3 EXCLUSIVE TO PT: Pravda correspondent describes recent visit to Pacific Coast Pravda’s correspondent in Canada, Konstantin Geivandov, Tecounted for his Soviet readers mM a recent issue of the news- Paper his impressions of a visit to Vancouver last year. Geivandov accompanied the poet Voznesensky and Victor Ramzes of the Soviet Writers’ _ Union on a Canadian tour. While im Vancouver they visited the labor poet Joe Wallace, the universities where Voznesensky read his poetry to the students, pueemade a brief call at the acific Tribune office. His Pravda article describes his Visit: : clad time I visit Van- ' er it gives me particular perere: to call on the editorial S1ce of the Pacific Tribune, the mwebaper of. B.C. Com- hee Situated in a tall office ding. This time as I reached the office its small staff were at a busiest preparing the next =e for print, and everyone S engrossed in their work. The Editor Maurice Rush, aplogized to me by pointing to a heap of material in front of him and proposed that I should read the made-up pages until he finished reading a news dispatch. “The first page was almost wholly devoted to further growth of unemployment and the worsening of the working people’s living standards. In its pages the newspaper dealt with the most burning questions agitating the working people of town and province; wrote of the mass movement of industrial and office workers against the increases in rent and demanded the curbing of the landlords’ rapacious appetities. It told of the situation in the trade unions and of the battles against capital; it exposed the U.S. criminal aggression in Indochina. In short, it told the working people ‘the grim truth about life. ‘*A]] this is in striking contrast to what is taking place in the socialist countries,’ remarked M. Rush. ‘Last spring all of us followed the proceedings of the Troop replacements. Aroused Kits ‘Win on highrise issue wae past year and more Origa. citizens have had to aw to NPA aldermen and ae y Planning commission a oe incidents where their malt, and breathing space as a S aesthetic considerations ing sold out to developers. Ee ee session of council Were See The galleries ah illed with concerned @No people who were there c 0 . Protest the construction of a igh: pee Tiser along Kits beach at A Peel Avenue. Briefs ee ae ee Submissions made lesa; ese citizens would not cement : another West End ae Jungle in their area. 3 eee ended a public hearing oe ning recommendations ‘€ Blloncn further construction point, . And they won their Pp Toot of what concerned citi- Zen S can accomplish when they are aroused was handed to Cc : uncil members by the Ad Hoc pe smmittee on Rezoning in Kitsj ; tsilano in the form of petitions ' support of citizens on which were more than 4,000 names collected in three days! Peggy Chunn, on behalf of this committee, presented a brief which stressed the need for public hearings on the question and rezoning to stipulate no more high risers. Al] too often, decisions affecting all citizens of Van- couver have been made by this council based on consideration of business interests alone — completely ignoring the inter- ests of the ordinary citizens,” the brief said. ‘ “Our criticism is directed towards this council and its planning department for its short-sighted, unimaginative and _ piecemeal approach towards the overall devel- opment of our city.” Also presenting briefs at Tuesday's session were Kit- silano Area Resources Council and the Kitsilano Ratepayer’s Association, who were given the the Vancouver Tenant’s Council. » 24th CPSU Congress in Moscow. The extensive program for stren- gthening peace and raising the living standards of the popula- tion is a source of inspiration to the Canadian working class. We seek to cover regularly these questions in the pages of our newspaper. We sincerely rejoice at your successes. After all, the consolidation of the Soviet Union’s economic might is a contribution to the common struggle of the working people all over the world for peace, democracy, social progress and justice. We Canadians have something to learn from the Soviet people, something to exchange for mutual benefit.’ ” “The next day we were guests of Joe Wallace, one of Canada’s leading. poets. Joe Wallace, a long standing friend of the Soviet Union, has more than once visited our country and took pleasure from recalling his meetings with Soviet people. He enjoys tremendous popularity among his fellow countrymen, especially among the working people whose joys and sorrows, hopes and struggles are the main theme of his works. “But for almost forty years the reactionaries in Canada have been passing over in silence the poet who is known in many countries of the world. Joe Wallace is a Communist. This ‘silent boycott’ has been broken only recently thanks to the insistent efforts of the country’s progressives. “The radio and television company CBC organized an inter- view with the poet, at which his verses were read. The broadcast was a success. » «(On our visit the-poet de- scribed his many clashes with the reactionaries, both funny and sad. ‘Sad as it is,’ Wallace concluded, shaking his grey head, ‘they are still afraid of me, an old man.’ ” “Student youth in Canada are very interesting and Vancouver youth are no exception. Most of them want to live a spiritually rich life and look for ways leading to it, occasionally erring and taking up the search again. I have already visited some of the Canadian universities and every time I have noticed with satisfaction the unmistakable interest displayed by the students in the life of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries. In UBC alone more than 500 students study Russian now. “J think it was not at all sur- prising that the Soviet poet Andrei Voznesensky should have appeared in the overcrowded hall of the students union of UBC. The poetry evening at Simon Fraser university which was also attended by the Ameri- can poets L. Firlinghetti and R. Bly, as well as the Canadian poet S. Mayne, developed into a real anti-war rally. Voznesensky recited his own verses about Lenin and Mayakovsky’s ‘left march’ while Firlinghetti and Bly recited verses imbued witha sense of solidarity with the Viet- namese people and stamping with ignominy the U.S. imper- ialist aggression in Indochina. =--—twors USA.” — that’s it! and the U.S.?” By NIGEL MORGAN Announcement this week that the provincial government is launching an attack on the constitutionality of the equalization grant scheme (under which Ottawa pays out funds to the poorer or ‘‘have-not’’ provinces) not only confirms that Premier Bennett is preparing to go to the people, but that the Socreds intend to inject a strong dose of chauvinistic separatist pro-U.S. demagogy into the campaign. The declaration of war on federal government equalization payments, and. on ‘‘Ottawa’s favoritism and promotion of: Francophones’’ cannot be separated from repeated calls from leading B.C. Socred ministers for ‘‘customs union with the The attitude of B.C. Socred leaders was well defined long before the outburst this week in the Legislature in which Attorney-General Peterson is quoted as accusing Ottawa of “trying to stuff French down everybody’s throat.” However the reference of Premier Bennett to the French going to work in Ottawa as ‘‘the Quebec Mafia”’ strikes a new all-time low Certainly, if anything ever justified the use of the term “bigot” It is quite obvious that the B.C. Socreds, who have made it clear they don’t intend to play a major part in the coming federal election but incline in many areas to quietly give support to the unofficial coalition of the right headed by the Tories, are lining up their camapgin strategy. More and more openly the Bennett government is operating as the broker of the big U.S. trusts and monopoly interests. The viciously chauvinistic attacks, deliberately aimed to undermine the struggle for economic, social and political equality for Quebec, gravely endangers the unity of Canada. It also provides a handy cover-up for the fact that British Columbia (together with Alberta and Ontario among the richer provinces in terms of resource wealth) is not getting anywhere near the return it should be from provincial taxation of fabu- lously rich oil, gas, mineral, wood, extractive industries. What better way of covering up the huge concessions it has been handing out to the big corporate interests (most of them foreign-owned) than by blaming it on Ottawa? And what better way of completing the U.S. takeover of this rich resource area than by calling for ‘“‘the elimination of tariffs between Canada Labor and democratic forces in British Columbia should give a firm rebuff to the Socred ploy. Nothing could be worse than the line of some leading NDP spokesmen that “‘this is an issue between Premier Bennett and Prime Minister Trudeau.”’ For despite all the highly justified criticisms of Trudeau’s grant system and bilingualism, the Socred positions are infinitely more reactionary and dangerous. They should be firmly and sharply condemned and rejected. Large P.T.A. delegation protests education cuts By A PARENT Teacher associations and some 200 Parent-Teacher association members protested the 108 percent formula for education when they lobbied last week at the legislature. Briefs from many locals of the PTA pointed out the effects these restrictions were having on their areas. Class size was a major concern, the lack of facilities for handicapped children, and those with learning disorders. One hundred thousand children in B.C. have emotional and learning disorders (the CELDIC Report) and they are all but ignored in the educational system. _ The New Westminster PTA’s brief stressed the need to imple- ment a drug education program in the schools. There are vir- tually no facilities to treat youth involved in the drug cult and no program for rehabilitation. Coquitlam brief inquired as to the $500,000 made available under the federal-provincial bi- lingual assistance program. The district has a kindergarten to grade three French programs at all school grades 5 to 7. The school board and the PTA have requested a share of this money to help finance these special projects. Another brief called for the rescinding of Bill 3 which would limit teacher salary increases to 6.5 percent. They called it a denial of the collective bargain- ing process and raises the question ‘‘who will be next in the government wage freeze?” Education Minister Donald Brothers spoke in the legis- lature that afternoon although no representative of his office met with the delegates. He lauded his government’s efforts in drug “education” on TV, news- papers, etc., but other vital matters concerning the parents were ignored. The PTA groups all dealt with the urgency of adopting a more flexible formula for financing the basic education program. While the government talks of the spiralling cost of education in the years 1960 to 1972, we might well ask why in this same period did revenues from natural resources fall down 14.6 percent in 1960 to 10.7 percent in 1972, and we are selling vastly more ehools: and: oral -French: at <= -resourees new? = ee ae oy 7 ICAS- BACIFIE TRIBUNE_FRIBAY, FEBRUARY 25)'1972—PAGE 3