PROVINCIAL
\,_\, NOTES

Peace plea
by bishops

KAMLOOPS — About 125
carolling and placard-bearing
marchers braved snow and sub-
zero temperatures to march
through the downtown area
here on Christmas Eve in a
Pause for Peace organized by a
coalition of Catholic, Presby-
terian and United churches.

Following a welcome at the
steps of city hall from Kamloops
mayor Mike Latta, who compk- |
mented the organizers for their
efforts to “‘shed some light on
this most important Christmas
theme, peace on earth,’’ the
demonstrators heard Adam Ex-
ner, Catholic bishop of Kam-
loops.

“‘We cannot celebrate this
Christmas event without think-
ing of those who do not know
peace, only suffering and op-
pression,”” he said.

““And we come here to raise |
public awareness of the terrible |
dangers of nuclear war, to pro-
test the arms race which brings
the inevitability of nuclear war
that much closer, and to plead
for disarmament.’’

Bishop Exner was followed
by John Snowden, bishop of
Cariboo, who prayed for devel-
opment of nuclear energy to
serve only peaceful ends and
pledged to continue the cam-
paign to end the arms race.
Kathy Gidora, secretary of
the Kamloops-Shuswap Peace
Council, which was invited to
_ | participate in the march, noted
that it was “‘the first time that
such a demonstration for peace,
has been organized by local
churches,’’

| IWA seeks
job action

PORT ALBERNI — Work-
ers in this Island city, hard hit by
forest industry layoffs and fac-
ing a bleak New Year, staged an
impressive demonstration
against the federal govern-

and lack of provincial employ-
ment initiatives on Dec. 21.
Signs carried by some 150
IWA members and others in a
march from the IWA hall to city
hall proclaimed their demands
— “Alberni Valley Needs
Jobs,” ‘‘We Demand Afford-
able Housing.”

At the city hall rally, sponsor-
ed by IWA Local 1-85 and Al-
Interest Rates, MP Ted Miller,
MLA Bob Skelly, Port Alberni
mayor Paul Reitsma and school
trustee Gary Swann, joined with
Local 1-85 president Earl Fox-
croft and Coalition chairman
Dave Crosby in demanding new

“High interest rates are driv-
ing people off the farm, out of
their homes, off the oceans and
out of the forests,” declared
Miller.

Skelly called for adoption.of
the NDP Savings and Trust
scheme and reactivation of the

and Swann declared that ‘‘for-
est lands should be nationalized
if the forest corporations cannot
provide a stable level of em-
ployment.”

ment’s high interest rates policy |-

Hydro must scrap
Site C, says Rush

Continued from page 1
mental groups to have the com-
mission call B.C. energy minister
Robert McClelland was also put
off. *

In a submission to the panel,
Rush charged that the Hydro’s suc-
cessful application in 1979 for a
vast increase in exports to the U.S.
“marked a sharp turn in B.C. Hy-
dro’s policy towards nothing less
than a continental energy policy
under which the major rivers of
B.C. were to be dammed and huge
areas flooded for the purpose of
creating surplus hydro energy for
export to the U.S.

“We believe, despite what repre-
sentatives of B.C. Hydro and the
government may have said, that
the application for that licence
marked a deliberate and considered
change in policy by the B.C. gov-
ernment and B.C. Hydro towards
large scale hydro developments in
the province for the purpose of ex-
panded hydro energy exports to the
U.S. in future years.

“The Site C dam, Hat Creek,
Murphy Creek, dams on the Liard,
Iskut and Stikine are all part of this
policy,”’ he said.

He cited comments by both pre-
mier Bennett and Robert Bonner
backing his contention.

“In face of these statements and
the application for a licence to the
National Energy Board .. . one
would be foolish indeed to believe
that itis not B.C. Hydro’s intention

and that of the government to — as’
Bonner said — ‘deliberately over--

build hydro projects to regularly
supply U.S. demands to surplus
power,’ ”’ he said.

“Tn the opinion of my organiza-
tion,” he emphasized, ‘“‘the appli-
cation to proceed with Site C is part
of the plan ... to deliberately

overbuild to supply future U.S. hy-.

dro needs. Under this plan, the
B.C. landscape is to be transform-
ed into huge artificial lakes created
to store water for hydro develop-
ment to power U.S. industry .. .
much as the deal on the Columbia
led to massive industrial develop-

‘ment in the U.S. northwest but did

little to create new industries and
jobs for British Columbians.”’

Both commission. counsel Reg
Gibbs and panel members ques-
tioned Rush repeatedly on the issue
of exports, challenging him to
point to ‘‘what is wrong’’ with ex-
porting power or any other re-
source.

Panel member Don Kilpatrick
noted that Manitoba, Ontario and
Quebec all export power to the
U.S. ‘‘So why not B.C.?’’ he de-
manded.

Gibbs echoed the question, ask-
ing: ‘“‘What is the difference be-
tween selling wheat, coal, iron ore
— and power?”’

Both maintained that high wage
costs would make it prohibitive to
export processed or manufactured
products, thus necessitating re-
source sellout policies.

In response, Rush told the panel:
“We believe that selling vast
amounts of natural gas, doubling
our exports of hydro power, sub-
sidizing the sale of tons of coal —
all to serve U.S. and Japanese in-
dustries — is a totally wrong
policy.”

And he posed his own question:
“Do we see the future of our coun-
try as a hewer of wood, builder of
dams and a digger of coal — or do
we see it as developing into a mo-
dern industrial country with a
broad base of manufacturing in-
dustries?”’

The Communist Party’s submis-
sion urged the B.C. Utilities Com-
mission to overhaul the rate struc-
ture to encourage conservation and
the use of alternate energy sources
such as wood waste and called for a
renegotiation of the Columbia
River to provide for the return of
downstream benefits to B.C. in the
form of hydroelectric power in-
stead of cash.

In the first half of the Columbia
River treaty, Canada gave up 4.8
million kilowatts of power — its 50
percent share of downstream bene-
fits — in return for a cash payment
of $500 million. If that were rene-
gotiated in 1994, when the treaty
comes due, Canada could get
power from the project amounting
to more than the total output of the
Hat Creek, Site C and Murphy
Creek projects combined.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

American Express:
leave it at home
if you are Indian

To get it she had to sign a re-
lease that is out of this world. It.
has to be seen to be believed.
Here is the text: 4

Losing your traveller’s che-
ques can become a harrowing
experience. The TV ads urging
you to buy traveller’s cheques
assure you that should you lose
them or be robbed, you can get
your money back the same day.
And sometimes it does turn out
that way. My son lost his che-
ques in Hawaii while on vaca-

Anne Sam residing at 581 E. _
48th Ave., Vancouver inconsid-.
eration of $1,820 lawful cur-
rency of Canada heretofore
paid tome by American Express _

Harry

Rankin

tion and received a refund the Company doherebyreleaseand |

same day. That’s good service.
But a client of mine, Evelyne
Sam, who lives in Vancouver,
’ had a different experience.
She bought $1,900 worth of

cessors Or assigns, of and from —
all manner of actions, causes of ©

of money, accounts, reckoning, —
agreements, promises, vari- ~
ences, trespasses, damages, ~
judgments, expents, executions, —
claims and demands whatso- —
ever, in law or in equity which —

American Express _traveller’s
cheques from the Bank of Nova,
Scotia on Granville Street. She
spent four $20 cheques and then
lost the balance — a total of
$1,820.

She immediately got in touch
with American Express and
went through all the necessary
steps to document her loss and
get her money back. But she was
unable to get a refund, either on
the day she applied or on suc-
ceeding days.

Unable to get anywhere with
her claim she was forced to get a
lawyer. That’s where I entered
the picture.

press Company its subsidiaries, ~
heirs and assigns, I, the said —
now have, or that my heirs, ex-

of any matter, cause the thing —

date on these presents.

Isent aletter to AmericanEx- changed orally.””_
press demanding immediate ac- Signed and witnessed Dec. |
tiononherclaim.Imadephone 21, 1981.

calls as a follow-up on the letter.
For reasons unknown to me, the
claim was referred to their Gen-
eral Counsel’s office in New

had so much trouble? —

York. I phoned New York but and white.

still could not get any results. _ Evelyne Anne Sam isa Cana-
Finally, after 21 days, she got dian native Indian.

lier refund. Need I say more?

whatsoever from the beginning |
of the world to the day of the j

“This release may not be ;

approaches to combatting infla- .
tion

B.C. Housing Corporation, -

Port Angeles, Wash.

* *

e residents of Popkum will miss Bert Padgham. Since he moved to

the little Fraser Valley community in 1947, they had come to regard

him as their unofficial mayor, the man who set the example in com-
munity work and to whom they looked for advice in their affairs. _

But his role was larger than the community in which he made his
home and the community was broader because of it. His death at the
age of 85 on Dec. 18 is equally a loss to the Communist Party of Can-
ada, of which he had been a member since its early years, to the Pacific
Tribune, to the peace movement for which he was an ardent worker,
and to the many progressive causes he actively supported.

His hatred of war and his strong socialist convictions sprang from
his experience during the First World War, in which he was severely
wounded in action, and were reinforced after his discharge by his years
as a worker aboard CPR boats on this coast. For the last part of his
working life, however, more than 20 years, he was a postal worker, first
in Vancouver, from where he was transferred to his native Winnipeg,
and then in Vancouver again from 1946 until his retirement.

The many Popkum residents attending a funeral service held in
Chilliwack Dec. 21 heard Communist provincial leader Maurice Rush
pay tribute to Bert Padgham’s work — ‘“Whenever there was work to
be done in the community he was always there, as throughout his life he
was always there in the struggle for peace and a just social order.’’

Bert Padgham is survived by his wife, Georgina; two brothers, Stan-
ley and Percy in Vancouver, and two sisters Hilda and Ida Padgham in

* * *

[ hasn’t taken long for West Vancouver citizens to suspect that they
may have been sold a false bill of goods by their council. Last fall,
aldermen made much of the money they were saving by contracting out

garbage services to Haul-Away. Now residents are complaining that
garbage collection has become erratic in many instances and has been
reduced in others.

What aldermen did not tell ratepayers when they were patting them-

selves on the back for their business acumen is that Haul-Away is the ©

Vancouver-based subsidiary of Laidlaw Transportation, one of the
monopoly corporations which control waste management in North
America. Waste management has become big business, and Laidlaw is
one of the biggest in the business, with operations in four provinces —
B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario — as well as in the states of
Utah, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

Over the past decade, the big corporations like Laidlaw, Browning-
Ferris and Tricil have been acquiring their smaller competitors. Now
they are using their monopoly position to gain control of municipal
garbage systems everywhere.

The initial approach is to offer councils a bid well below the cost of
operating a municipal system. But the private corporation is in business
to make a profit. Having secured the contract, it cuts down service,

And over a period, with each contract renewal, the price is increased, |

leaving ratepayers with higher costs for poorer services.

Waste disposal is increasingly a problem within the GVRD and in
other municipalities. The logical solution is not contracting out, but
providing modern facilities for generating heat and recycling refuse
which would both reduce costs and eliminate environmentally de-
structive landfill sites to the benefit of all citizens, :

4

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 8,1982—Page 2

“Know all men that Evelyne - |

forever discharge said Ameri- — a
can Express Company, its suc- | —

action, suits, debts, dues, sums | —

against the said American Ex- | |

Evelyne Anne Sam ever had, {| '

ecutors or administrators here- |
after can ormayhavebyreason | —

How isit that my sonhadno |
trouble and Evelyne Anne Sam |

My son is a school principal |

ma

—
PEOPLE AND ISSUES |