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Burnaby Labor
on BCA slate

Labor in Burnaby is backing
a BCA slate which includes two
well-known trade unionists,
Fred Randall and Tom
Constable, as well as Jim Dailly,
popular incumbent and Andy
Blair. Gwen Dowding and the
present mayor, Bob Prittie,
complete the slate of candidates.

The election is to be held
December 11.

' The BCA is campaigning on a

platform which includes the
construction of a Senior
Recreation Centre; new
swimming pool and an ice rink,
the continuation of a program to
provide low cost housing, and the
extension of Burnaby Lake and
other park extensions.

Burnaby recently applied for
and is approved for a winter
works program under which
employment will be provided
for a number of people in
improvements to the commun
ity.

One of the most important
planks in the B.C.A. platform to
which all candidates are
committed is the fight for the
removal of welfare costs from
local taxpayers. They are also
pledged to fight for stronger anti-
pollution by-laws.

Campaigning for school board
posts on the B.C.A: ticket are

~ Joan Johnson and Mauritz Mann.

oll

‘Winter work’ program
earmarked for ‘defence’

Big headlines in the daily press
announced this week that B.C. is
to receive $2.9 million for
defence projects. This is part of
the federal government’s $80
million ‘‘winter works”’
program, of which one-fourth is
to be spent on military installa-
tions in Canada.

Such a program is the last
thing the Canadian people need
at this moment. While low-
income groups in every major
city and town in B.C. are living
in inadequate quarters paying
rents far behond their means, it
is stated that 700 homes at Esqui-
malt base are to be - “reno
vated.’’ At the same time new
homes, presumably for an
expanded army, are to be built at
Chilliwack and at the air force
base at Comox.

The spectacle of government
spending for an expanded
military establishment when
the need for low-cost housing is
so imperative angers every
thinking person. While
progressive nations around the
world seek to reduce armaments
and military expenditures, the
Canadian government expands
theirs.

The military ‘‘housing’’
gimmick is obviously a ploy to
make the whole thing more
palatable to the taxpayer. But a
reading of the story out of
Ottawa shows the program is a
long way from being a ‘‘housing”’

program to create jobs for the
unemployed.

Why the largest expenditure
for the Canadian Forces base at
Valcartier, Quebec? Is the
expansion of the military there
for the purpose of ‘‘defence”’
against some unnamed vision-
ary enemy, or for the purpose of
‘‘offence’’ in case of crisis in
that province?

AUTHORITY
Con’t from pg. 1

resources (!) and, in the years
ahead, to do more processing of
them at home’’ will scarcely
bear fruit if the Social Credit
government, the Draesekes, the
Rathies et al are left to do the
planning. They have had their
chance and so far as labor is
concerned, they have muffed it.

When Premier Kosygin was in
Vancouver last month he said
Vancouver was Canada’s
window through which she looks
out at the Soviet Union and the
countries of Asia, Latin America
America and the entire Pacific
area. Certainly there is a vast
wide world out there beyond Van-
couver. The working people of
Canada and particularly B.C.
are demanding now that goods
manufactured through their
skills and those of the people of
many new trading partner
nations pass through the Port of
Vancouver in peaceful proces
sion.

Union faces layoffs,
at M-B Island operations

The Menzies Bay Bulletin
issued last week reports further
developments in the continuing
struggle of fallers on the Island
with MacMillan-Bloedel. The
IWA newsletter points. out the
union dropped the attempt to
acquire an interim injunction
against the company on the
understanding that Mac-Bloe
would resume falling operations
on November 15 with the full
complement of falling crews.

The full crew was not brought
back at the- Eve River opera-
tion. Only four out of fourteen
were returned. Then two of this
number were fired because they
had gone home one day on
account of the wind hazard.

Meanwhile, at Kelsey Bay, the
scalers were ordered not to scale
felled timber that was not
Sibemicnr Soran serirn en tener ee er barter eee]

OBITUARY

‘OSL tena meaererem ae eng seamen mene eas
Richard Buchanan, 4252 Eton
Street. North Burnaby. died on
November 19 after a brief
illness. All his vears after he left
his native Scotland were devoted
to the working class movement.

He was in active service
during the First World War as a
despatch rider in France.

He was a commercial sign
painter by trade and belonged to
the Painters Union up until his
retirement a few years ago.

‘Dick’, as he was known by his
many friends, was a staunch
supporter of the Pacific Tribune
and a faithful subscriber to the
end of his days.

He will be sadly missed by his
relatives and friends.

numbered. The numbering of
trees has not been practised for
several years and is a matter for
negotiation along with new
bucking specifications which
are an additional work load.
When the fallers plugged their
work area with unscaled timber
they could not continue their
normal work and went home.

The Bulletin says the union
cannot permit the firing of
fallers at Kelsey Bay and Eve
River. If the Company posts
these falling jobs any member
applying for the jobs of the fired
loggers are, under the circum-
stanees, scabbing.

A last minute Flash in the
loggers bulletin reports that
approximately 350 men were
idle as a result of a dispute over
the rates for tension skidder
crews at the Franklin River
operation of MacMillan Bloedel.

The crew was not satisfied
with the rate offered and put up a
picket line. The company then
ordered the Camp Chairman to
order the crew to cross the
picket line. He refused to do this
so the company fired the camp
chairman and vice-chairman.
The entire crew then refused to

go to work.
. * * *

Junior clerks in the York
Farms division of Canada
Packers get as little as an
average $66 per week pay. says
the business agent of the Office
and Technical Employees
Union, Bill Swanson.

The pay scale is set by a com-
pany which in the fiscal year

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1971—*PAGE 12

firings

ending in March, 1971 declared
net earnings of $9,500,000.

Twenty employees were cer-
tified as the bargaining unit last
summer, and are asking for a
pay raise for the junior clerks to
$90 a week, and from $110 to $145
for senior staff who now receive
only $70 to $80 a week.

York Farms at Chilliwack is
just one of Canada Packers
plants in the province. If
employees there have to go on
strike to back their wage
demands, picket lines will be set
up at all the others. The Van-
couver operation of Canada
Packers is situated on Terminal

Avenue.
* * *

An 11-year-old boy playing
with a .22 calibre rifle is alleged
to have been the sniper who shot
a bullet into the bedroom of the
home of Ed Huhn, president of
the International Pulp and
Paper Union in Kitimat last
Friday.

Played up in the press and
media as an offshoot of the juris-
dictional dispute in Kitimat
between the pulp union and the
International Longshoremen and
Warehouse Workers Union, the
unsubstantiated story created
more hard feeling and feuding

between the two unions. :
It was not until Tuesday. four

days later, the press got around
to admitting that the juris-
dictional dispute between the
two unions had absolutely
nothing to do with the shooting
incident.

There is probably a lesson here
for anyone who wants to learn it.

‘Don't think of yourself as a victim of economic policy. Think
of yourself as a hero of the war on inflation.’

——

Bengla Desh—a tragedy
requiring more than food

By RUTH DOHERTY

It was apparent from the
interest shown and the questions
asked by 100 people who attended
a B.C. Council meeting in the
library auditorium on Monday
evening that the situation in
Pakistan is a topical one.

The speaker, Dr. A. M. Kahn,
gave an eye-witness account of
the carnage in Bengla Desh. He
was there at the time and saw
the build-up of troops and was
involved, when, without
warning, the shooting began.

“It is difficult to comprehend
the extent of the tragedy that has
fallen on the people of Bengla
Desh,”’ he said. Over a million
people were slaughtered when
the troops moved, village by
village, house by house, through
the country. Three million fled

- immediately across the border
into India and, to the extent of
their limited resources, India fed

and cared for them — this was:

their crime in the eyes of the
military government of
Pakistan. Since then refugees
‘have poured in until there are
now 10 million hungry, homeless
Benalis in India.

Dr. Kahn went on to describe
the historical background to the
tragedy from the time before
British occupation through 1941
when India won her inde-
pendence, and East and West
Pakistan were arbitrarily
joined on the slender pretext of a
common religion.

Since that time, the East has
provided exports, principally

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Tickets — $7 each Pensioners $5 each

For Reservations Phone: 684-1451: 685-5288:
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jute, on which the relative pros
perity of the West depended,
while at the same time remall-
ing a virtual colony of West
Pakistan. There were 10
Bengalis in the army, very feW
in the civil service and they ha
no effective political repre
sentation.

When an election was finally
called in response to increasing
unrest, we all know the results—
a complete victory for autonomy

and what amounted to a con”

trolling majority of seats in the
central government. This was 9
course not acceptable an

negotiations were undertake?,
apparently to gain time for plans

already underway to be put into

action. .

‘Pakistan was indebted to the
western powers, including
Canada, for $8 billion in military
hardware and the government
of Pakistan must assure 1t8
creditors that control of the

security for these credits,

namely East Pakistan, wa
firmly in its hands, even to the

extent of depopulating the area.

No one condemns this, but India
is being asked to show restraint.
No country has offered political
asylum to any of the refugees
although requests have bee?
made, Dr. Kahn said.

The speaker could see
solution short of independence

for Bengla Desh. The merchants _

will have to write off their loans

— it would have been better, by? —

stroke of the pen, to have done}

in the first place. Will they do it? ey
Celebrate

NEW YEAR’S EVE FROLIC
* DANCE * SMORGASBORD * FAVORS

FISHERMEN’S HALL

138 E. Cordova

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