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EDITORIAL COMMENT

Oil monitor a costly ploy

In the face of soaring consumer prices

for heating oil, gasoline and other pet-
roleum products, the federal govern-
ment has given birth to a Petroleum
Monitoring Agency. Presumably it is to
watch the oil monopolies — trans-
nationals and home-grown gougers
alike.

But Energy Minister Marc Lalonde
makes it clear that the so-called watch-
dog committee will just watch, and re-
cord. It won’t be able to roll back oil
company profits (which have reportedly
jumped by 250%), nor will it necessarily
tell the public what it has discovered.

The government and the Liberal Party
apparently like to picture what the
agency can do, however. It can give the
impression of action to ease the attack on
living standards when, in fact, there is no
such action. It can suggest to numerous
oil-dependent corporations that their
concerns are not ignored.

Best of all, from a big business |

government's viewpoint, such an agency
is an assurance to the oil monopolies that
their profits are inviolate. The
“watchdog” is more like a guard dog for
monopoly profits. At the same time the
government can improve its dismal fiscal
image by taxing oil price increases, then
saving Canada’s future by handing these
funds back to the oil monopolies for exp-
loration and development.

The agency’s arrival is not unrelated to

_ the phoney “battle” between Ottawa and

Edmonton. Trudeau fought fearlessly
for no more than a $2-a-barrel price in-

crease (for the moment), and Lougheed
enacted a $2 increase. Some fight!
But most revealing is the unanimity of

- Ottawa Liberals and Alberta Tories on

forcing Canadians to pay world rices
for their own oil — which should be so-
cially owned with proceeds going to bols-
ter the economy, not to private fortunes.

Harold Renouf, chairman of the new
agency, let the cat out of the bag. (Re-
nouf is remembered as head of that bos-
ses’ bludgeon, the so-called Anti-In-
flation Board (AIB), which turned a
blind eye to soaring prices and profits,
but rolled back wages like a steamroller
gone insane.)

Renouf’s “preference”, he says, would
be to jump Canadian prices to world
prices “in one lump rather than drawing
it out indefinitely”. Juggling with the
words “to” world prices and “toward”
world prices is mere jaw exercise; he

~ sounds like Alberta Premier Lougheed.

The cost to be paid by Canadian work-
ers (and the millions more who do not
get their income by exploiting others)
will be far beyond the $1.5-million
budget given this expensive stage prop
— the monitoring agency.

On the other hand, the people of

‘ Canada could reap the benefit of our

energy resources by taking them out of

monopoly’s and foreign owners’ hands, _

and making them social property.
The monitoring agency will benefit
working-class Canadians about.as much

a Liberal and Tory election promises
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UNION ART SERVICE

Canada’s Environment Minister, John

25 years ago...

HIROSHIMA WEEK

COMMEMORATED
OTTAWA — A vital factor in
avoiding World War III is that
people everywhere “realize that
war with modern weapons is
going to be suicide,” said Prime
Minister St. Laurent a few days
ago. A reminder is the plan for
Hiroshima Week in Toronto. It
includes the distribution of
15,000 leaflets marking the 10th
anniversary of the U.S. atom-
bombing of that city, an inten-
sive door-to-door canvas for sig-
natures on the World Appeal
Against Atomic War, and a con-
centrated. street-corner cam-

paign.

50 years ago...

COAL MINERS IN
HEROIC STRUGGLE
MERCOAL, Alta. — The
Mercoal strike now enters its 8th
week with miners fighting with
grim determination. Five strike
leaders, including the president
of the Miner Workers Union of
Canada, and district secretary of

the Workers’ Unity League, -
have been arrested on a.

framed-up charge of “rioting”.
The Mercoal strike will be won if
the workers of Canada will
properly awaken to the signi-
ficance of the heroic struggle
now going on before their very
eyes, and send material aid to
the strikers.

oe Tribune, The Worker,
August 8, 1955. August 9, 1930
eae PACIFIC

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Po Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
_ Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186

“Subscription Rate: Canada $10 one yr.; $6.00 for six months;
All other countries, $12 one year.

Second class mail registration number 1560

Roberts recently signed a memorandum
of intent with U.S. Secretary of State
Edmund Muskie on international air
pollution problems including curbing
acid rain. There is wide-spread hope that
genuine steps will be taken. But the fal-
lacies involved should not be ignored.
The fallacies include the oft repeated
lie that we are all equally guilty (grand-
father lighting his pipe, and the giant
profit-making smelters and paper com-
anies). We are also told that it is not
feasible to stop the big polluters, but if we
walk instead of driving, that will solve it.
Further, itis impressed upon us that if an.
all-out clean-up must be done, it’s going

to cost each and every taxpayer a pile of

money. oe
In the end it’s a class question: the

ruling monopolies make their out-
rageous private profits by whatever
method brings in fast dollars. That in-
cludes wrecking workers’ health on the

- job and in the community; it includes

evading safety measures and anti-
pollution “measures. The monopoly
corporations which pollute the
~ environment should pay for cleaning it
up — the pollution is a by-product of
their production. »

While nuclear pollution deserves —

separate assessment, a certain irony sur-
founds the signing of the Canada-U.S.
memo. We are told that the tentative
agreement will become invalid if Presi-

Profiteer of the week: ;

Despite what it calls a significant drop in
demand for steel products, Stelco Inc., racked
up an after-tax profit of $75,504,000 in the first
six months of 1980. That’s a touch down from
the $75,894,000 in 1979’s first half, but things
are tough ail over.

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

The fight for clean air

dent Carter is defeated. Does this mean
that our quest for clean air rests on the
U.S. president who has done more than
any other to make of our planet one big
nuclear weapons dump? Does it mean
that to stop acid rain drifting across our
mutual borders, we must go on accepting
the recurring and _ hushed-up
“accidents” resulting from manufacture
and testing of nuclear weapons?

Can it be said that “everybody” wants
an environment in which humans can

‘continue to exist, when one group in the

Pentagon is working at making the earth
uninhabitable in a vain effort to restore
imperialism to world domination? Itis a
question of what the administrators of

‘imperialism want, and what the over-

whelming majority of humanity wants.

From a working-class point of view the
only way to bring about environmental
improvement is to compel governments
— federal and provincial — to stand up
to the USA and its corporations which
dominate Canada, and to their Canadian
counterparts, and enforce anti-pollution.
measures. os

The real fight against the killing of the

atmosphere and waters is the workers’ .

fight for health and safety, the fight for
social ownership of the monopolized
industries and, not least, and fight for
disarmament. These. are irrevocably
interlocked. The fight is for policies to
benefit the workers and the vast majori-

ty.
y PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 15, 1980—Page 3

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