult.
To increase the efficiency of Canada’s social services,
reduce their cost to the people and simplify the collection of social
security contributions, Labor-Progressive Party members in the House of
Commons will urge a unified social security plan; the setting up of a
National Social Security Administration, to bring together all social
security measures under one consolidated administration, with all levies
for social security purposes, from individuals or firms, covered by a
single inclusive periodic contribution. Social security legislation must
provide:
(a) Dominion Old-Age Pensions of $40 per month to start
at the age of 60 for women and 65 for men.
(b) National Health Insurance to provide medical
services, doctors’ and nurses’ care, hospitalization, and sick pay.
Vast extension of hospital and all medical facilities in co-operation
with all the provinces and municipalities.
(c) Extension of the National Unemployment Insurance to
cover all workers and employees with wages or salaries of less than
$2,500 per year, with increased insurance benefits.
(d) A National standard for mothers’ allowances with a
basic minimum of $60 per month for mother and one child and adequate
allowances for each additional child.
4. A NATIONAL FARM POLICY
Canada needs a national farm policy to unify and bring
into harmony the work of Dominion and Provincial departments of
agriculture and legislation relating to agriculture and farm welfare.
Such a policy must be directed to preserving the family farm as the
basic unit of Canadian agriculture,. and must provide all measures to
ensure security of tenure for the farm family and to establish a stable
income from production. The following principles must be observed:
ü Permanent legislation to
establish a floor under prices of all farm products by government price
setting; such a floor to be maintained by democratically constituted
farmers’ marketing boards and government purchasing boards; state
purchases and distribution of surplus products; planned farm production
in co-operation with farmers’ production committees in line with
domestic and foreign market requirements.
ü Dominion-Provincial
action to protect the farmer from eviction, foreclosure and crop
failure.
ü State aid for producer
and implement co-operatives, and exemption of all cooperatives from
income or corporation taxes.
ü Measures to reduce
freight rates for farm products and farm supplies, particularly for
Western Canada and the Maritimes.
ü Increased utilization of
the Hudson’s Bay Railway and the Bay ports.
ü Establishment of a
Dominion-wide Farm Rehabilitation Administration of the character of the
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration.
ü Establishment of
experimental plants, with Dominion-Provincial co-operation, to develop
and extend the use of Canadian farm products as industrial raw
materials.
ü Measures to reduce the
cost and repair of farm implements and machinery; by tariff reduction,
and encouragement to farm implement co-operatives.
5. A NEW NATIONAL TAXATION AND CREDIT POLICY
Government action to provide credit for Canadian
producers through public credit institutions. Expand the Industrial
Development Bank, establish a government Farm Credits Bank, an Export
Import Bank and a Bank for Housing Development. Our national aim must
be careful but far-reaching revision of the Bank Act and extension of
the functions of the Bank of Canada so as to free Canada’s productive
capacity from dependence upon the credit monopoly now held by the
chartered banks.
Democratic Tax Policies
Our post-war fiscal policies must be based squarely upon
the need to maintain the national income and the inescapable need for
stable over-all expenditures at the level required to maintain a high
level of productive employment.
The principle upon which the Wartime Excess Profits tax
is based is correct and must be maintained after the war. It is the
principle that excessive profits should be taken by the government and
used in the interest of the community. The method by which the principle
is applied, however, must be brought into line with the conditions
created by the war. At the present time the Wartime Excess Profits Tax
operates to the advantage of wealthy big corporations, particularly the
monopolies, and to the disadvantage of smaller business.
That condition must be corrected. Corporation income tax
and taxation of excessive profits should be based upon the amount of
profits made, and their relationship to capital investment, during the
year for which the taxation is collected and not according to the rate
of profits made during 1936-39. The base line of 1936-39, which tends to
maintain and even to strengthen the advantages of monopoly
corporations, must be discarded.
ü Retain the principle of
the wartime control of retail prices for a period of time and controls
to prevent wage reductions, as well as all measures needed to combat
post-war inflation.
ü Exemption from personal
income tax of married couples with annual incomes of $1,550 or less and
of single persons with incomes of $1,250 or less.
Curb Monopoly Practices
The Dominion government must adopt stern government
measures to curb monopoly practices such as were revealed in the report
of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads and Mass Buying. We need
legislation to define and prohibit monopoly practices and legislation
which embodies the declared purpose of the anti-trust legislation of the
United States to protect small business.
Such measures will be an essential feature of a healthy,
prosperous post-war economy. They are necessary to prevent the
re-establishment of war-breeding cartels on an international scale as
well as to protect the interests of consumers and small business at
home. International cartels were big factors in the Nazi organization
for war as well as in the establishment of monopoly control and prices
in the world market for many vital products. International cartels are
anti-democratic and economically restrictive factors in world economy.
In the interest of genuine international co-operation and an enduring
democratic peace all international cartels must be dissolved after the
war.
6. A NEW STATUS FOR OUR WOMEN
The new status won by Canadian women in the course of
the war must be upheld in the post-war; women must be guaranteed equal
rights to work at trades they have trained for. The principle of equal
pay for equal work must be established by law.
7. A FUTURE FOR YOUTH
Immediate action to meet the post-war needs of Canada’s
young people. The establishment of a National Youth Commission to carry
into effect a charter of youth’s needs, to open the broadest educational
facilities, to extend and improve facilities and opportunities for
vocational training.
ü A Dominion-Provincial
scholarship plan to assure that gifted children whose parents’ income is
in the lower brackets shall have full opportunity to secure higher
education.
ü Extend Canadian
democracy by lowering the voting age to 18 years.
8. A RICHER CANADIAN CULTURE
For the enrichment of our leisure time, for better
understanding between Canadians of French and English extraction, to
make the joy and advantages of culture and art available to all the
people, the LPP proposes that the government give leadership to our
national cultural development. As a fitting memorial to Canada’s war
dead, the Dominion government should establish a National Centre of
Culture and the Arts, with a National Library and Museum, to help
promote the creation of a network of such centres across the country.
Our artists, writers and other cultural workers in both French and
English Canada should be drawn into the work of establishing this
project, and given every encouragement to contribute to the enrichment
of Canadian culture.
The services of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
must be extended and improved as an educational and cultural medium. The
CBC must be further democratized; it must become an active factor in the
development and strengthening of the spirit of true Canadianism. The
full program proposed by the 13 organizations of Canadian artists should
be put into effect.
9. IMMIGRATION POLICY
Canada’s post-war immigration policies must be based on
the actual economic conditions of the post-war period. They must exclude
any revival of the reckless pressure campaigns to persuade huge numbers
of people to abandon their homes and emigrate to Canada regardless of
conditions here. At the same time, as a member of the United Nations,
Canada must play a generous role in helping to solve the urgent world
problem of re-settling the thousands of democratic men and women of
Europe who are refugees from fascist terror.
10. UNITE OUR COUNTRY
The LPP stands for policies which will strengthen the
friendship of the peoples that live side by side in Canada.
We stand for the full national equality of French- and
English-speaking Canada; for an equal partnership of our peoples based
on fully equitable representation in government, and equality of
opportunity in economic, social and cultural life. Our party is pledged
to fight for the wiping out of the conditions of extreme poverty which
weigh upon French Canada as a heritage of the dark past. We stand
pledged to work for the outlawing of anti-Semitism and all forms of
discrimination based on pretexts of national origin, color or creed.
To enable Canada to solve her post-war problems,
Dominion-Provincial relations must be brought into accord with the
people’s needs. For this the LPP urges that a Dominion-Provincial
Conference be called as soon as possible after the war to thoroughly
review and propose amendments to our Constitution, the British North
America Act.
The LPP proposes that these amendments include the
following:
ü Re-adjust the division
of authority as between the Dominion and the Provinces, placing
responsibility upon the Dominion government for social legislation and
labor standards, legislation regulating corporations and trade and
commerce, re-adjusting also, in accord with such changes, the
distribution of taxing authority and Dominion subsidies to the
provinces.
ü Maintain the rights of
the provinces in matters pertaining to religion, education, control of
natural resources, supervision of municipal affairs and civil rights,
while granting the Dominion government extended jurisdiction in matters
pertaining to social legislation, restriction of monopolies and national
action required to maintain production.
ü Grant self-government to
the people of the Yukon by establishing an elective representative
governing body for the district.
ü An amendment to
authorize provincial governments to delegate their powers and authority
in any given field to the Dominion government without prejudice to their
authority as a whole.
The foregoing measures are urgently needed now. Our full
aim, however, must be to provide Canada with a National Constitution
which will bring Confederation fully into accord with present day
conditions, a Constitution which can be amended when necessary by
Canada’s Parliament and by no other authority, under conditions and by
procedure established to protect provincial rights. By adoption of our
own Constitution we should:
ü Abolish appeals to the
Privy Council.
ü Include in the
Constitution a specific Bill of Rights, containing guarantees of civil
liberty, freedom of conscience, and recognition of the equality of
rights of the national communities of French and English Canada.
ü Make our Parliament
fully elective.
ü Adopt an official
Canadian flag, and proclaim "O Canada" the national anthem of our
country.
11. MAKE CANADA A FORCE FOR PEACE AND SECURITY
Canada’s post-war foreign policy and relationships must
be based squarely upon the interests, needs and ideals of the Canadian
people.
Canada’s foreign policy must originate in Canada.
Canada’s post-war policies must give full expression to the fact that
the Canadian people detest war, will support united democratic action to
prevent aggression or to stop it if it is started, and will co-operate
loyally with all other democratic people to maintain stable and enduring
peace as the indispensable basis for the building of a happy,
prosperous, democratic world. To this end the Labor-Progressive Party
pledges its members to fight for the following policy in external
affairs:
ü Canada must demand peace
conditions which will uproot the Nazi-fascist and Japanese military
slave systems. They must be completely destroyed so as to remove the
main source of the danger of a third and even more terrible world war,
open the way for the full, free development of the liberated nations and
the colonial countries and open the way for the German people to "earn
their way" back into full and equal participation in the world community
of democratic nations.
ü Canada must give full
and systematic support to the establishment of a world organization for
peace and security as outlined at the Dumbarton Oaks conference.
ü Canada should continue
to maintain armed forces, army, navy and air force after the war on the
scale which befits her participation as a sovereign state in the world
organization to maintain peace.
ü In the British
Commonwealth, Canada must continue to pursue the policy enunciated by
Prime Minister Mackenzie King at the 1944 conference of Commonwealth
Prime Ministers. Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth, is a
power in her own right, a North American nation, next-door neighbour to
both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As a
great trading nation and an advocate of world peace and co-operation,
Canada must pursue a foreign policy aimed at direct and friendly
relationships and economic intercourse with all democratic countries.
ü Canada should become a
member of the Pan-American Union and participate in all its conferences
and other activities. As a North American nation, our interests are
inseparable from the broad interests of the western hemisphere. We
should act accordingly. Canada must share the advantages and
responsibilities, as well as the consequences, of being one of the
community of nations which constitute the people of the Americas.
ü Our Dominion government
should aim at the largest possible measure of freedom of trade between
Canada and the rest of the world, the reduction of tariff barriers and
other obstacles to world economic co-operation, through the joint
efforts of the United Nations.![](LPP44-Cover2.jpg)
ü Canada must continue
whole-hearted co-operation with United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration and in the international monetary fund and conferences of
the United Nations.
ü The Department of
External Affairs must be elevated to a full Ministry of the government,
headed by a Minister for Foreign Affairs.
ü We should extend full
diplomatic representation to all countries with which Canada maintains
trade and diplomatic relationships.
To carry through policies such as those indicated above,
the Labor-Progressive Party is prepared to co-operate with all
democratic forces in the country and to support a government
representing a coalition of democratic forces. We call upon all
Canadians to join in the struggle now to make the forthcoming Dominion
election a turning point in our country’s history.
FORWARD TO A PROSPEROUS AND HAPPIER CANADA!
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