CANADA'S UNEMPLOYED SURVIVE? -
‘TORONTO -- In his New Year's message, Prime Minister Lester Pear= son admitted that unemployment remains one of the most pressing problems facing Canada in 1964, The figure for the regularly unemployed is* 500,000 out of a population of some 18,000,000. Pearson had no concrete suggestions. tq offer. on how. to solve the | problem,
In Toronto the welfare budget has been. overspent. Officials are hinting that one way out is to send people not born in this city back to where they came from, But then if that were applied elsewhere, Toronto might end up with even more unemployed than it has now.
‘The estimeted minimum income required for an average family in Caneda is $5,000 a year. The 1961 figures, made public at the end of: 1963, reveal that 33.7% of the taxpayers made less than $3,000; 21.7% were in the $3, 000-$4,.000 bracket; and 18,5% fell in the $4, 000 to $5,000 level. Some two million wage earners did not make enough to pay taxes. Thus more than three-fourths of Canadats workers don't earn enough to support a family adequately.
The low level of incomes is reflected in another way. According to the same source (Dominion Bureau: of Statistics), in 1961, out of 4,554,493 dwellings, 496,180 had no ) Punning water and 955, 025 had no flush’ toilets,
Leaving aside the mortgage on their home, the average Canadian family owes $913, the equivalent of eight weeks! salary.
The Minister | of Immigration 3 tated recently that Canada wants “young skilled workers and entrepreneurs with the capital and experience to operate their own enterprises in Canada,"
That's not really as hard-hearted as it. sounds.- True, there are
. people all over the world who would like to come to Canada but who can't meet those specifications. However, judging from the statistics, you have to be well-equipped to survive’ in this country and apparently even those responsible for the deplorable conditions realize it,
LABEL FOR ATOMIC BOMB DEMANDED
The satirical Paris weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchatiné found its own ingenious way of increasing sales through the big stir created by the U.S. government report on the evils of cigarettes, It ran a big © sensational headline clear across the front page:
New Cry of Alarm from the Experts:
~The Atomic Bomb (Also) Causes Cancer
"Phe emotion aroused throughout the entire world -= and particularly among the manufacturers of American cigarettes -- by the report. from the experts on the cancerous effects of tobacco has hardly subsided," said its lead story. "Now another paving block has been dropped in the sea by other eminent cancerologists,
"According to them, THE ATOMIC BOMB ALSO CAUSES CANCER,
"The report, “which ended in this alarming conclusion, is based on a whole series of observations made at Hiroshima, on the Japanese fishermen after the tests at Bikini, after the latest tests conducted by the Americans, Soviets, English and French (in the Sahara), Warnings to the public Have not ceased to be made , moreover, by the most eminent scientists. . . a
Le Canard Enchatné continued its own startling exposé: "Thus the atomic bomb is not at all the completely inoffensive object which some make it out to be. Its immoderate-use could create a real danger for © all of humanity,".
The editors do not direct what they have to say solely to other peoples but bring it home to France: “Here is what is particularly interesting for us French, who are being bled white to pay for an atomic bomb for our own great Charles! What will be our guilt if the experts are rignt and our own bomb finally causes cancer among some unfortunate innocents, even General de Gaulle himself?"
A "delicate question" has been posed by de Gaulle, "He recently declared he favored the creation of an international institute for struggle against cancer." Is this consistent with his determination to have a bomb that provokes the fatal disease?
Taking a leaf out of ‘the American notebook, Le Canard Enchainé proposes: "While waiting for more radical measures, perhaps it would be well to make it mandatory.to place this warning label on each bomb : 'CAUTIONE INJURIOUS PRODUCT,!"
DENNIS BRUTUS SENTENCED