'Betrayed' at Sea

According to Elaine Briere, we can't understand the disappearance of seamen from Vancouver's ports without understanding Canadian history since the end of World War II. Briere makes documentary films. Her most recent film, Betrayed: The Story of Canadian Merchant Seamen (which has its premiere this Wednesday night at the Pacific Cinemateque), tells how Canada's Merchant Marine, which in 1946 was the fourth largest in the world, was deliberately dismantled by the Liberal government of Louis St.-Laurent in collaboration with private American and Canadian shipping interests.

"We are now the only country in the OECD without a Merchant Marine," Briere says. "Even landlocked little Switzerland has its own ships."

'Semi-colonial'

Briere, who grew up in Nanaimo, sees this both as a tragedy and what she calls "Canada's semi-colonial position vis a vis" the United States. She sees tragedy in the shabby way the Merchant seamen were treated by the Canadian government. "They were heroes," she says. "Canadians saw them as heroes. More merchant seamen died in the war than members of the Navy." Their ships weren't protected like the Navy ships were, and so the Naiz U-boats favoured them as targets. They went down even in the gulf of the St. Lawrence. In the Murmasnk run the merchant seamen were killed in dreadful numbers as they supplied oil, food and other material ot our then-allies, the Russian Soviets.

Briere says, "They were told they would have jobs after the war and working conditions would be improved. The opposite happened."

In 1946 a strike took place on the Great Lakes; at the end of it Canada's Merchant seamen had won an eight-hour day and other path-breaking benefits. It was a remarkable achievement. But the Canadian Seamen's Union was organized by communists; all the executive members of the union were communists. This fact, Briere says, worked as a wedge. It removed the union from the sympathies of Canadians, who had greatly admired the Merchant seamen; and it thus allowed the Liberal government, in collusion with American interests, to bring in the American Seafarers International Union (a sort of dummy union, "though it's better now," Briere says)  to take over and break the Canadian Seamen's Union.

Don't mourn, nationalize

And our "semi-colonial position" vis a vis the U.S.? Briere strongly believes Canadians need to know more about their history; in particular, Canadians need to learn to not be so subservient to American interests. She feels that if we don't nationalize our transportation and communications systems, we will be in danger of losing our sovereignty. "Railways, telecommunications, airlines: if you're gonna be a sovereign country you have to own these....We're losing ours. And the Merchant Marine was the first to go."

Briere sees the loss of the Canadian Merchant Marine as one of the first signs of industrial globalization. It happened here, she thinks, because of our willingness to go along with American interests. "The country that has accelerated globalization the most is the U.S. And insofar as we are tied to the U.S., we have accepted this."

Betrayed, the Story of Canada's Merchant Seamen premiers Wednesday, Nov. 16 at Pacific Cinemateque in Vancouver, 7:30 and 9:15. Director Elaine Briere will be present for both showings. The documentary shows again on November 22 and 23 at 2 pm at the same theatre.

Vancouver writer Bruce Serafin's highly acclaimed book Colin's Big Thing: A Sequence is published by Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, B.C. and Banff.