The majority of members of the Tuxis and Older Boys’ Parliament support the invitation extended to Beatle JohnLennon and his wife Yoko to come to Manitoba during the province’s Centennial celebrations.

Reacting to criticism of the invitation extended to the Len- nons by the provincial government, Tuxis premier Philip Reece told the members Monday:

“I want to see John Lennon’s peace movement here for Manitoba’s Centennial . . . how many people in this country, or in the world are really doing something about it (peace)? John Lennon is one of those people.”

He was speaking in support of a petition which was signed by three-quarters of the 90 members age 16 to 20 from Manitoba and Northwest Ontario who represent church and youth groups.

The Tuxis and Older Boys’ Parliament follows the rules and procedure of the House of Parliament and gives the participants an opportunity to participate in the democratic process. The sessions are held in the provincial legislature chambers.

The petition introduced by Premier Reece also attacked local hot line shows — ih particular CJOB’s John Harvard show — for encouraging opposition to the Lennons’ visit.

The brief read:

“We the undersigned, members of the 48th session of the Tuxis and Older Boys’ Parliament do heartily endorse the decision of the Manitoba government to invite John and Yoko Lennon’s Peace movement to Manitoba in celebration of our Centennial.

“We deplore the actions of some members of the mass media who have exhibited an almost total ignorance about the opinions of young people.

“We instruct the premier and speaker of this Parliament to express our support of the Lennon’s peace movement to the representatives of the Manitoba government.”

Elaborating on the brief in the House, Mr. Reece said John Harvard was “trying to manipulate” the public by saying that Lennon’s peace movement could cause “riots” and by asking listeners to write in and support his stand against the Lennons coming to Manitoba.

“This I deplore … he is telling us what we don’t want. He is saying it would not be good for us,” said Mr. Reece.

Adding that Mr. Harvard is encouraging the generation gap by not taking into account the opinions of young Manitobans, Mr. Reece challenged Mr. Harvard to debate the issue with him.

“I will dare Mr. Harvard to debate this point with me on his hotline,” he said, as the other members gave him a thundering applause.

Another member who supported Lennon’s peace movement said, “if it gets us thinking about peace, at least it’s a start . . . John Harvard has done a terrible thing … he has charged people’s minds against Lennon.”

Two members spoke against the petition which received the approval of all but a few of the members of the House.

“I have not yet seen it where they (the Lennons) have not caused trouble. Is that what peace is?” questioned one member.

“Are we willing to accept the responsibility if people are killed .. . what kind of peace is Lennon after anyway,” he asked.

I note that John and Yoko Lennon chose Canada over all other places in the world because “Canada’s attitude with regard to Vietnam, China and NATO is very sensible.”

Well, I suggest that this is just the beginning of a pattern, which our Government is devising for us.

Within another year or two when the anti-hate literature bill has become law, strict censorship of all the news media has been enforced and Mr. Benson’s White Paper on taxation has made George Orwell’s 1984 become a fact ahead of its time, then indeed the Lennons may find here in Canada that state of Maoist bliss from which only the intelligent flee!

MARJORIE LE LACHEUR Ottawa, Ont.

I was moved to tears by the report in The Star (Christmas Eve edition) of the visit by the Lennons to our “beautiful” Prime Minfster.

It seemed particularly appropriate that on the birthday of “the Prince of Peace,” these peace ambassadors should be granted an audience of nearly an hour (from the scheduled 15 minutes) with our highest elected official. As Lennon observed after the meeting, we Canadians “don’t know how lucky” we are. “If all politicians were like him, there would be world peace.”

That’s the line that produced the tears.

It reminded me of the interview in Weekend magazine (Dec. 6, 1969) with Dr. Edward Johnson, moderator of the Presbyterian Church and head of Canairelief.

Asked if he had ever talked with our prime minister about Biafra he replied, “I’ve never succeeded in having, though I’ve wanted to and tried to get a good conversation with the Prime Minister.”

That’s what made me cry: our Canadian chief executive had time for an hour with the man voted by the British press “clown of the year,” but no time for Canada’s relief operation of the year.

And I cried because we “Christian Canadians” wanted it that way and things haven’t changed much since Bethlehem or Calvary.

Lennon’s visit to our Prime Minister has proved his point: “We Beatles are more popular than Christ.” In Christian Canada, at Christmas 1969, he’s right. But come to think of it, in religious Jerusalem, 33 years after the first Christmas, so was Barabbas!

KEN CAMPBELL President, The Campbell-Reese Evangelistic Association Milton, Ont.

If Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau were consistent, which he certainly is not, he would have been camping out in front of the Parliament Buildings with the anti-war protesters instead of permitting his police to herd the demonstrators off the front lawn of all the people.

Mr. Trudeau boasts of being a pragmatist, which means lie takes them as they come, and plays them as he sees them.

When John Lennon and Yoko Ono came to call, the PM gave them the green light and 50 minutes of his time, which is more than he has given to most visiting heads of state or ministers of foreign cabinets.

A boost for peace and youth

The message brought by John and Yoko was peace, and since that happens to be Mr. Trudeau’s bag, too, they made sweet music together, and the tidings and photographs of this encounter flowed across the land and around the world, doing Mr. Trudeau’s peace Image no eiwof good In ‘ cer!3trr Ctrctc^

It didn’t hurt his youth image any, either.

So, okay. But how do you reconcile the Lennon caper with heaving the peace marchers off the Hill on Christmas Eve?

Their mission was the same as John Lennon’s,* except that they didn’t demand any of Mr. Trudeau’s time. He was off to Mexico.to go skindiving, and all the marchers wanted was a bit of tent space in the snow, a prospect that might have fazed even such determined demonstrators as John and Yoko.

In his earlier days, Mr. Trudeau was a determined tenter, but he has little time for such things now that he’s a full-fledged member of the jet set, flying the people’s jet.

Consistency, as we noted at the outset, has not been a mark of the Trudeau administration.

Just when the young people had him figured for a radical, he would do something conservative — so much so that the John-Yoko love-in was obviously designed to recover lost ground among the fuzzy-faced.

And just when it appeared that he would emphasize the imaginative side of government, he would cut back on projects involving the urban action centres, or the more exciting aspects of education or research.

Who ever would have figured him as a leader who would usher us into the Seventies with a message of austerity and playing it safe?

The trouble with Pierre Trudeau is not so much that he seeks to please everybody as that he doesn’t seem to give a damn for anybody.

He has firm ideas about what is right and what is wrong, but he seems not to care about attuning these ideas to the feelings of large segments of the Canadian people.

He has abundant courage, based not upon emotion eo much as a kind of cold logic that he applies to emotional problems.

His attitude on the monarchy is as much a case as his involvement with John and Yoko.

The monarchy is not a subject that stands up to the kind of chilly scrutiny that Mr. Trudeau brings to iL The great religions of the world would not stand up to that kind of scrutiny, either, demanding as they do a measure of belief from their adherents, be they Roman Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, or Mao-style Communists.

In his news conference this week, Mr. Trudeau said it isn’t the time just now to abolish the monarchy in Canada but added he didn’t know whether the time would come later in the Seventies.

Coming from the man who is the Queen’s principal Canadian adviser, that isn’t much of a statement, especially since he went on to weigh the relative merits of the monarchy and a presidential system, and said there would be a great deal of change coming because of the new values of the younger generation.

There are some, and I am among them, who would argue that it is part of Mr. Trudeau’s job to tell the younger generation about the values of the monarchical system because nobody else in authority seems willing to put that case forward.

The Crown lacks his approval

After all, if he was willing to put his seal of approval on John and Yoko Lennon, would it be so wrong for him to do the same for the institution he is sworn to serve?

But, instead, he comes out with mealy-mouthed statements implying that while he isn’t prepared to do away with the Crown just yet, the time is not far distant when it should go, though he doubts that he will be prime minister when the boom is lowered.

What all this indicates, I suppose, is that we do not know this complex man any better today than we did when he became prime minister.

Nobody knew him very well then.

And nobody knows him very well now.

John and Yoko Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band will release their first album this week on the Apple label. The LP, “The Plastic Ono Band — Live Peace in Toronto 1969“ features live tracks recorded at the Toronto Rock V Roll Revival earlier this year. The revival touched off a series of similar events throughout the United States and has heightened interest in many of the old rock V roll greats. The Plastic Ono was formed in Toronto at the time of the revival and includes the blues guitar of Eric Clapton.

Cuts include “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Money”, “Give Peace a Chance” and “Cold Turkey” which has been somewhat of a disappointment for the Plastic Ono with its failure on the charts. The Lennon’s plan to be in Toronto this week to launch a campaign of “peace persuasion”. In Toronto; billboards, posters, newspaper ads and handbills form part of the campaign for peace.

The Lennons will not perform while in Toronto, but are expected to announce plans for a massive peace festival to be held next year.

Don’t look now, but Manitoba’s generation gap is showing.

Premier Ed. Schrever’s invitation to Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono to atterul Manitoba’s 1970 centennial celebrations has drawn reaction that ranges from ecstatic to downright hostile.

Metro Chairman Jack Willis said. “I think it is absolutely ridiculous.’’

The ecstasy is apparently confined to the young and the would-be young. Radio talk shows have been brimming with hostility.

Many adults over 30 years old say they oppose the invitation. But others indicate they think it’s a good way to involve r young people and that not every idea can please evervone.

One Winnipeg businessman h asked “Why do we play up to these hairy mongrels” He said the government and the press should play down this “creepy type.” The man said Premier Schreyer is “dead wrong” inviting the Beatle and that he’s “cut himself down in such a i manner that he’ll never get over it.”

Eric Bays, minister of All Saints Anglican Church, said the Beatlc’s “appearance doesn’t bother me.” He seems to have his peace movement going “and I think he’s got a message that everyone would do well to listen to,” said the minister. “The invitation sounds like a good idea and, besides, the kids will enjoy it.”

Maitland B. Steinkopf, of the Manitoba centennial corporation, said “his coming during the centennial year is more by accident than by design or planning.”

Mr. Steinkopf said Mr. Lennon’s preparation of a program of peace in 1970 is something people can think about. He said ’ when he looks on the front page of newspapers and sees only stories of war and potential war, he wonders if the time hasn’t come to listen to someone different, who has a new approach to the problem that has plagued mankind since time began.

“Maybe we should listen to John and Yoko until we’re shown different.”

Mr. Steinkopf said he backs the invitation because “any way we can attain peace will be worth it.”

L Anthony Harwood-Jones of Ail Saints said he is intrigued by the invitation. “I didn’t think there would be a premier who would extend an invitation to the famed Beatle.” He said he thinks Mr. Lennon is sincere and that “he wants to be peaceful in his usual unusual ways.”

OTTAWA — If Prime Minister Trudeau were consistent, which he certainly is not, he would have been camping o<ut in front of the Parliament Buildings with the anti-war protesters, instead of permitting his police to herd the demonstrators oft the front lawn of all the people.

Mr. Trudeau boasts of being a pragmatist, which means he takes them as they come, and plays them as he sees them.

When John Lennon and Yoko Ono came to cal! on Tuesday, the PM gave them the green light and 50 minutes of his time, which is more than he has given to most visiting heads of state or ministers of foreign cabinets.

The message brought bv John and_Xfik£Uwas peace, and since that happens to be Mr. Trudeau’s bag too, they made sweet music together and the tidings and photographs of this encounter flowed across the land and around the world, doing Mr. rudeau’s peace image no end of good in certain circles. It didn’t hurt his youth image anv. either.

So. okay. But how do you reconcile the Lennon caper with heaving the peace marchers off the hill on Christmas Eve?

Their mission was (he same as Lennon’s, except that they didn’t demand any of Mr. Trudeau’s time. He was off to Mexico to go skin diving, and all the marchers wanted was a bit of tent space in the snow, a prospect that might have fanwheven such determined demonstrators as John and Yoko. In his earlier days, Mr. Trudeau was a determined tenter, but he has little time for such things now that he’s a full-fledged member of the jet set, flying the people’s jet.

, Consistency, as we noted at the outset, has not been a mark of the Trudeau administration.

Just when the young people had him figured for a radical he would do something conservative — so much so that the John-Yoko caper was obviously designed to recover lost ground among the luz/y-faces.

And just when it appeared that he would emphasize the imaginative side of government, he would cut back on projects involving the urban action centres, or the more exciting aspects of education or research. Who ever would have figured him as a leader who would usher us into the ’70s with a message of austerity and playing it safe?

Doesn’t give a damn about anybody

The trouble with Trudeau is not so much that he seeks to please everybody, as that he doesn’t seem to give a damn for anybody.

He has firm ideas about what is right and what is wrong, but he seems not to care about attuning these ideas to the feelings of large segments of the Canadian people. He has abundant courage, based not upon emotion so much as a kind of cold logic that he applies to emolionai problems.

His attitude on the monarchy is as much a case in point as his involvement with John and Yoko.

The monarchy is not a subject that stands up to the kind of chilly scrutiny that Mr. Trudeau brings to it. The great religions of the worid w’ould not stand up to that kind of scrutiny, either, demanding as they do a measure of belief from their adherents, be they Roman Catholics. Jews. Hindus, Mohammedans, or Mao-style Communists.

in his press conierence this week, Mr. Trudeau said it isn’t the time just now to abolish the monarchy in Canada, hut added he didn’t know whether the time would come later- in the ’70s.

Coming from the man who is the Queen’s practical Canadian adviser, that isn’t much of a statement, especially since he went on to weigh the relative merits of the monarchy and a presidential system, and said there would be a great deal of change coming because of the new values of the younger generation.

There arc some, and I am among them, who would argue that it is paif of Mr. Trudeau’s job to tell the younger generation about the values of the monarchial system, especially ~ since nobody else in authority seems willing to put that case forward.

After allv it he was willing to put his seal of approval on John and Yoko Lennon, would it be so wrong for him to do tl)e >amc for the institution he is sworn to serve?

But instead, he comes out with mealy mouthed statements implying that while he isn’t prepared to do away with the Crown just yet, the time is not far distant when it should go. Though he doubts that he will be prime minister when the boom is lowered.

What ail this indicates, I suppose, is that we do not know this complex man any better today than we did when he became prime minister. Nobody knew him very well then, and nobody knows him very well now.

FOR ANYONE born in 1969 it was the most important year in history.

But, except for the moon-shaking event in July, when Neil Armstrong took that “giant step for mankind,” it has no other claim to go down in the books with 1066. 1492 or 1867.

However, it was a busy 12 months and every day of them was used for serious or silly, tragic or trivial purposes.

Sex, which has been with us since the first amoeba crawled ashore and divided itself in two, became more pervasive than the weather.

Maybe it was because, with their clothes on, it was getting harder and harder to tell the boys and girls apart that so many of them started taking them off, at least on the stage and in the movies. Whether or not this had artistic validity, it spun an enormous amount of publicity for such plays as Oh! Calcutta and the film, I Am Curious (Yellow).

The locally made picture, A Married Couple, also profited by apparently widespread, if latent, voyeurism. Instead of having to peek in the windows of Antoinette and Billy Edwards, the Stars of Alan King’s film, the curious (any color) go to the movie instead and gape at the intimacies of the Edwards’ home life without being arrested as Peeping Toms.

Exhibitionism reached into the fashion field with see-through lace pajamas (for party weap and coyly deployed chains intended to reveal more than they covered.

Mini-skirts, worn over panty-hose, began to seem almost demure by comparison.

Literature, too, continued to pander to the pornography fanciers. The year’s best sellers vere Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and Jacqueline Susann’s The Love Machine, both of which contributed generously to the vicarious sex life of those who didn’t have enough of their own.

Socially, sex made a few breakthroughs too. Unwed mothers used to be turned from the door in snow storms on Christinas Eve, but this year two prominent actresses, Vanessa Redgrave and Mia Farrow, cheerfully and publicly announced their pregnancies by men whom, they said, they had no intention of marrying.

The sex symbol of the 20th century, Mae West, was making a comeback in the movie, Myra Breckinridge. Although in her seventies, she was said to be giving a lot of annoyance if not actual competition to Raquel Welch, the star of the picture and S.S. of the decade.

Two girls whose charms continued to pay off in diamonds during the year were Jacqueline Onassis and Elizabeth Burton, both of whose husbands gave them jewels valued in the millions.

If sex was one preoccupation this year, astrology was another and to indulge in this you didn’t have to have charm, go out at night or even read dirty books. You could enjoy it sitting home alone, working out what the stars have in store for you.

Aside from the daily, weekly or monthly horoscopes provided by many publications, the significance of your astrological sign can now be emphasized by buying jewelry, clothes and household decorations with the appropriate symbols on them. There are even recipes and means available to provide special yummies for each section of the Zodiac.

Those whose appetites are not influenced by whether they are Scorpios or Aquarius found a new star to follow — Graham Kerr, the Galloping Gourmet of TV.

This long-legged Australian who does his antic cooking in an Ottawa studio, this year became the idol of not only the hot stove ladies but of everyone who enjoys a good show as well as a tasty treat.

His only competition as TV personality of ’69 is Prince Charles, who turned up in July not only as Prince of Wales and future king, but also as a deft and delightful performer who could probably pinch-hit for David Frost if he finds his present profession doesn’t pay off.

His father. Prince Philip, indicated on his last visit over here in the fall that things are so bad at Buckingham Palace they may all be looking for work. Prince Philip’s choice of a job probably wouldn’t involve travelling, at least to Canada, he also said: “We don’t come over here for our health, you know.”

Whether or not Prince Philip comes back to see us, we have King Edward VII with us for ever, if only in effigy. A larger than life equestrian statue of him, cast off by the Republic of India, settled down in Queens Park early last summer to gaze eternally upon the traffic-clogged vista of Avenue Rd.

Among guests who did seem to enjoy Toronto in 1969 were John and Yoko, who came back for their second visit at Christmas time. They seem to have chosen this city as the dispensary of their peace drive in North America and sent thousands of our residents cards announcing: “The War is Over, if you want it.” Where’s that cease fire?

Another Beatle, Paul McCartney, was the victim or promoter of the year’s most macabre rumors. Despite his visibility, his death was proven in any number of ways, including de-coding pictures of him on album covers to running records backward. Despite this ingenuity on the part of the diligent, he seems to be alive and well and recently married.

And so is Tiny Tim — at least he’s married (we all saw it happen just last week) but nobody can be sure about the first two.

That was one of the surprises in 1969.

Another was that the biggest news Prime Minister Trudeau made at his first Commonwealth Conference last spring was taking a Miss Eva Ritting-Hausen (who?) out to lunch.

A former politician. Miss Judy LaMarsh, also hit the front pages and radio and TV programs by simply writing a book. It gave her candid and cantankerous opinions on everything from two prime ministers to how mean everyone is to women.

She isn’t the only woman who felt she was having a tough time in 1969. A whole lot of them got together, both in the States and up here, to demand equal rights and equal wages. They seemed to feel that if they didn’t use lipstick, fix their hair or wear bras and girdles it would help their cause.

Who knows? They may win. The Mets did.

A lot of other unexpected things happened this year. Think of all of those travellers who ended up, courtesy of skyjackers, in Cuba when they were only looking forward to Fort Lauderdale.

Do you even remember what EVERYONE said was going to happen last spring? That California was going to fall into the sea. that’s what. Well, with even a quick glance, you can prove it’s still there.

And, happily so are we, so 1969 must have been a pretty good year at that.

IT WAS CHOICE, not necessity, which had me reading and puzzling on Christmas Day over Patrick Watson’s recent book, Conspirators In Silence. Two happenings of recent days make Patrick topical.

Firstly, there was the warm meeting of John and Yoko Lennon with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. I remembered that Patrick once asserted that the Beatles would have more influence on Canada than the Prime Minister of the time. And few who saw and heard it will forget the rapport of Patrick and Pierre in the telecast from CJOH-TV, Ottawa, which. entranced the Liberal delegates the night before the majority of them chose the new Prime Minister.

Secondly, on Wednesday the CRTC ruled that an old rule made by the BBG was dead. No longer is common ownership of stations in the CTV network forbidden. This removes any bar to the approval by the CRTC of the purchase by Bushnell TV (CJOH-Ottawa) of the CTV station in Montreal (Marconi’s CFCF). Patrick Watson is vice-president for programming of Bushnell TV.

Mr. Watson as author is not so clear and assured as author Trudeau, at least in prescriptions for the future, although he does present a more emotional and bitter criticism of Canadian society than the Prime Minister did in his collected essays.

The conspiracy Mr. Watson writes about “ . . . ought to be a central issue of our time.” What is it?

“. . . A conspiracy to turn us off, us people, to make us well-programmed, responsive robots. It is a conspiracy that works particularly well because the conspirators do not know there is a conspiracy and believe their actions to be good … our schools, our mass media and our politics co-operate to silence the human voice. But so successfully do they sham the opposite role that they convince themselves.”

There’s too much in the book for one day and one column. This is most apparent on the media, the field Mr. Watson knows best and where he is most interesting and suggestive. His fiercest stories and most apocalyptic views come out in his attack on the schools.

He hates the present system as much as Richard Needham does and he’s even more confident about the essential purity and worth of the child and his imagination than is the columnist. Fortunately. I think he is more optimistic about the chances of education reform.

For the past few months Mr. Watson has been carrying on an experiment in the inter-weaving of news and public affairs commentary at CJOrf. It has had some similarities to the programming CBC has been doing on Saturday and Sunday night.

The reaction among Ottawa viewers has been strong. Few seem indifferent. Both the pros and cons have been debating the merits of the Watson-Lapierre conception of TV as it ought to be.

Most reviews of Conspirators In Silence have been scathing. The reviewers seem put off by the absence of any linear development, the mixing of anecdote with lofty, potted sermons and nudging, intimate, personal convictions.

I struggled as a reader between embarrassment at the un-historical, unstructured blend of didacticism with assurance and admiration for the author’s rank confidence that he is a revolutionary with a message.

Another day I can return to Watson, the TV executive, with ideas which he believes are revolutionary. Let’s close with Watson on Trudeau. He sees the PM as John and Yoko found him last Tuesday, one of the truly beautiful people. “Custom stales. . . .” as Shakespeare wrote, and many of us in the political business are seeing the warts, perhaps too many of them, because we’re so accustomed to him now.

“Each morning, when we see his picture on the front page, and read beneath that Prime Minister Trudeau said something, visited somewhere, kissed someone, we feel uneasy; he does not wear a Prime Minister’s mask. Those who love him, or what he appears to be, mistrust their judgment sometimes. ”

Why did the Liberals choose Trudeau? “. . . the overriding reason for his election was the conviction that his popularity would keep the party in power

“He himself appeared threatening to the traditional party structures, as he was, in fact. But many of the Old Guard, knowing it had been done before, would comfort themselves with the knowledge that once they had him trapped, which is to say elected, they could serenely proceed with the business of smoothing off his corners and turning his mask into a party mask after all.

“The reason for his popularity in the country, of course, had to do with style, a style that was personal, not institutional. Governments, like advertisers, have learned to lie with such facility that they have scarified their right to the people’s faith. But the Trudeau style was believable, and to the young of mind, impatient with all the old political platitudes, it was even more important to believe him than to agree with him.

“In Trudeau, the scholar’s commitment to unqualified truth dances attendance upon a willingness to compromise, without denying that there is a difference between compromise and the ideal.

“ . . . We find him a man who has come to terms with change and who clearly sees that, in the current of human social and political events, entrenchment and rigidity of systems and institutions are likely to threaten that which really matters: The liberty and fulfilment of the individual.

Mr. Watson puzzles about what has happened to Mr. Trudeau since June. To him “he seemed unwilling to accept either the magical mantle he had been given by the country, or the electric personal connection he had forged with its people. He retreated. He refused again and again, to appear on television and keep alive the contact … the naturally fickle immediately sensed they had been wrong and chalked up another foiled love affair. The faithful sensed the rightness of their faith, but waited for a sign.

“ . . . Trudeau acts more like a teacher than any prime minister ever acted before — he has puzzled the country. … If we are uncertain about Trudeau, it has to be recalled that he himself has made uncertainty almost a principle of government. If he really means that, there is a gleam of hope because the uncertainties can be dealt with only by loosening the traditional iron grasp on power, positive or negative, and acknowledging a new kind of democratic relationship.”

Mr. Watson is much more one of “the faithful” than “naturally fickle.” He, too, seeks a new kind of democratic relationship, with a stress on participation, on youth, on a destruction of the myth that Ottawa can solve problems.