Friday, May 27, 1977

21°

20° GES Se 18
ne VOL. 39, No.

Present B.C. Hydro rates favor
Ig Companies and discriminate
against residential users, and that
if the rate structure was changed
Compel large users to pay the
Price they should the average cost
of power for British Columbians
Could be lowered substantially, and
Many of the current financial
difficulties of the Crown company
Could be overcome.
This was the gist of a brief
Prepared by three University of
economists which was
Presented to a special cabinet
Committee hearing in Victoria last
Onday. The hearings are being
held to determine whether ap-
Proval should be given to con-

” re :
a INEM eres
ap

|

Eestettin 5

With

British Cotumbia

New Democratic Party

CONVENTION

esse

Urging delegates to win new members among those people dissatisfied

struction of the Revelstoke Dam.

Urging that rate structure
reform should be treated as a first
priority for energy planning in
B.C., the brief says that if the rate
reform was carried through by
1981 Hydro’s annual load growth
would be reduced from 8.4 per cent
to 5.9 per cent by 1990; Hydro’s
outstanding debt would be cut by
$3.5 billion by 1990; and the

“average cost of power to Hydro.

users would beabout6é per cent less
than if the rate structure was not
reformed.”

The brief said that by raising the
rates to bulk users (such as pulp
mills, etc.) they would be com-
pelled to use energy more

be |

&

ea

th the Social Credit government, NDP leader Dave Barrett addresses

delegates to the provincial convention held last weekend at the

niversity of B.C. (See story, pg. 12.)

economically, and that the savings
made would not require approval
for the Revelstoke Dam before 1982
and. Hat Creek could be deferred
beyond 1984.

Tables inthe brief comparing the
rates between residential and bulk
users show that homeowners and
small apartments which use less
than 550 kwh per two month period,
pay 4.6c a kwh while large in-
dustrial users pay a flat rate of .4c
per kwh.

Demonstrating how the present
rate structure is discriminatory
against residential users, the brief
points to the fact that residential
users consume 30.3 per cent of the
total kwh but provide 41.7 per cent

RIBUNE

of Hydro’s electricity sales
revenue. Bulk users, on the other
hand, purchase 33.1 per cent of the
total kwh, but only contribute 13.4
per cent to Hydro’s electricity
sales revenue.

The conclusion drawn by the
brief is that “Hydro underprices
electricity to its large bulk
customers”’ which encourages
excessive demand for large blocs
of cheap power. The bulk user
consumes electricity at a cost of 13
mills, whereas the cost to the
province is 23 mills, the brief
pointed out.

The UBC economists put their
finger on the central problem in
B.C.’s growing energy crisis: the

discriminatory rate structure
which caters to the needs of the
large corporations, while shifting
the major cost for expensive
energy programs on to the public
who are forced to subsidize below-
cost energy to bulk users.

W. A. C. Bennett’s “‘two river’’
program and the takeover of the
B.C. Electric was aimed at serving
the big companies by providing
large blocs of cheap power at
public expense. The key device to
that end was the present dis-
criminatory rate structure. The
public should support the proposal
to revise B.C. Hydro’s rate
structure as a key ingredient in a
new energy policy needed in B.C.

The conviction of AIM leader
Leonard Peltier by a Fargo, North
Dakota court was a total travesty
of justice, an eyewitness to the trial
reports, carried out by the
collusion of the FBI, the court and
possibly Canadian authorities as
well.

Coquitlam resident Liz Clarke
who attended the four-week trial in
the Federal Building in Fargo told
the Tribune this week in an in-
terview how the court refused to
admit Myrtle Poor Bear’s con-
fession that her affidavits against
Peltier were false.

And, Clarke recounts, a miscue
on the part of the prosecuting at-
torney strongly suggests that the
Canadian justice department co-
operated with the FBI in falsifying
the affidavits which were used to
extradite Peltier to the U.S. and to
convict him of the murder charge.

Theaffidavit in question claimed
that Myrtle Poor Bear, allegedly
Peltier’s ‘girlfriend’, was an
eyewitness to the murder of two
FBI agents on Pine Ridge reser-
vation in South Dakota by Peltier.
Poor Bear has since revealed that

Inquiry into post office sought

eee the B.C. Federation of

- and the Vancouver and
District Labor Council last week
€d Capilano Conservative
hun: T puntington for his “witch
Cana Se € Vancouver local of the
and San Union of Postal Workers
ath ee on the Conservative
to denounce his remarks.

li Huntington, utilizing a radio hot-
ater in Vancouver, had
flushin CUPW members of
toilets © mail down -post office
Union 2 charged that the local
“radical was dominated by
that S'. Hehad also suggested
Condy, Cal elections should be
Meni 1&4 by the federal govern-
ffieg. € employer in the post

thettington’s comments came in
r ent of worsening labor
by Ons in the post office, sparked

Management’s refusal to

resolve long standing grievances
at issue since before the last set-
tlement.

“Tt is shocking that a member of
Parliament should make such
irresponsible and destructive
public statements,”’ Federation
secretary Len Guy said in a
statement following the radio
show. “Industrial relations in the
post office have been a disaster for
years as successive postmasters
general have failed to improve the
poor management in the postal
service. :

“At the present time, in the
middle of talks between the union
and management in the Vancouver
post office, talks designed to try
andclear up some of the problems,
it is inconceivable that a member
of Parliament should jeopardize
the possibility of improved
relations by political grand-
standing,” he said.

Earlier, in Ottawa, CUPW
president Joe Davidson called on
the federal government to
establish a royal commission of
inquiry into the administration of
the post office department.

At a press conference last week,
Davidson pointed out that public
criticism of the postal service was
mounting and_ noted _ that
management frustrations ‘‘are
being directed at the employees
and their union.

“The CUPW therefore, proposes
that a royal commission of inquiry
be established immediately and be
given a mandate to investigate the
practices of -post office
management in respect to the
administration of an efficient
postal service and to their conduct
concerning labor-management
relations,’’ the union leader stated
in outlining the demand.

FBI agents Wood and Price forced
her to sign the affidavit, and that,
in fact, she was 60 miles away from
the alleged crime and that she did
not know Peltier at all.

Poor Bear’s confession promp-
ted the Vancouver Labor Council
and the provincial convention of
the NDP to demand: that federal

justice minister Ron Basford order
an investigation into all evidence
submitted at the extradition
proceedings in Vancouver.

But as the new information
suggests, the Canadian authorities
— and perhaps Basford himself —
are implicated with the FBI in the

See TRAVESTY, pg. 3

Student-labor campaign
for jobs urged by NUS.

The National Union of Students,
representing almost 200,000
students on over 37 campuses in
English Canada, has decided to
make unemployment its number
one priority and will seek closer
ties with organized labor in the
fight for a massive full em-
ployment program.

Meeting May 10-14 in Charlot-
tetown, delegates to the NUS fifth
annual general meeting agreed to
single out unemployment, par-
ticularly as it affects students
seeking summer jobs and graduate
students during the summer and
fall.

The entire campaign will centre
around three demands: the
creation of a massive government
job program, the elimination of the
arbitrary _ summer _ savings

requirements under the Canada
Student Loan Plan, and most

recently, that the government
maintain, and in some regions
reduce the requirements of eight
weeks work before unemployed
persons are eligible for unem-
ployment insurance benefits.

The student representatives also
reaffirmed a lengthy motion from
the conference last fall listing a
series of demands on the govern-
ment in establishing a massive job
creation program.

Student leaders will be seeking a
meeting with prime minister
Pierre Trudeau in the near future
to discuss the employment issue.
But one of their major efforts will
be, through local student unions
and a proposed conference on
unemployment, to meet with union
leaders in efforts to establish a
national coalition to press for more
jobs.

World Peace Council president Romesh Chandra presents the Fredrick
Joliot-Curie Gold Medal of Peace to Luis Corvalan, general secretary of
the Communist Party of Chile. For a report of the World Assembly of

Builders of Peace see page 8.