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CPR again charged
with polluting area

CPR again has a pollution
charge against it.

This is the second time in two
years they have been so charged.
Early this year Port Coquitlam
city council warned _ the
company that if it did not clean
up its freight yards and car-clean-
ing operations it would face
charges.

Health officials say that grain,
manure, lumber and. other
rubbish are being dumped along
the right ef way, and the rats are
having a field day.

A Port Coquitlam alderman,
Bruce Scott, said that though the
CPR had promised that the
debris would be bulldozed and
covered, all they do is ‘‘spread it
around’’.

People who live in the area are
complaining about the increase
in the rat population in the
district, with the source
obviously the unsanitary condi-
tions in the freight yards.

Last summer the CPR had its

Cope, NDP
Hold Talks

Acting on instructions from
their respective memberships,
the Steering Committee of
COPE and the Vancouver Area
Council Executive of the NDP
met May 25th at Hillcrest Hall
to discuss joint action in the
forthcoming Vancouver Muni-
cipal Elections. About 40 persons
were present.

The following decisions were
made: 1) to work out a
common program of municipal
action; 2) to contest the
mayoralty election; 3) to enter
a sufficient number of NDP and
COPE candidates to contest all
positions on Vancouver City
Council, School Board and Parks
Board; 4) to establish a joint
campaign committee, head-
quarters a d staff.

The Committee of Pro-
gressive Electors plans to hold
its nominating convention on
June 20th.; the NDP Vancouver
Area Council has tentative plans
for a nominating convention on-
June 27th.

Final approval of the NDP’s
entry into civic politics must be
given by the Party’s Provincial
Council. Such approval cannot
be granted until the Vancouver
Area Council is ready to present
detailed campaign plans to the
Council. It is anticipated that the
Party’s Provincial Council will
consider this matter in August of
this year.

More meetings between COPE
and the NDP are planned for the
Near LUCE cae

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.. . and activities.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1970—Page 2 ;

wrist slapped to the tune of a
$350 fine when they were hauled
into court on the first charges of
polluting the area.

“We may have to seek an
injunction against the -CPR
operations in the freight yard’,
one of the Port Coquitlam
aldermen said. ‘‘You can be

tolerant just so long.”’
* *O*

SPEC, the Burnaby Pollution
Control Association, and other
interested groups in Burnaby
continue to fight to prevent
further pollution in Burnaby
Lake. They have asked Burnaby
Council to notify all. industries
polluting Burnaby Lake and Still
Creek of the provisions of the
Pollution Control Act.

One member of the BPCA said
that the council members appear
to be passing the buck on the
question of pollution by oil
companies in that city. He said
that council members maintain
they are still waiting for
“regulations’’ to be brought
down; that the provincial govern-
ment has taken over control of
air pollution problems, and the
federal government has control
over tidal waters, etc., which
absolves council, they appear to
believe, from having to make
decisions on these matters.

A citizens’ meeting has been
called for June 18 in the Capitol
Hill Community Hall to discuss
matters pertaining to pollution
problems in Burnaby.

ROSE PENNER, widow of long-
time Communist leader and
Winnipeg Alderman Jakob Pen-
ner, passed away in Winnipeg
after a long illness on May 18.
Born in Odessa, Russia in 1887
she came to Winnipeg in 1905.
During the 51. years of their
married life, Rose and Jakob
Penner shared their socialist ideals

=; Radical changes
in B.C. medical services

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Radical changes are needed in
medical services supplied in our
city and province.

One of these is the estab-
lishment of polyclinics. They
would be served by salaried
doctors, including specialists in
all fields. Their obvious ad-
vantages include accurate
diagnosis of a patient’s ailment
by skilled teams of specialists
working together and giving the
patient a thorough all inclusive
type of examination, up to date
treatment of a high quality,
detection of maladjustments at
an early ‘stage before serious
troubles develop, and the lowest
possible prices.

North America remains the
only place in the world where the
bulk of doctors are not employed
by hospitals or the state. Doctors
here are in _ business, in
competitive business. The more
patients they can handle, the
higher their income. (And of
course the more patients a
doctor has, the less time he can
givetoeachone). ——

Hospitals, which are publicly
financed, are workshops where
doctors use public facilities for
private gain— for operations and
calls for which each doctor is
paid individually.

Our whole system of self
employed doctors (with patient
fees in most cases paid out of
medical plans) and_ publicly
financed hospitals (where
doctors are again paid for their
services by some medical plan)
encourages unnecessary
services and sometimes un-
necessary operations because
higher income is the reward.

I should add at this point that
this criticism applies not only to
the medical profession, it applies
with equal validity to other pro-
fessions such as dentists, and

lawyers although these are not |

subsidized by the taxpayers to
the extent that doctors are.

PUBLIC CLINICS

Clinics have it all over private
practice when it comes to doing
“the best possible job for the
patient. Private practice is
geared to dealing with an
ailment through diagnosis by a
general practioner or a spe-
cialist. It can’t and doesn’t
provide for a thorough exami-
nation by teams of specialists
working together and com-
paring their findings as is done in
clinics. And private practice
isn’t geared in any way to the
prevention of ailments and
disease, while polyclincs are.

Doctors should be on salary,
working for hospitals or the
‘state, and provided with an
adequate salary in keeping with
their profession, thus leaving

~ - them free to provide the best

possible service of which they
are capable and to which every
patient is entitled.

Every large city and every
region in our province should
have polyclinics. They could be
established by the regional
hospital districts or the
provincial government. Or, they

2». could_be set up on.a cooperative...

basis as they already are in some
Canadian and American cities
such as Saskatoon and Seattle.
Two in Ontario are co-ops
operated by unions. Experience
has proven that they are able to
provide a very high quality of
genuine medicare at an
extremely reasonable rate.

Dr. R.R. Foulkes, Medical
Director of the Royal Columbian
Hospital in New Westminster,
deserves to be commended for
his courage and sense of social
responsibility in pressing for

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a

polyclinics (see The Columbian, ~~
May 4, 1970). He is well aware
that his proposals will be met
with disapproval by some
leaders of the College of
Physicians and Surgeons and the
Canadian Medical Association
who have strongly opposed
medicare.

It is to be hoped that other
doctors and people in the
medical field, as well as political -
leaders and the public generally, ”
will also begin to speak out for
the establishment of polyclinics

needed

in the lower mainland.

| n more robust days “‘cricket’’ in Merrie England was

more than a mere sport event, enjoyed only by a
select few. In course of time ‘“‘cricket’’ became a fairly wide-
spread definition of a principle; that of not cheating, double-
crossing, or taking any unfair advantage of one’s fellowmen.
Otherwise, ‘‘that’s not cricket Old Chap.” -

Now that’s all old hat. While largely confined to an English
snobocracy, to the playing fields of Oxford and Eaton; or the
“old school tie’’ set generally, the changing times have seen
the game of cricket hold up, but the sterling principle it tradi-
tionally implied, rapidly become non-existant. In modern
society today anything is ‘‘cricket”’ if it’can be ‘‘put over.”’

Just recently the Wilson Labor government, witha general
election in the offing and votes a prime concern, plus a rising
anti-racist sentiment in Britain, has been compelled to request
the 28-man Cricket Council of England to call off its invitation
and projected touring of Britain by an all-white South African
cricket team.

No doubt motivated by its concern over the possibility of -

an adverse vote, and the so-called Cricket Council reluctance

to comply by monetary considerations — neither by any |

abhorrence to South African apartheid (race segregation)
which prohibits a preponderant native. Black people to work,

play or freely exist in their own country, except by permission |

of a ruthless ruling “‘superior’”’ white minority, the “pukka
sahibs”’ of cricket are no end disturbed.

No doubt there are Black cricket players in South Africa as
in other sports who can equal their white brothers in any realm
of sporting events, but in cricket as in other fields, racist
discrimination bars them from participation. S.A. representa-

tion in all areas of life must be all-white even in cricket |

which reduces the game in its totality to non-cricket.

While we Canadians are getting pretty well fed up with the

gigantic monopoly racket most of our leading sports such as
hockey, baseball, etc., have degenerated into, we are still
plenty ablaze when we continue to repeat that moth-eaten
cliche about ‘‘that’s not-cricket, old chap’. A racist English

“pukka sahib’’ caste has eliminated that phoney idea from

their ‘‘cricket’’. Perhaps we should do so too.
* kK *K

And from another quarter, an equally tragic picture. This

week, along with a $10-dollar donation to the PT, I received a
letter from an old friend, now resident in Victoria. This letter

addressed to ‘“‘Dear Mom and Dad’’ from his children and |

grandchildren, resident in the U.S.A. expresses fear, stark
fear, of what the future may hold for them following the cold-

blooded murders of young students ‘at the Kent, Ohio |

University. Fear of this menacing terror that is creeping over
the U.S.A. like some foul loathsome monster.

“T want to hide’’ writes the Mother, “‘to escape— there’s 4
pain in my chest that chokes me. . . but we can’t hide away:
We must be here to defend our children. We can’t escape and
run away from this thing. We must stay and fight for peace too.
But it’s like hitting a stone wall. . . I’mso sickened. . .”’

The agony of this Mother, expressed to her Mom and Dad
in Canada, parallels that agaonizing plea of a U.S. father, who
sobbingly asked a world, ‘‘Why did they kill my 19-year old
daughter, why? (One of the Kent four shot to death by Nixon's
uniformed and armed “‘silent majority.’’)

How many Black mothers ask the same question with the -

vision of their murdered and imprisoned sons breaking

’ through their tears, or the mothers of thousands of GI’s sent to

a premature death in Vietnam? '

And there is no escape, no running away from it. Only one’ -}"
- alternative; to crush and defeat this foul.monster — before it
- destroys all humanity. So courage little American Mother, We |
share your fears, and only hope we can match your courage. A ie