Jobless carpenters, victims of government policies in both Victoria and Ottawa, marched through the streets of New Westminster Tuesday demanding government action to get construction moving again and evenas they marched the figures released by Statistics Canada — revealing a worsening unemployment Situation — underscored the urgency of their demand. Signs carried by the more than 200 trade unionists told the Story as they spelled out the words: ‘‘Construction Workers — 32 per cent Unemployment.” Other placards demanded of the provincial government and premier Bennett, ‘‘Where are the Promised Jobs?” and called for policies to ‘Rebuild Downtown New Westminster Now.”’ Several people joined the wey, demonstratien,as it made its way from Carpenters Hall on Twelf th Street to city hall where a brief rally was held after the hour-long march. Along the way marchers passed the site where a once- planned ICBC centre was to have been replaced with a huge shopping centre and hotel complex but -which now sits vacant — held up for lack of government action to begin development. “Tt makes no sense our being out of work when there’s' work to be done,’’ Tom Baker, president of Local 1251 of the Carpenters Union told the marchers as they filed onto the steps of city hall. ‘‘This government’s got to do something about unem- ployment.’’ Both New Westminster See ACTION page 12. REBUILD OOWNTOWN New ore YENOW ACTIVA’ | Public Wo parts CONSTRUCT Me BENNETT: , HO hee’ the cyte Jos Ey ese mm Me BENNETT: ise sTER at yy : Mew ty : (MINSTER | Oy. ; —Sean Griffin photo >" 20° Friday, May 13, 1977 VOL. 39, No. 19 Kitimat oil port inquiry chairman Dr. Andrew Thompson began the irst of a series of ‘meetings preceding the hearings into the oil port site Uesday night as he outlined the terms of reference of the inquiry and €xplained how the Open July 11. public can participate. Formal hearings are set to —Sean Griffin photo A demand that the Trudeau government... implement... the recommendations of the Berger Inquiry report was made this week by William Kashtan, Canadian Communist Party leader, in a statement issued on behalf of the party’s central executive. “The recommendations of the Berger inquiry, that there be no pipeline across the northern Yukon and that the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline be postponed for 10 years, will be welcomed by democratic and patriotic Canadians,’’ said the CP statement. Pointing out that the Berger proposals reflected widespread public sentiment in Canada,- Kashtan said in releasing his party’s statement, that it now remains for the Trudeau govern- ment to implement these recommendations. In his 213-page report made public Monday, Justice Tom Berger of the B.C. Supreme Court, Ottawa not defending fisheries The federal government has failed to defend Canadian fishery interests during the transition to € 200-mile economic zone and Canadian trollers are already uffering as a result, according to Orge Hewison, secretary of the Nited Fishermen and Allied Orkers who returned last week Tom a meeting with fisheries Minister Romeo LeBlanc. Although an interim agreement With the United States was only Just signed, the U.S. has already Violated it, he said. Nadian troll fishermen were forced out of Washington State Waters April 15 to 30, in con- tadiction to the Canada-U.S. in- terim reciprocal __ fisheries #8teement — and that is ‘only a ginning. “Next onthe chopping block will be our halibut, or our fisheries on’ the East Coast,’’ Hewison warned. He pointed out that the hard-line approach taken by the U.S. was the result of ‘‘pussy footing around” by the federal government and the failure to take a determined stand to uphold Canadian fishing rights. “The government is still pussy footing around on the question trying to measure its response to the U.S. bullying action,” he stated. ‘‘It is the pussy footing which has gotten us into this mess and the mess will get a lot worse for the fishermen unless the government adopts a tougher er? nee aie that the U.S. has been “whittling away” at Canadian fisheries for years. ‘““But now they’re chopping away huge chunks at a time.”’ Although fisheries minister LeBlanc promised in the meeting with industry advisors April 29 that the U.S. action in expelling Canadian trollers would be protested personally by prime. minister Trudeau, word reached the UFAWU less than a week later that the U.S. would be taking further action to tip the fisheries balance in its own favor. According to’ The Fisherman, U.S. authorities intend to impose increased minimum size limits on coho north of Tillamook Point off the coast of Oregon and will be imposing a September 15 closure in the same waters, a month-and-a- half earlier than normal. advised the federal government not to. build a-pipeline across the Northern Yukon and to postpone building the Mackenzie Valley line for 10 years to allow time to settle native land claims, and to establish native rights and self-government in the Northwest Territories. In defending his key proposal, Berger said ‘‘a period of 10 years will be required in the Mackenzie Valley and Western Arctic to settle native claims and to establish new institutions and new programs that a settlement will entail. No pipeline should be built until these things have been achieved. ... The native people must be allowed a choice about their own future. If the pipeline is approved before a settlement of claims takes place, the future of the North — and the place of the native people in the North — will in effect have been decided for them.” Berger’s proposals recommend that in addition to settling the land claims of native peoples, the government should investigate the need for a whole new structure to permit the natives to govern themselves. Warning that there is no assurance that the Trudeau government will implement the Berger recommendations, Kashtan points out that already voices are being heard pressuring the government to either ignore the Berger recommendations or make them meaningless. “The National Energy Board, which has shown itself to be a front for the multinational oil cor- porations is still to be heard from on the Berger report, as are the U.S. corporations. And so is the U.S. government, which has not given up on its aim of achieving a continental policy directed ‘to share our energy and natural resources for our mutual benefit,’ ’’ says the CP statement. The federal government has already made it known that it will not make any decision ona pipeline until conclusion of National Energy Board hearings. The Board See BERGER, pg. 12 JUSTICE TOM BERGER Union leader granted visa The conference on ‘Southern Africa: A Time of Change,’’ scheduled for this weekend will be hearing South African trade union leader James Stuart despite an earlier visa denial of a visa by Canadian immigration authorities. Although it was not known what prompted the federal department to grant the visa, there had been pressure from several organizations including the Vancouver and District Labor Council which last week demanded that Stuart be allowed to enter the country. i A former leader of the Food and Canning Workers Union in South Africa, Stuart was banned by the racist regime in 1964 and has since been working for the South African Congress of Trade Unions in exile in Lusaka. He is one of several speakers scheduled for the conference on Southern Africa this weekend, May 14 and 15 at the Canadian Memorial Church, 1811-16th Ave. in Vancouver. A- public meeting is also set for Friday, May 13, 8 p.m. in the Unitarian Church, 49th and Oak in Vancouver.