Feds pay cheap for peace

from the

Science and Technology Desk OTTAWA (CUP) — Federal celebrations for International Year of Peace will be nothing more than a few dollars, a touring bureaucrat, an essay competition and some stamps.

The United Nations declared 1986 as Peace Year last October, and although other UN members are planning celebrations, the Canadian government has for the most part chosen to ignore it. Whereas the feds spent $24 mil- lion on a public relations blitz last year for Internation Youth Year, the government will spend only $10,000 on IYP.

The government says the money which will be contributed to the UN’s voluntary trust fund, is a donation for IYP. According to Peter Brown, executive officer of Operation Dismantle, an Ottawa- based disaramament coalition, even that amount is misleading.

“It’s laughable. This $10,000 is just part of the $100,000 they

regularly contribute to the fund each year, and they’re making it look like a gift by reshuffling the money,”’ Brown said.

“And it’s as if they’re bragging about that $10,000 in the first place,”’ he said.

Lorraine Dittburner, informa- tion assistant for the UN Assoca- tion in Ottawa said the govern- ment will also honour IYP by sponsoring an essay competion for three youth age groups, establish funding priorities for the Disarmament Fund, a permanent government fund, issue a com- memorative series of stamps in the fall, and sponsor a cross-country tour by Doug Roche, Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament.

Brown says Roche’s tour is nothing special. ‘I don’t see why they’re promoting that either — Roche does a lot of this anyway,”” he said.

Brown says the government shouldn’t promote Peace Year if it’s doing nothing new to promote peace. “It’s pretty hard to say that

this is new. There’s very little that is new, and what is new is uncontroversial, banal and inef- fectual.

“We want to make it clear that

‘what they’re doing is nowhere near enough of what the IYP was intended to do,”’ he said.

Constructive things the govern- ment could do include standing up to U.S. military demands, Brown said.

“If we had the guts to stand up to our neighbours to the south, we could actually stop the use of our ports by nuclear submarines, actually stop Cruise missile tests, and actually stop NORAD,” he said.

Brown said peace groups will not treat this year much differ- ently than any other. His group will continue to lobby for a world referendum on nuclear disarma- ment at the U.N., and stop involvement in the arms race at home,

“For us, it’s business as usual,”” he said.

PC youth may be disappointed

By Peter Kuitenbrouwer

of Canadian University Press OTTAWA (CUP) — Students who were promised summer jobs in the federal bureaucracy at a secret PC youth meeting in Mon- treal last month may be dis- appointed, according to the head of the summer hiring programme.

A PC youth told Liberal MP Sheila Copps recently that party officials passed out application forms for the Career-Oriented Summer Employment Programme at Conservative Party headquarters in Montreal. Apparently, the officials told students at the meeting they would get jobs if they remained faithful tories,

COSEP is a $10 million employ- ment and immigration programme to hire students for the federal bureaucracy.

In March, Copps (Hamilton East) asked Minister of Youth Andre Champagne in the House of Commons to. explain the meeting.

“Mr. Speaker, I have no know- ledge of such a meeting,” Cham- pagpe said.

No officials in the youth or employment ministries contacted later, knew of the meeting, but none denied it had taken place.

“The Tories are not adverse to

funneling public friends,” he said.

With Champagne’s _ letter, “You’re certainly led to believe that young PCs have a much better chance of finding a summer job than other college and univer- sity students,” said Herle, who now works for long-time Liberal magnate Paul Desmarais at Canada Steamship Lines in Montreal.

money to

Michael O’Shay, a University of Ottawa law student and past- president of the Young PCs at U of O, worked on a COSEP grant in the office of Andre Bisonette, minister of state for small business last summer. He said PC youth are usually hired for exempt staff jobs, because ‘“‘you have access to cabinet documents’. But he said this is a very small percentage of all COSEP jobs.

O’Shay, who’s been a Conser- vative since 1980, said he still doesn’t have a summer job. “If you find somewhere preferential treatment would be given, let me known, cause it would certainly help me out,” he said.

Wages for COSEP jobs range from $5.75 and $9.11 per hour.

Gordon Douglas, an aide to Copps, said the youth who at-

tended the meeting refuses to be named because s/he remains in the party. ‘‘We checked the per- son’s credentials,” and they’re legitimate, Douglas said.

Brin Fior, co-ordinator of COSEP for the national capital region, where most federal sum- mer jobs are, couldn’t see how the party could guarantee jobs to students.

“Party affiliation plays no part in this staffing process,”’ Fior said. ‘| haven’t received any calls or special packages (of application forms). I will look it rather curiously if it happens,”’ he said.

“Unless there’s no specific reason we don’t do name refer- rals,”’ Fior said. But he said there was no specific safeguard against political abuse of the system, expect that “any special cases have to pass through myself.”

In a secret letter leaked in March, Champagne wrote that “support to the recruitment ef- forts of the PC Youth Federation will be a pre-writ priority for the government.”

David Herle, president of the Young Liberals of Canada, said he was not surprised young Con- servatives were told they’d get summer jobs in the government.

‘Shelli Wheaton, Brian ‘Linkletter, Don Lane

Howard Beattie.

Nathan Stairs Lori Anne Heckbert. Production Editor

Sheila Lund Editor”

Views expressed herein are not necessarily ‘tose’! sie Student Union, .the staff or of anyone in “particular. We reserve the right to edit copy for space, style, or legal reasons. Letters to the editor must be typed double-spaced and sub- mitted before noon on Monday. All letters must be signed by their ‘uthors, but names may be with- held upon consultation with the editor. Phone 566-0629. Staff meetings are held on Mondays, Beginning at 6:00 p.m. All stu= dents are welcome to join the staff.

Volume III, Issue No. 23

THE CANADIAN NATIONAL

MODEL UNITED NATIONS

@

JULY 7 to JULY 12, 1986

young people across Canada at the

for International Civil Aviation Organization Headquarters

IN MONTREAL

Over five hundred young people from across Canada will

attend the m

lel UN. The simulations include the General

Assembly Plenary and two committees, the Security Council and the International Court of justice. Background materials to. aid the delegates in their preparation for the conference, an mission briefings from various members of the diplomatic corps from the United Nations Headquarters in New York and from Canada will be available to the participants.

Invited guests include UN Under Secretaries-General, judges of the International Court of Justice and several Ambassadors of the UN as well as representatives of the federal and Quebec provincial governments.

Partial travel subsidies available. Delegate accommodation will be available at the McGill University residences. Registration Fee is $25.00, refundable until May 6, 1986. Applications will be accepted until all countries are allocated.

EXCELLENT POSITIONS STILL AVAILABLE

Contact: Brigitte Robineault

Youth Projects Assistant to the Executive Director United Nations Association in Canada

63 Sparks, Suite 808

Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5A6

(613) 232-5751

APRIL 4, 1986

THE GEM

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