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MAURICE RUSH

—Sean Griffin photo

Forestry firms fight
over share of spoils

A fight between the major forest
Monopolies in B.C. and the smaller
companies over what share each
Should get of the province’s public-
owned forests erupted last week at
the Truck Loggers’ ASsociation
(TLA) convention meeting in
Vancouver.

Speaking at the opening session
of the association’s annual parley,
Ken Mackenzie, president of TLA,
pointed to the overwhelming
control of the province’s forest
resources by the big companies.
He said that seven firms hold all
but two of the 34 Tree Farm
Licences which have been issued in
the province, and also control 62
percent of the allowable annual cut
in Public Sustained Yield Units
(PSYUs).

The Tree Farm licences were set
up following the Sloan Royal
Commission hearing and were
known then as Forest Management
Licences. The name. was later
changed by the Socred government
alt hough they remained essentially
the same but for minor revisions.
These licences have been the
principle means by which Crown
forest lands were handed over to
monopolies such as MacMillan
Bloedel, Crown Zellerbach, B.C.
Forest Products and others. MB
holds the lion’s share of forest
lands under these licences. Under
the TFL the major forest com-
panies control 22.5 million acres of
the best forest land in B.C.

At the time the TF Ls were set up,
the government, as a concession to
the smaller forest companies, set
aside large areas of forest lands
Which were known as Public
Sustained Yield Units. The idea of
these PSYUs was that the smaller
firms could bid for the timber on

them and thereby secure the raw

Materials ‘they needed to stay in

business. :
Charging that the original

Purpose of the PSYUs had been

Violated by allowing the major

holders of Tree Farm Licences to
Mvade the PSYU areas, Mackenzie
charged that over the years the
Seven major companies in B.C.
with TFLs have been allowed to
take over control of 62 percent of
the allowable cut in the PSYUs.
In making this charge,
Mackenzie and the Truck Loggers’
Ssociation were correct in
Pointing to the fact that the major
Orest monopolies have not been
Satisfied with the lion’s share of
Public forest resources they had
been granted, but have also taken
over major control of areas set
4Side for the smaller contractor. In
Many cases, small contractors
have been forced out of business
-ause of lack of forest resources
ich have passed under the

Control of the big firms.

Defending the big forest

_ Monopolies, Calvert Knudsen,

MacMillan Bloedel’s recently
imported president from the U.S.,
defended the big companies and
his own company’s control of large
areas of public forest lands, and
challenged the demand by the
Truck Loggers for a bigger share
of these lands.

Speaking at the parley im-
mediately following Mackenzie,
who had ended his speech with the
demand that the provincial
government end the big firm’s
control of forest lands outside the
TFLs, Knudsen made it clear that
MacMillan Bloedel intends to fight
the major proposal put forward in
the recent Pearse commission
report.

The main thrust of the Pearse
report was that present forest
tenures be changed to shift a small
part of the forest lands now held by
the major companies to the
smaller companies over a period of
many years as present Tree Farm
Licences come up for renewal.

Knudsen opposed any plan that
his company, or any of the other
major companies, should be what
he called ‘‘stripped’ of timber
rights so that independent
operators may be given increased
allocations of wood. Warning the
small operators and the provincial
government that MB will fight any
attempt to take away some of the
vast public forest. lands it now
controls, Knudsen ‘said that its
“vested rights’? granted over the
years “should not be disturbed.”

Throwing a crumb to the truck
loggers Knudsen said, “‘There is a
place in the industry for firms of all
sizes. There are functions that
smaller, more flexible
organizations can perform better
than large ones.”’

While the fight between the giant
forest monopolies and the smaller
companies are of concern to the
public, the fact should be noted
that the fight is over who should
share the spoils — that is, who
should get what share of forest
lands owned by the public. On that

issue the public would support the

smaller firms.

But the major need in B,C.’s
forest industry is not how Crown
forests should be parcelled out to
the big and small companies, but
rather how the public can get the
greatest benefit out of a resource
that belongs to the people.

Only the Communist Party in
B.C. has given the answer to that
basic question. In its brief to the
Pearse commission it recom-
mended that all giveaways of
forest lands be ended and that
public agencies be set up to
manage B.C.’s forest resource
under public ownership and con-
trol. That still remains the only
long-range solution to the problems
which plague the forest industry in
B.C. ‘ e

The Socred government is acting
in direct violation of the United
Nations General Assembly
resolution on South Africa when it
allows B.C. liquor stores to carry
South African products, said
Tribune editor Maurice Rush, at a
solidarity rally in Vancouver’s
Ukrainian Hall last Sunday.

Referring to the resolution
passed by the UN _ general
assembly on Nov. 9, 1976, calling on
member states engaged in
economic collaboration and trade
with the racist regime ‘“‘to cease
forthwith any such collaboration,”’
Rush said the Socred government,
byits action is bolstering the racist
regime of South Africa.

The activities of the South
African apartheid regime touches
on the lives of Canadians more
than we realize, Rush pointed out.
Referring to the crisis in B.C.
agriculture, with many canneries
shutting down, Rush said one of the
major contributing factors to the
problems in B.C.’s fruit industry is
the importing of South African
canned peaches and apricots by
the supermarkets.

Rush charged that South Africa
can deliver a crate of canned
peaches and apricots for four
dollars less than they can be
produced in B.C. because of slave
farm labor. He pointed out that
African black farm workers are
forced to work a 12 to15 hour day at
wages one-thirtieth of that paid
white workers, and if they break
their contract they can be sent to
prison. Another form of cheap
black farm labor, said Rush, is the
prison farm system which is
operated in favor of the rich far-
mers to provide a vast pool of
cheap labor.

Calling on his listeners to step up
the boycott of South African goods,
Rush said, ‘‘when a Canadian buys
a can of South African peaches or
apricots he may find them sweet,
but it is bitter fruit for South
African workers because it helps
maintain the hated apartheid
system.”’

Rush told the rally, organized by
the Vancouver committee of the
Communist Party as part of the
worldwide week of solidarity ac-
tion against the South African
apartheid system, that South
African corporations are closely
integrated with the major
multinational corporations
operating in Canada.

He pointed to the vast holdings in
Canada of Rothman’s  In-
ternational, a South African
company which in recent years has
acquired control of most of B.C.’s
wine industry, as well as many
major beer brands and some of the
most widely sold cigarette and
tobacco products. Pointing to
Rothman’s control of Carling
O’Keefe, one of Canada’s largest
corporations, Rush said the
Canadian government should not
only support the ban on arms to
South Africa but should also pass
legislation to end all economic
relations with the racist Vorster
regime.

PORTUGAL
GREECE
EGYPT

Travel with a

recent visitor

Sat., Feb. 5, 1977
8 p.m.
4824 Dumphries St.,
Vancouver

By Donation
Refreshments

Outlining the main features of
the apartheid statutes which were
adopted as the official doctrine of
the South African government in
1948, including punishment for a
black person by fine, ten lashes or
prison for three years for sitting on
a bench in a public park which had
been set aside for white persons,
Rush said:

“The apartheid system is an
abomination. If ever there was a
system devised to prove ‘man’s
inhumanity to man’ it’s the South
African system of apartheid.”

Lashing out at the support of the
Vorster regime by the US.,
Britain, France and Israel in the
U.N., Rush said that U.S. cor-
porations control one quarter of all
foreign investments in South
Africa, and are a main pillar of
support for the South African
government. He said that it was
shameful and _ to _Israel’s

- Socred policy supports —
South African racists

everlasting disgrace that it should
be supporting the racist regime in
South Africa.

“The struggle of the South
African people is our struggle, and

“Canadians should join in the

worldwide movement to help end
apartheid and make it possible for
South Africans to build an Africa
without chains,’’ concluded Rush.

A resolution introduced by
chairman Donald Greenwell, and
unanimously adopted by the rally,
called on the Canadian govern-
ment to fully support the arms
embargo and to ban all trade with
South Africa. It also urged the
government to take action to halt
all investment in Canada by South
African corporations and to stop
Canadian companies from in-
vesting in South Africa. The
resolution pledged full support to
the boycott of all South African
goods.

Canada gave Israel
N-power, paper says

The Canadian Arab Federation
has charged that Canada is sup-
plying nuclear technology to Israel
that is being used in the
manufacture of nuclear weapons.

According to an editorial in the
Vancouver-based newspaper of the
Federation, The Arab Struggle,
Canadian money and technology is
responsible for the opening of a
new centre in the Israeli nuclear
research centre, the Weizmann
Institute. The new centre is called
the ‘“‘Canada Centre of Nuclear
Physics” and features the world’s
most advanced nuclear ac-
celerator.

The acquisition of the 14 million-

volt Pelletron ion accelerator is
said to be the first part of a three-
part program to make the Weiz-
mann Institute one of the world’s
best equipped nuclear laboratories
by 1980.

The centre was inaugurated

. November 9, 1976 at a ceremony

attended by a number of prominent
Canadians including the presidents
of the universities of Toronto and
Winnipeg, the vice-rector of
McGill, the vice-president of UBC
and the dean of the University of
Montreal who is also a member of
the Atomic Energy Commission of
Canada.

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING

COMING EVENTS

JANUARY 29 - Annual Burns Night
Banquet and Dance, Saturday,
January 29 at the Fishermens
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Banguet at 6:30, Dance at 9:00
p.m. Special Burns Night
musical program. Refresh-
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$5.00.

FEBRUARY 5 — 6:30 p.m. —
BANQUET AND DANCE at the
Russian People’s home, 600
Campbell Ave., sponsored by
FRC, everybody welcome.

NOTICE

THE TRIBUNE needs extra copies
of aback issue. The issue needed
is August 29, 1975, Volume 37,
Number 35. Any reader who may
have saved this issue of the
paper is requested to donate
their copy back to the Tribune so
that the historical records can be
completed.

COPE raffle-draw will be held at
COPE membership meeting
Sunday, February 27. Tickets
must be returned to COPE by
February 15 to be eligible for the
draw.

FREE LEGAL CLINICS: Monday
to Thursday evenings, 7-9 p.m.,
in Vancouver, Burnaby, Rich-
mond, Surrey, Langley and
North Vancouver. Clinics are
operated by UBC law students

_ with assistance of volunteer

lawyer. for people who cannot
otherwise afford legal advice.
For information phone 228-5791
or 872-0271.

NOTICE
COPE raffle-draw, Sunday,
February 27th. Tickets available
until COPE membership
meeting. February 15th.

BUSINESS PERSONALS

RON SOSTAD, Writer-Researcher.
Ph. 922-6980.

MOVING? CLEANUP — Wanted
articles for resale. All proceeds

to P.T. Phone 526-5226. “‘THE
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BOOKKEEPING and AC-

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Personal income tax $5.00 and
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SE Sk eS

CARETAKER NEEDED at
Webster’s:Corners Hall starting
April 1st, phone 255-1415 or 874-
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HALLS FOR RENT

UKRAINIAN CANADIAN
CULTURAL CENTRE — 805
East Pender St., Vancouver 4.
Available for banquets, wed-
dings, meetings. Ph. 254-3436.

WEBSTER’S CORNERS HALL —
Available for banquets,
meetings, etc. For rates: Ozzie,
325-4171 or 685-5836.

RUSSIAN PEOPLE’S HOME —
Now available for rentals. For
reservations phone 254-3430.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 28, 1977—Page 11