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- French nuclear test protest grows

letter to the French Consul
general which registered ‘‘a
very strong protest through you
to your government against the
projected atmospheric testing
by your country.”

The letter, signed by Frank
Dingman, Rosaleen Ross and
Irene Crane, said, ‘*We feel we
do not have to marshall argu-
ments against this action; rather
do we believe that it is almost
impossible in this rapidly shrink-
ing world to produce a valid
rationale for such testing.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1973

INTEGRATION BAD FOR B.C.

Vol. 34, No. 23

By NIGEL MORGAN

A dangerous scheme is afoot by power-hungry, monopoly interests in the United
States to gain control of additional B.C. powerresources, get amajor extension of the
principle of the Columbia River Treaty, and proceed with U.S. imperialism’s scheme

for ‘‘continental integration’.

As with the Columbia River
Treaty deal, Canadians stand to
lose their shirts in the propo-
sitions now under discussion.

The Columbia River deal, once
described as ‘‘one of the great-
est sellouts since the Indians
were bilked into giving away
Manhattan Island’’, provedtobe
an economic.disaster for B.C.
far in excess of the estimates of
its harshest critics.

With costs that are today calcu-
lated to haverisen $569 million
above the original cost esti-
mates of $452 million, it has left
a legacy of debt for B.C. hydro
users or taxpayers to shoulder
for the benefit of the big U.S.
trusts.

Ina telegram protesting any
extension of Columbia River
concepts, to Premier Barrett in
Victoria, the Communist
Party’s B.C. Provincial Com-
mittee declared, ‘“The people of
British Columbia want no more
of these ‘co-operative deals’
which give U.S. aluminum
plants in Washington State B.C.
power for 2.5 mills while B.C.
pulp mills have to pay more than
double that rate, and B.C. house-
holders have to pay 25 mills —
ten times as much.”

The telegram welcomed ‘‘the
idea of an ‘‘East-West power

It said, ‘‘Nuclear weapons
developed by one country
produce deadly and more
sophisticated weapons by
another country. For the peace
of the world to be secure, the
arms race must be stopped and
one place to begin is to cease
testing of all new weapons, but
most especially nuclear wea-
pons in the atmosphere, withall
the well-known disastrous con-
sequences to this and future
generations. Whatever the pre-
cautions taken, in our opinion the
risk is too great.”

grid under full Canadian control
as anurgent need and means of
providing better service at
greatly reduced costs to Cana-
dian powerusers, ’ whilecalling
on the NDP government in Vic-
toria to protect us against any
repetition of resource sur-
renders for which the previous
Socred administration became
infamous.

Grave implications are in-
volved in proposals for a North-
South hydro grid tie-in, projected
at last week’s Northwest Public
Power Association meeting in
Seattle by B.C. Hydro chief,

David Cass-Beggs. All the more '

alarming is the projection of
the new NDP-appointed Hydro
chairman, when taken along-
side the acknowledgement of

Forestry profits
P. 3

B.C. labor scene

U.S. Bonneville assistant power
manager, Hector Durocher, that
discussions on an additional
“full co-ordination agreement”’
between Washington and B.C.
Power authorities have been
quietly proceeding and could be
reaching ‘‘a definitive stage”’.

A ‘‘full co-ordination agree-
ment’’ would mean that the
power systems of U.S. Pacific
Northwest utilities and B.C.
Hydro could be interlocked and
planned together so that genera-
ting facilities on either side of
the border could be used to
service the other, and reserves
of water would be pooled for stor-
age purposes.

Fact is, of course, that the

See HYDRO, pg. 12

The six peace groups repre-
sented by the Peace Action
League are the Canadian Cam-
paign for Nuclear Disarma-
ment, Fellowship of Reconcilia-
tion, B.C. Peace Council,
Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers), Voice of Women,
Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom.

Last Wednesday, May 30, a
delegation from the B.C.
Environmental Council, which
includedrepresentatives from
wide sections of the public, pre-

sented a letter to the French
consul-general in Vancouver
expressing ‘‘alarm and out-
rage’ at France’s plan to pro-
ceed with a nuclear test in the
Pacific.

Pointing to the danger con-
tinued nuclear testing posed for
millions now living and yet
unborn, the letter condemned
nuclear weapons testing and
said, “today the key to safety
and indeed survival must surely
lie in the pursuit of peace.”

See NUCLEAR, pg. 11