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LATEST JOKE
FROM VICTORIA

By ALEX MacDONALD, MLA
Vancouver East

When you hear the latest joke from Vic-
toria you'll laugh so hard it will make you
want to cry. Anyway, why not, you willhave
to pay for it.

This expensive joke involves Big Julie
and the Socreds. Big Julie is Ian Sinclair,
chairman of the CPR, who looms like a
Caesar in our corporate world. The Socreds
you ve already met. They’re the smug
cabinet which claims to be businesslike but
keeps tripping over its own bottom lines.

Last fall, when the premier of all the
Socreds found himself up to his bottom in
the “dirty tricks” scandal, he leaped into a
helicopter to find some safe political ground
he could land on to distract the citizens. And
lo! he saw it — down there alongside False
Creek where all that messy CPR land is. The
next day at a scrambled egg breakfast with
some businessmen, the premier announced
he was going to build two glorious monu-
ments to his glorious administration — B.C.
Place and Transpo 86. They would cost
hundreds of glorious millions! Our money,
of course.

And he was so pleased to find something
to talk about that diverted attention from
his own bottom that he just couldn’t shut up.
So he rattled on with a formal commitment
to build those monuments on the 160 acres of
CPR land. Days (or was it daze?) after his
glorious speech, slapping himself on the
back, it suddenly occurred to the premier of
all the Socreds that Big Julie wasn’t at that
breakfast.

You see, these smart business types in our
cabinet had overlooked one little detail
before committing themselves to the False
Creek site. They had not even got a note
from Big Julie, whose CPR owns the land,
agreeing to sell or fixing a price for it.

That’s something like committing your-
self to buy a house without having a firm
agreement on what it will cost. Anyone who
does personal business that way must be
either a millionaire or anut. The Socreds are
behaving like both. But with our money, not
theirs.

If the cabinet has some oral agreement
with the CPR on the 160 False Creek acres it
is simply not worth the paper it isn’t written
on. For when you are dealing in land, it has
to be a written agreement or the courts can’t
read it if there’s a dispute.

Needless to say, negotiations are some-
what frantic now that the Socreds have
finally realized how they’ve boxed them-
selves into a nice lunch for Big Julie. After
making formal commitments to these pro-
jects on his land, they are about to discuss
the price with him. Remember the proud
boast that B.C. is not for sale? Well the
Socreds are about to render it unto Big Julie
in big mouthsful.

An indication of just how frantic the
Socreds are came in the new bill the govern-
ment introduced in the Legislature to allow
its B.C. Place corporation to expropriate any
land anywhere in the province. Aha, you
say, they finally got a handle on False
Creek. Well, unfortunately, again the
premier forgot just one little detail. Under
our laws, the province cannot expropriate
CPR railway lands, only the Parliament of
Canada can do that.

So what will the blundering Socreds do
now? Seize some choice acreage from other
British Columbians and offer that up as a
sacrifice to Big Julie in return for the False
Creek site? Who or what is going to be the

sacrifice? Will the Socreds offer Big Julie a

chunk of downtown Vancouver or a giant

spread in the Peace River block, with a

turkey quota thrown in? Who knows what

Big Julie will pick? Obviously the Socreds
on’t.

These 160 False Creek acres owned by the
CPR will not come cheaply. We are not
talking about thousands of dollars but
millions. The eastern half was zoned indus-
trial at the time of the early railway grants.
The western portion was designated by the
City of Vancouver a few years ago as a
“comprehensive development district” for
dense residential and commercial use. With
that kind of zoning, the CPR’s mutterings
about $500,000 an acre, or more, have to be
taken seriously. Mr. Bennett’s little joke-
offering to Big Julie may cost you and your
fellow taxpayers $80 million or more.

After all, we know that the CPR is not a
philanthropic organization. As Big Julie
would no doubt remind the premier with a
grin: “The CPR is not for sale — unless the
price is right. Really right — for the CPR!”
Especially when dealing with absent-
minded premiers ordering monuments for
themselves.

Keep posted on these most novel negotia-
tions. Because the tax man will be sending
you the bill. You can Bennett on it! Or beta
three dollar bill on it!

“ALL CORE FIRS
ARE NOT BAD”

The Editor: x

I read your story in June-July 1980 about
coke. One of your union workers stuck it on
the coke machine in one of my calls in
Squamish. I have worked for Coke for 20
years and have not had the problems you
write about. That does not mean that they
do not happen, but not here.

I would like to inform you that “Wometco
B.C. Ltd.” which is the local bottler of Coke
and Canada Dry productsis a “union shop”.
We cover Vancouver, Chilliwack, Kelowna,
Vernon, Kamloops, Penticton, and the
surrounding areas. This covers most of B.C.
and you are telling your readers to start to
boycott Coke products.

We are one of the few union soft drink
companies in any of these areas serviced by
us. Yet our competitor who is “‘strong
non-union” has their products in union
shops and now you put another nail in our
coffin in the fight for the soft drink market.

We have been in the Teamster Local 351
for 10 years now. But it is still a fight for
union business, thanks to stories like yours.

Iam not a boss or management for Coke. I
am a union worker Card #10021, Local #351.

George Stainton
9068 Nash

Fort Langley, B.C.
888-7197

P.S. I wish you would let your readers
know that all Coke companies are not as bad
as you write about. Since B.C. is a strong
union province, a story like yours could hurt
my sales in Squamish and Pemberton and
why should a union person suffer for this? If
all the unions in B.C. would drink only our
Coke and Canada Dry products we make, we
would get more sales and could hire more
union staff.

Editor’s note:

It was not our intention to malign
employees of the Coca-Cola Company
or to suggest that they were aware or
agreed with the brutal tactics em-
ployed by the Company’s management
irs Guatemala. Our purpose in publish-
ing the article was to support the
labour movement’s call for a world-

wide boycott of the Coca-Cola Com-
pany to force a management change in
Guatemala. We are pleased to report
that the threat of a world-wide boycott
of Coca-Cola products was sufficient to
have the Company promise a clean
sweep of its Guatemalan management
and to allow its employees to join a
union of their own choice.

LEONA PLOTNIKOFF

ROBERT RISSO

BURSARY
WINNERS

Winners of Local 1-423 IWA’s $500 Union
Bursaries for 1980-81, were Miss Leona
Plotnikoff, whose father is a member at
Pope & Talbot Ltd., Grand Forks Division,
and Robert Risso, whose father is a member
at Revelstoke Home Improvement Centre,
Kelowna.

Leona will be attending David Thompson
University Centre, Nelson, B.C. to obtain a
Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree.

Robert will be attending Okanagan Col-

lege in Kelowna, to obtain a degree in
Business Administration.

Lumber Worker/September, 1980/7