Source:  Le Devoir, Montreal, Thursday, 22 December 1962.

This period of time in the travails of Canada is interesting.  The article below on Donald Gordon is wrapped around another item announcing the imminent adoption of a new flag for Canada.  That’s the “tail” described by Adrien Arcand in his 1965 short book, Down With Hate!  The new flag is a non-ethnic symbol which paves the way for unconstitutional multicultural mass immigration.

Mr. Gordon denies having discriminated
against French-speaking Canadians.

Mr. Gordon denies having discriminated
against French-speaking Canadians

OTTAWA. — the president of Canadian National, Mr. Donald Gordon, has vigorously denied the accusations of Quebec Members [of Parliament] that the State-owned railway company harmfully discriminates against French Canadians, in selecting its principal directors.

The president, whose annual appearance before the Railway committee of the House of Commons is usually the occasion for vivid exchanges of words, also denied that the CNR is leading truckers to bankruptcy or that it is developing a useless microwave network.

The Social Credit financial critic, Mr. Gilles Gràgoire, unleashed a violent altercation when he underscored that none of the 28 principal directors of the CNR and only two of the 12 directors are French Canadians.

The Member from Lapointe said that that is discrimination against French speaking employees of the Railway company.  Mr. Lionel Chevrier, Transport Minister in the former Liberal government and Mr. Guy Rouleau, a liberal from Montreal-Dollard, abounded in the same sense.

NO CANDIDATES?

Mr. Cordon replied that the best men available had been appointed to higher posts.  The Members from Quebec are asking him to discriminate in favor of French Canadians.

“We have heard this explanation for nine years”, said Mr. Chevrier, the liberal from Montréal-Laurier. He said he could provide Mr. Gordon with the names of several well qualified French Canadian employees of the CNR, who had not been taken into account in the promotions.

“I know that Mr. Gordon does not discriminate”, said Mr. Chevrîer.  “But I cannot understand why not one of the directors is French speaking.”

Mr. Gordon explained that there is a dearth of qualified French speaking candidates.  Few university graduates have entered into the service of the CNR in recent years, some good potential candidates were attracted to posts outside and some refused advancement when this involved leaving Quebec.

“As long as I am president, no appointment will be made because a man is French Canadian”.

But the 61-year-old president added:  “When I come back in ten years, you will see the results of our recruitment of Quebec university graduates.

THREE CONDITIONS

The president of the Committee, Mr. Earl Rowe, a conservative from Dufferin-Simcoe, had some difficulty controlling the debate at one point, when four or five people were speaking at the same time.

Mr. Grégoire also complained that a good number of Quebec residents had to deal with CNR employees who did not speak French.

— End of discussion re French-speaking
management at CNR —

The president of the CNR foresaw a deficit of $48,300,000 for the year 1962.  This will be the sixth annual deficit of the affiliate.  The losses, in each of the two years, have been 67,003,000.  He said he was confident that the CNR could register a profit if three conditions were met:  modernize the merchandise tarifs and services, as recommended by the McPherson royal commission on transport; withdrawal of debts going back to the 1920s and increasing of profits from the CNR’s trucking and telecommunications services.

TRUCKING

Mr. Gordon said the trucking affiliates of the CNR did business on the order of some $20,000,000 a year.

Last year, profits were $131,170 but the service was growing rapidly.  He said that private trucking companies were making over $1,000,000,000.00 annually.

“Trucking is nothing, compared to our main task”, he said.

Mr. Gordon predicted that the 3,000-mile transcontinental microwave network, that the CNR and the CPR were jointly constructing, would be completed in two years.  The network would transmit telegrams, [[[ des cibles ]]]], television and radio network programs and commercial TELEX communications.