EDITORIAL

The Vancouver Sun poll which showed that
two-thirds of all British Columbians support
land claims negotiations over Lyell Island,
should convince the Social Credit government,
which always studies the polls, that it can no
longer follows its racist policy of seeking to
divide the province against the Haidas. Now it
must deal with the real issue: the settlement of
__ Ever since it came into office, the Bennett
government has adamantly refused to recog-
nize aboriginal land claims because such a pol-

'__ icy facilitated the government’s and corporate

efforts to sell the province’s rich resources to the
forest and mining multinationals.
__ The Haidas have filed a land claim on the
_ Queen Charlottes — a claim accepted as legit-
imate by the federal government — but the
_ Socred government continues in its refusal to
_ recognize even the fact of aboriginal title. When
the Haidas took the only course left open to
_ them to stop the logging, Victoria responded
with court injunctions and arrests. Now there is
the threat of severe jail sentences for contempt as
well as a court motion that would abridge civil
liberties by allowing police to seek a commit-
ment from all those travelling to Lyell Island
not to interfere with logging.

Since Oct. 30, there have been a total of 72
arrests on Lyell Island. Ten people have been
cited in B.C. Supreme Court for criminal con-
tempt and face possible six-month jail senten-

_ ees: Burnaby NDP MP Svend Robinson has
_ also been named in the government’s applica-
ton and could also face a contempt citation
when his case is heard later this year.
But the Haidas are not alone in their just
struggle. Environmentalists have rallied to their

"cause, pointing to the need to preserve the

South Moresby area for the Haidas who
depend on it for their future. The labor move-
ment last week forcefully demonstrated its sup-
port for the Haidas at the B.C. Fedreation of
Labor convention. During debate on the
_ motion backing Native rights, delegates noted

that the Haidas were taking a stand, not only

: Talks, not chain saws

for settlement of their land claim, but also for
proper management and utilization of the
forest resource in the interests of all British
Columbians, not just the resource companies.

The Anglican and United churches have
given their moral and financial support and
have added their voices to the call for negotia-
tions. And last month, B.C. Communist Party
leader Maurice Rush called on the Social Credit
government to halt the logging, drop the
charges and sit down to negotiate a just settle-
ment of the claim.

That is the demand that must be addressed
by Victoria — now.

The Bennett government must end its puni-
tive legal attack against the Haidas and do what
it should have done a long time ago: accept that
in B.C. aboriginal rights have never been
extinguished by treaty; recognize that aborigi-
nal title does exist; and having recognized that,
sit down and negotiate a fair and equitable
settlement.

Nor can anyone accept Attorney-General
Brian Smith’s cynical evasion that there can be
no negotiations while the matter is before the
courts. The government created the situation
by its total refusal to recognize the land claims
issue and by its further refusal to accept federal
mediation. Just as Bennett must bear total
responsibility for the circumstances that have
come about, so too must he take immediate
steps to resolve the dispute.

There can be no more evasions, excuses or
appeals to racism to divide opinion against
Native rights — and certainly pressure from
the federal government could help ensure that.
This is not an issue for Native people alone, as
many in the labor movement and elsewhere
have already realized. It is an issue which
involves all Canadians and the demand should
be echoed across the province and across the
country for negotiations to be initiated without
delay. ;

It is time to stop the chain saws and start the
talks.

Se

The Bank of Montreal’s after-tax profit for the year ended Oct.
is shown as $339.2-million. That’s up from $283.4-million a yet
earlier. Actually, the bank had arranged a fairly safe cushion
case of bad loans. If you add what was saved when bad loai
didn’t materialize, profit was $391-million.

a sti

— TRIBUNE

Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK

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ost of the applause was for the star
attraction — labor historian and
analyst Ben Swankey. But nonetheless, the
80-odd B.C. Federation of Labor conven-

People and Issues

death of Anne Belenkaya provides us with —
a link to the past and, possibly, hope for
the future.

_ Anne, who passed away recently, was

tion delegates who attended the Commu-
nist Party labor committee’s dinner Nov.
| 27 saved some of the accolades for two of
_ their colleagues who are soon leaving their
active full-time involvement in B.C.’s
labor movement.

The International Woodworker’s Nick
__ | Chernoff, and Harry Greene of the Cana-

dian Union of Public Employees, are

packing it in next year after some four”
decades, each working and fighting for the

cause of the provinces’ working class. And

at the special dinner the CP labor commit-

tee puts on each year for B.C. Fed dele-

gates, there was brief but hearty. applause

for the two retiring labor veterans.

For Nick, life in the woods began in
1943 when he came to B.C. from his home
| in Saskatchewan. He soon became a
= member of the IWA after starting work
for MacMillan Bloedel’s forerunner,
| Bloedel, Stewart and Welch.
| Nick spent the first 10 years moving up

and down the coast of Vancouver Island,
in several work camps represented var-
iously by the union’s locals 71 and 85. In

River, taking up membership in IWA
Local 363.
A veteran of the 1946 strike at Franklin
| River, Nick says he was chairman of
_ “practically every camp” he was in. He
was elected secretary of the Campbell

1953, he married and moved to Campbell —

River, Courtenay and District Labor
Council in the late Sixties, a position he
has held almost without interruption —
except for one year as council president —
until the present. Nick was chair of the
Menzies Bay camp, a position he held for
20 years.

Having been involved in numerous
labor disputes — at one time, he acquired
the handle of “‘Walk-off Chernoff —
Nick says he learned, over the year, that
the “key to effective trade unionism is
good leadership.” His militant trade union-
ism has been coupled with a strong politi-
cal commitment, as a member of the
Communist Party, which he joined in the
early Fifties, “right in the midst of the
Cold War.”

Nick, who has attended almost every
B.C. Fed convention in the last 20 years,
retires from his job as grapple yard opera-
tor Mar. 1.

Harry Greene also started out in the
woods, as an IWA member following his
release from the army in 1945.

Harry served as job steward in his
camp, from 1945 until 1948 when the split
between the “reds and whites” in the IWA

- occurred and he left the union to join the

ill-fated Woodworkers Industrial Union
of Canada. He was back in the [WA a year
later, on staff to successfully reorganize

‘Local 71.

Harry stayed with the IWA until forced
to leave in 1954, having been “hit with the
red paint brush” and effectively black-
listed from working in B.C. camps. He
finally landed a job with the City of North
Vancouver in 1957, and has been with the
city ever since.

Joining the old National Union of Pub-
lic Employees, Harry became immediately
active in his local, and was later to take
part in the merger with the Union of Pub-
lic Service Employees which led to the
founding of CUPE.

For the past 28 years he has served on
his local’s executive — for several of those
years up to the present he has been
president — and has been both a national
officer and an executive member of the
B.C. Division, including terms as presi-
dent. He has attended every national and
divisional convention of CUPE.

While he has never held a full-time posi- —

tion in CUPE, Harry has been a delegate
to the B.C. Fed convention ever since
CUPE’s affiliation, and a delegate to the
Vancouver and District Labor Council for

_ Several years. He retires next summer.

* o* *

AS obituary is necessarily sombre.
Yet, with the renewed emphasis on

organizing garment workers, notice of the

involved all her working life in organizing
and working in the needle trades. Born in —
Novo Sibkov, Russia, in 1907, shecameto —
Canada in 1926 and settled in Edmonton, |
where at age 19 she became a member of
the United Garment Workers. an

_ In 1930 she was in Winnipeg where she
aided in the organizing drive carried out
by the Industrial Union of Needle Trades
Workers. She was at that point a member
of the Young Communist League.

Anne again became a member of the
United Garment Workers when she
moved to Vancouver in 1937 and worked
at the Gault mill. In 1946 she began work
at Aero Garment, becoming a shop stew-
ard in the Amalgamated Needle Trades
Workers. She retired from the company in
1972.

Anne was a long-time member of the
Communist Party, in the former Broad-
way club. In later years she visited, on a
daily basis until shortly before her death,
with her sister Rose, and her brother-in-
law, former Tribune editor Tom McEwen,
at the Banfield Pavilion of the Vancouver
General hospital. Her nephew Ron
McEwen reports she won praise from hos-
pital staff for the volunteer care she gave to
other patients on the ward.

4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 4, 1985