FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1969

_ FIRST RISING TIDE POWER STATION. Of particular interest to the people of B.C. will be this photo of the first
tising tide power station in the Soviet Union, Built in the Murmansk district to develop power from the tide, it
is dn experimental station being a model for future ones to be erected at the shores of the Barents and Beloye
seas.

Forestry policy change
urged by truck loggers

The foreign takeover of
B.C.’s forest industry and
Socred forestry policies
Came under sharp fire at
the Truck Loggers
Association, which met in

_ Vancouver last week. The
_ association represents the

small and middle logging
companies in B.C.

Speaking at the convention,

‘and later in statements to the

press, John Drenka, president,
Said:

“At one time there was
justification to warrant a govern-

_ ment policy that offered timber

allocations as an incentive to

___ attract foreign investors. We

think it is no longer appropriate

“While foreign capital is
essential and even desirable
under particular circum-
stances, great care must be
taken to ensure that such
investment in our resources
development does not result in
foreign control of our natural
resources.”

Pointing out that many
countries accept foreign capital
but few allow it to come in and
take control of industries,
Drenka made it clear that he
was referring particularly to
U.S. and Japanese capital. He
told the delegates the provincial
government should stop sending
missions abroad ‘‘to lead new

investors by the hand and offer
them timber concessions.”’

Drenka said later in a press
interview that capital will come
to B.C. without the incentive of
timber tracts providing wood in
perpetuity for pulp and paper
mills and sawmills.

Under present forestry
legislation most of the
province's timber resources
have been handed over to a few
big monopolies, mostly U.S. and
Japanese, in perpetuity through
forest licences. This has
resulted in the freezing out of
smaller B.C. and Canadian
forest companies, and has led to
a high degree of monopoly
control of B.C.’s number one

See Socred, pg. 2

Pacific Tribune

VOL. 30, NO. 4

10c

Thousands wait at
many B.C. centres

By MAURICE RUSH

The shortage of hospital facilities in B.C. has
reached grave proportions with thousands of needy
people, some of them critical, unable to get a hospital -
bed and proper medical attention. Yet in the midst of
this serious situation the Socred government has
indicated it will refuse higher grants to hospitals.

A national survey recently
conducted shows that Victoria
has the worst hospital bed
shortage in Canada, and that
Vancouver is not much better

The survey of 60° major
Canadian hospitals indicates
Victoria has the longest waiting
periods and the third highest
waiting lists per capita of any
Canadian city.

Vancouver has the eighth
highest waiting list per capita of
20 cities on the survey list.

Dr. Scott Wallace, a director
of the B.C. Medical Association
and an alderman in Oak Bay,
said non-emergency patients in
Victoria have to wait as long as
10 months to get into hospital. He
said one of his elderly patients
with pneumonia died recently
while waiting to get into
hospital. ‘‘She had been waiting
a week,’’ he said. ‘If she had

TRUDEAU'S

CAT & MOUSE
GAME ON

FOREIGN
POLICY

- See pg. 3

been able to get in right away,
the outcome might have been

different.”

Dr. Wallace said that waits of
three to four months are
common.

The national survey of hospital
services was done for the
Victoria District Hospitals
Planning Council, and indicates
that an average 3,218 Victorians
are waiting for one of the 1,000
beds in the Greater Victoria area
which has a population of about
185,000. This equals 17.5 people
per 1,000 population.

ke

The survey says an average
3,634 Vancouver people are on
waiting lists for beds here, or
four per 1,000 population.
Greater Vancouver has a
population of about 850,000.

Only Kingston, Ont., and
Regina, Sask., have higher per
capita waiting lists than
Victoria, says the survey.

Dr. Wallace said that the
condition of patients frequently
deteriorates so much during long
waits that when they finally get a
bed, they have to stay in hospital
far longer than would otherwise
be necessary — making the bed
shortage even worse,

In the last civic election in
Vancouver, in December, Dr.
Harry Winrob, COPE
aldermanic candidate, charged
that the shortage of hospital beds
at the Vancouver General

Hospital was ‘‘a constant
nightmare’”’ for patients and
doctors. He said it was not

unusual for up to fourty people to

be lying around the VGH

emergency ward waiting for a
See HOSPITAL, pg. 11