Trinity College School - Record Yearbook (Port Hope, Ontario Canada)

Page 23 text:

And thus here is, I feel the answer as to why Canada experienced these kidnappings before her violent neighbor. She only has that com- bination of cultural differences, language difficulties and concentra- tion of her people in Quebec. These kidnappings and murders, horren- dous as they are, nevertheless point out some valuable lessons to Cana- dians and Americans alike. This perhaps is the final answer to those who had wanted to confine the Negroes to certain areas of the U.S., where this fatal concentration would soon build up. This also shows us perhaps that campus disorder and student protests are not as serious indicators of trouble as they look. Certainly they have not produced anything like this except in cases where they were, in fact, treated as serious problems as at Kent State. And so 1 feel that more attention should be paid to less noticed facets of our own society such as the F.L.Q. The publicity has all been about such things as the riot at Sir George Williams while the real action has been going on secretly and quietly in the homes and meeting places of the F.L.Q. Perhaps we ought to realize that it is not always in the external symp- toms of dissent which often act as a valuable safety valve, that the trou- ble lies; it is also in the slow and silent buildup of hatred and other emotions which eventually and inevitably culminate in a tragedy. j. b. robinson 13

Page 22 text:

When viewed in this light a few things become clear. In the first place both the United States and the South American countries have many more university protests than Canada. They also have or seem to have more violence within their societies. The United States’ crime rate is one of the highest in the world as is that of most South American countries. South America has her violent guerilla bands, America has the Bl ack Panthers and the Weathermen, a para-militant group within the militant S.D.S. structure to say nothing of the conservative’ mili- tants such as the members of the Ku Klux Klan or the John Birch Socie- ty. Canada has only the F.L.Q. And thus it would seem that the U.S. is much more prone to violence than Canada and it is only, perhaps, when these assorted questions and facts are viewed in the light of location and type of violence that the answer becomes clearer. For the South American terrorists are fighting, literally fighting in every sense of the word, for revolutionary goals. They want to destroy their present gov- ernment or be granted certain demands that they consider of prime importance. They are a unified cohesive force within their individual frameworks and they are driven by any means possible to obtain their goals. , , , This is a unique system, not matched anywhere else in the New World, not in the U.S. nor Canada. However, I feel that the disparity is greater between these guerillas and the various militant American groups than between the guerillas and the F.L.Q. For many of the American groups, while professing a desire to see America destroyed they themselves benefit from it. They are, perhaps, from middle class families and rely upon their society for sustenance and their luxury while bitterly criticizing it. Theirs is a type of wish ful- fillment in which they wish to have things all their own way but do not want to jeopordize their lives or living standard by preaching their phi- losophy. The other militant groups I feel who do believe in what they say to the extent of carrying out such violence as kidnapping and mur- der are too diffuse. They are spread out among two hundred million people and as a result, their ideas and actions all become watered down, absorbed by the mass. However, in Canada the F.L.Q. is not diffused. They are concentrat- ed in one province, and in this province they are surrounded with peo- ple of the same cultural background as their own; people who are in a sense alien and antagonistic to those people whom the F.L.Q. are trying to destroy. For the F.L.Q., I feel, fall into the second category of militant groups. They are not, like the Weatherman, trying to have their cake and eat it too, to benefit from society but also destroy it, they are rather like the Black Panthers, fiercely believing in their cause and all it stands for. However they re not so diluted. They are not spread over three thousand miles; they live among three and a half million people, most of whom have sympathetic tendencies toward them. 12

Page 24 text:

THE PERFORMERS? November 3rd, 1970 will be a very important day in Amer- ican history. For two years, Richard Nixon governed with- out control of either the Senate or the House of Representi- tives and now on November 3rd, he will sit and sweat while Americans decide his future and that of his vice-president Spiro Agnew. Nixon has said that his tenure should be judged by the results not the oratory and this decision is the crucial one for America and the world. Indications are that the midterm elections will draw many people to the polling stations because the nation has become increasingly aware of the rising crime rates and the state of the economy in the last two years. Americans must ask if they want strict constructionists” in the Supreme Court and law and order men in Congress and in their state legisla- tures; if a hard line is the cure for the American malaise; if the economy is in a better state now than it was three years ago; if there is any truth or merit in Nixon’s argument that he must have control of the Senate if useful legislation is to come from the federal government; if Vietnamization is working and there is merit in the presidential hypothesis that the Vietnamese will soon be able to manage their own defence, and other questions, ad infinitum. The state of the American economy is bleak. Inflation runs at a rate of over 6% and 5 ' A % of the American labour force is unemployed. Blacks as usual are particularly ill off and of those between the ages of 18 and 25 unemployment is somewhere between 13% and 15%. They are becoming very vehement (somewhat of an understatement). It isn’t the blacks who protest the administration s policies most vigor- ously but the white industrial workers in New York and New England and the aircraft and missile industries of California where 8% is a reasonable estimate of the number of unem- ployed. The administration hasn’t made many comments about the economy since two million more people are unem- ployed now than before the administration took power and the plans if any to check inflation have remained undis- closed. The main administration plank has bee n the law ' and order issue which is a symptom but is not the disease. The past weeks have seen Agnew and Nixon slinging muck and being the targets for a lot in return. The “radical liberals” such as Senator Goddell of New York are the cause of our dilemma,’ states Agnew. Both of these big guns have campaigned extensively on this issue, as much emphasis in fact seems to have been placed on the one topic that Demo- crats with justification say that it is a travesty of public con- cern since the cities, the war and the race problem have never been discussed in this campaign. 14