ae raheem tk ataeine dr anagictitiaie GREECE \ " FLASHBACKS FROM | 50 years ago... WORKERS SHACKS _MENACE TO HEALTH SYDNEY, NS. — Astonishing facts with relation to the ‘shack’ problem were given by Dr. J. K. MacLeod, city medical health officer, at an informal meeting of the board of health. Dr. MacLeod read from a re- port prepared for the board members showing that the num- ‘ber of shacks in the Pier district is now 91, housing 318 men in alleged unsanitary conditions. According to the report, most of these shacks are only one-room affairs and five or six men are living in them. Within recent months the shack problem has become ser- ious and the board of health pro- poses to hold a special meeting in the near future to take Steps to deal with it. The Worker, Dec. 1, 1923 25 years ago... RELEASE CSU MEN BY CHRISTMAS The Civil Rights Union and the Canadian Seamen’s Union are conducting a national campaign to free the imprisoned strikers by Christmas. Dozens of young Canadians who fought well and truly for . the principles of trade unionism are in jails and penitentiaries. Thirteen are in Kingston peniten- tiary, five in Bordeaux jail, Mon- treal, 45 in Guelph and Bramp- ton reformatories and two in To- ronto’s Don Jail. One of the boys wrote, while being taken to Kingston: “If shipowners can get away with doing a job on us, what is to stop the rest of the anti-union em- ployers? And then watch out, because that is how it started in Germany...” Tribune, Nov. 29, 1948 Profiteer of the week: 1973. Imperial Oil Texaco Husky Oil Recagnition this week goes collectively to six companies who deserve it. Abandoning all oratory, we present simply their profit figures for the first six months of 1972 and 1973 1972 $95,000,000 $79,000,000 $25,152,000 $20,007,000 $11,456,000 $ 9.054.000 $41,100,000 $29,400,000 $ 5,700,000 $ 2,644,000 « $ 7,696,000 $ 4,274,000 = Pacific Ir jbune West Coast edition, Canadian Trib Editor — MAURICE RUSH Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hasti Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288. ngs St., < Business & Circulation Manager, FRED WILSON” _ Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $3.00 for six months North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 on All other countries, $7.00 one year ~ x Paes tan as nd class mail registration number 1560. e year. — Energy policy tests government — Prime Minister Trudeau’s Nov. 22 fireside chat on energy, which went country-wide on TV, was most amazing for its failure both in facing up to the need,for an all-Canada energy policy, and its ignoring of the encroachments - of multi-national oil corporations allied with U.S. imperialism. These encroachments circle the globe. Gas and oil is 80% foreign-owned in our prime energy resource province, Alber- ta. Refinery capacity for the oil indus- try is 99% foreign-owned. But this shocking situation fails to stir the PM. Far from challenging outside inter- ference, Canada’s government allowed increased oil sales to the USA — in 1978, “63 million barrels more oil than they purchased from us in 1972, an in- crease of 18%,” to quote Mr. Trudeau. Of Canada’s imported oil -(1,000,000 barrels daily), 58% comes from Vene- zuela, whose oil industry is 80% owned by Shell and Standard Oil. Some ob- servers foresee the higher-bidding USA getting some of Canada’s former allotment. It would appear that neither Canadians nor Venezuelans have much say in their own energy matters, while the multi-nationals operate like a super- government. In this context, reports of tankers bound for Canada with Mideast oil being diverted to the USA by Texaco and Imperial sound plausible. In the Middle East, multi-nationals heavily involved in Saudi Arabia don’t . quarrel with the oil embargo; corpora- tions like Exxon, Standard Oil, Texaco and Mobil.use the situation to extort more from their customers. As the hijacking of Canada’s resour- ces goes on, it is clear that if relative shortages occur in eastern Canada this winter it will be due, not to real short- ages, but to the irresponsibility of the Canadian government. Already the “voluntary price freeze,” touted as protection from the worst of the’ gouging, has been broken by the government itself, allowing companies to raise gasoline and heating oil as much as 2.6 cents a gallon, east of the Ottawa Valley. When the freeze ends Jan. 31, pre- sumably the sky will be the limit; the Prime Minister’s abstract assurance that’ prices will be held below soaring world prices is not much comfort. Government efforts to pass off its non-policy on energy only adds to the timeliness of the call for a Crown petro- leum Corporation authorized to set uni- form Canadian oil prices, and prevent profit gouging. It emphasizes the soundness of the Communist demand for public ownership of energy under democratic control. In the showdown on energy policy the Canadian people may be compel- led to call. for an end to a government which shows itself unable to stand up to the ‘pressure of U.S. imperialism. Bourgeois democracy Sports stadia become prisons—exe- _eution sites, torture a political method; armed might is paramount, and _cor- ruption flourishes in the highest offices; oppression and murder occur daily. A picture from a long-gone century? No, our day, and the spreading crisis of bourgeois democracy which, for the: ruling class, can no longer suffice to shackle mankind to its bidding. When fascists in Santiago and Athens degrade human life they also slaughter bourgeois democracy for fail- ing them and their imperialist patrons. Oppression and torture carried out by despots and sadists is backed and rogrammed by the resources of world ‘imperialism, with U.S. imperialism at its head—the British in Northern Ire- land and the like. Thus is bourgeois democracy ripped apart by imperialist wars, coups, and by the overt terrorism of fascism. Not surprisingly, corruption is great- est at imperialism’s epicentre, in mani- festations like Watergate, and an en- ergy crisis in which big money loses confidence and runs in fright from its stock markets. What of Canada, which consorts with its NATO allies, Portugal and Greece, (the NATO which Amnesty Interna- tional accuses of teaching torture me- thods to its personnel), rushes to em- brace the reeking junta of Chile, sides with Mideast aggression, polishes the gunsights for the monstrous U.S. war machine, while refusing to even recog- nize legitimate people’s governments. A Marxist analyst has said: “An in- exorable process of decay has seized capitalism from top to bottom — its economic and political system, its poli- tics and ideology. Imperialism has for- ever lost its power over the bulk of mankind.” But our world today shows that im- perialism goes out with murderous flailing, endangering humanity. It must be realized that what has happened in other countries could happen here if people are not alert to the real enemy and prepared to put up a struggle. A dangerous decision How often has it been said that the courts of this land are in the pocket of the most backward government ele- ments. The Quebec Appeal Court strengthens that impression with its hasty reversal of the decision of Super- ior Court Judge Malouf, on the James Bay project. When, after months of study of all relevent documents, Justice Malouf stopped work on the project, he noted that irreparable damage was being done to the lives of the Crees and Innuit in the area, The Appeal Court, like the develop- ment corporation, is prepared to allow this damage to go on until the fact of the project is accomplished. Who is going to say: dismantle it? That would not help; the damage is going on now. As in so many other conflicts of peo-, ple versus government machine, only great public pressure can win this bat- tle. A good sign out of Quebec is that most white workers are pro-Indian in the dispute, according to a reporter on ‘the scene. Let this spirit sweep the country, for the deep bias of the court, despite one good judge’s effort to be just, may be directed next to any one of us. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1973—PAGE 3