work bolicies BOW pepcars that under the aa ot the agreement with ; »,S:, Canada may not even 65 percent of the con- Ction jobs on the Canadian 10n of the pipeline because - Tge amount of the steel pi .. imported. And once the file is built it will provide 80 permanent B.C. jobs do nothing to expand the homy. That’s a pretty poor Sain considering that in urn we will be giving the .% Corridor through the vince which will collect - and Alberta natural gas ' ©Xport to the U.S. }testrict the economy, new ies are needed which will homy. Not retrenchment, an expanding economy is at is needed fo put people tt work. The Communist Y has advocated new Nomic policies which Ong other things will in- Se the purchasing power of people, curb ‘the big and the Canadian and B.C. ~ compel them to invest in modernizing and expanding processing in Canada. _ Measures such as the above, proposed by the Communist Party, should go hand in hand with steps to halt the massive giveaway of B.C. resources and action to turn B.C.’s economy towards manufac- turing and processing. Every year tens of thousands of jobs are exported along with our raw materials. The fact that B.C.’s unemployment rate is traditionally higher than the national average is due to the raw material nature of B.C.’s economy, which leaves the province vulnerable to world economic downturns. We need to build a steel in- dustry and copper smelting -industry in B.C. which would use our iron ore, coal and copper ore to build a new in- dustrial base for B.C. to provide tens of thousands of new permanent jobs. We need . to step the sellout of our energy resources and place them under public ownership. Policies should include a program of low-cost housing, } lower interest ia r yr b le rates, a start pon urban transit, a shorter , Work week, increased pen- Sions and tax cuts for lower # Income groups. HP oPolies and launch major h ‘0 ty building projects which ‘ Dai Set the economy rolling gf Such Policies should include housing, lower interest ans! a start on an urban fiat Program in: Canadian 4 S including Vancouver, a ten, Work week with no ff “ction in take home pay, fased pensions for senior tut inet other pensioners, “Aid die ucome tax for low and “kre € income groups and a 50 ty ut cut in the B.C. sales lerche building of a Canadian 1 Oe marine, a halt to tkeover and govern L over o Y shut Bore aS ants threatene Alon tic § with that should go eS Controls on food and the gh ontials and a rollback Htenpiprices and utility rates, Kempe of rent controls, ibrjcetion for B.C. steel Aw {ling plants from the dep ray public ownership of org an natural resources con, ae _development of wim °-¥ industries. me “help finance such a ssid there should be a 50 Nt cutback in Canada’s it ogram, and legislation Wie bi the export of capital by ee . pu 8 corporations, and ohs°Pped up program of low— The major obstacle that stands in the way of processing raw materials in B.C. is the domination of the source in- dustries by the giant multinational corporations. At the present time the main decisions affecting B.C. workers are made by the head offices of these corporations — in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Georgia, or Toronto and Montreal. That is why the ‘Communist Party at its recent convention in Vancouver called for nationalization of these companies and for a new economic policy which would stop the plunder of B.C. resources. The only way the people of B.C. can restore control over _ their economy and be masters in their own province, is through public ownership of these companies. In calling the Citizens Lobby for Jobs to coincide with the opening of the spring session of legislature the B.C. Federation of Labor has rendered a great service to the people of B.C. The Lobby demonstrates that ‘unemployment is the number ~ one priority facing the coming legislative session, and it also ee notice that B.C.’s MLAs cannot escape their respon- sibility to take action to get B.C.’s economy rolling again. CANADA‘S 89-CENT DOLLAR... . a product of Ottawa's policies. Canada’s battered dollar an Ottawa-made product By EMIL BJARNASON What makes the Canadian dollar worth only 89 cents? In particular, what makes it drop to that level when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that for three consecutive years Canada had the highest growth rate and one of the lowest inflation rates among the seven leading capitalist countries? Partly this is the result of Canadian government policy, and partly of the speculative activities of multinational corporations. The present malady of our currency has its roots in government policy of recent years, in particular, the Trudeau ‘‘anti-inflation’’ policy. To understand this, one must recall that in the early 1970’s, when the capitalist world was struck by simultaneous monetary, energy, raw materials and cyclical crises, Canada was unique among the developed capitalist countries in that its fuel and raw mate rial resources made it the beneficiary, rather than the victim, of booming energy and raw material prices. When roduction and income were alling sharply in all of the other capitalist countries, they were holding their own or even increasing in Canada. As of 1975 the average price of Canadian exports was 79 percent above 1971, while our import prices were up by 60 recent and consumer prices yy 44 percent. The steep in- crease in export prices, ef- fecting 25 percent of the total economy, and about half its material output, gave rise to a strong inflationary upsurge. At the same time, the fact that import prices had risen less that export prices tended to increase the volume of imports and create balance of payments problems. But what upset the govern- ment most in the 1974-75 period was the fact that wage rates were rising somewhat more than the cost of living and considerably more than they had done in previous years. Fearing a fall in the rate of profit, and therefore in- vestment, and a rise in labor costs which supposedly would make our goods_ un- competitive, the Trudeau government brought down its wage control program, with rigorous controls on wages and little control on anything else. However the brighter minds in government realize that wages are not the cause of inflation and wage control is not its cure. To moderate the inflation rate, more drastic measures were required. These took the form of monetary. policy: throughout 1976, Canadian interest rates were maintained at levels high enough to attract large amounts of foreign capital, and therefore a high demand for the Canadian dollar. The fact that the Canadian dollar rose to $1.04in terms of U.S. money, meant that we were able to buy U.S. imports more cheaply. In fact, the price of imported goods — accounting for about half of our material con- sumption — did not rise at all during 1976. This, not wage control, caused the inflation rate to drop to 6 percent that year. But that small victory for Trudeau’s policy was bought at a terrible price. On the one hand, the huge volume of foreign money brought in at high interest rates automatically necessitated correspondingly high outflows of repayments and _ interest, creating a balance of EMIL BJARNASON .. . analyzes dollar crisis. payments crisis. On the other hand, the overvalued dollar made our exports expensive and uncompetitive. Trudeau had only one way to deal with such a problem, ie. to reverse the eats Throughout ate the dollar was allowed to all. The devaluation of the dollar has several objectives. First, it makes imported goods relatively costly and should lead to a fall in their volume. Next, it reduces the cost to foreign markets of our exports, and should cause. their: volume: to rise. Finally, it may be* -expected to cut the real value of Canadian wages and raise the rate of exploitation. The final, savage, round of the wage control program is holding wage increases this year to six percent for most bargaining units and to four percent for many. At the same time, the inflationary con- sequences of the devalued dollar will likely lead to a nine or ten percent rise in living costs, and therefore to a drop of four or five percent in real wages. That, after all, was the ob- ject of the whole ‘‘anti- inflation’ exercise, which now finally achieves its purpose, by means of renewed inflation. As long as for political reasons, the government found it necessary to match wage control with a reduced inflation rate, noting was gained. If we take official statistics at face value, the rate of price in- creases-fell more in 1976 that the rate of wage increases, and, from the government’s point of view, nothing was gained. In 1977, price increases and wage increases were equal, and therefore real wages remained unchanged. But in 1978, with wage in- creases further reduced and price increases accelerating, real wages at long last are falling rapidly. The stage is set for an upsurge of profits. om the logic of capitalism, no doubt the prospect of high profits promises relative prosper of usiness. Unfortunately it comes at a time of renewed recession in the international economy. At best, therefore, it will be another ripple in an unstable system. Canadian . PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 24, 1978—Page 7