Doctors who want
to kill medicare

The provincial government
has offered doctors a 40 percent
increase over two years. This is
not only reasonable, it is more
than generous. It is a lot more
than the wage increases being
negotiated in most union con-
tracts.

The average income for doc-

they wait in line for emergency
treatment.

In spite of the fact that a bill -
has been introduced into the leg-
islature to outlaw extra billing,
some doctors have already start-
ed to extra-bill. What arro-
gance! I hope that premier Ben-
nett meant it when he said in

Harry
Rankin

tors last year was $64,000. The
two increases provided in the
first year of the new agreement
would give them an additional
$14,272 for a total of $78,272.
The increase in the second year
would add another $10,958, br-
inging their average annnual sal-

“ary up to $89,230. What more
do doctors want? The stand of
some leaders of the B.C. Medi-
cal Association (BCMA) seems
to be that no matter what the
government offers, it isn’t
enough. It’s time to ask a very
direct question of these leaders
of the BCMA. What do you
really want? What are you really
after?

The answer to these questions
is obvious. They want to destroy
medicare. That is their object-
ive. Making unrealistic and im-
possible demands and rejecting
every government offer is for
them only the means to this end. °
With this kind of right-wing
philosophy, akin to that of Nix-
on and Reagan, it isn’t surpris-
ing to see some of the leaders of
the BCMA advocating that their
members engage in ‘“‘dirty
tricks” campaigns including a
refusal to do minor surgery in
doctors’ offices and sending all
of these cases to emergency at
hospitals. This would really
gum the works and cause a lot of
people to suffer needlessly while

Kamloops on May 11 that, ‘“We
will be proceeding with a bill to
ban extra-billing in this province
. . . balance billing is not going
to be part of any medical system
in this province. ”* It’s time cer--
tain right- -wing leaders of the —
BCMA got wise to the fact that
their tactics and demands have
alienated the citizens of this pro-
vince and brought discredit to a
worthy profession.

In fairness to the 3,700 doc-
tors in this province, it should be
said that an increasing number
of them not only oppose the cal-
lous and stupid actions of their
leaders, but are beginning to
speak out publicly against them.
They are willing to accept the
government offer. They do not
intend to engage in extra-billing.
They are not opposed to medi-
care and they want it to con-
tinue. How big this group is I
don’t know, but they deserve
public support for their pro-
gressive stand.

As for those who intend to
opt out of medicare, let them
go, we don’t need them. But it
should also be made clear that if
they opt out, they can no longer
use our hospitals and the equip-
ment in those hospitals, which
they use free of charge and
which are subsidized by the
public.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
Kamloops: the election th

‘should not have been lost

Special to the Tribune
KAMLOOPS — It was a slick,
well greased Social Credit machine
which held on to Kamloops for the
government in the May 14 byelec-
tion, but the outcome was not a

vindication for the Socreds.
Instead of gaining support the

~ Socreds lost support, slipping six

percentage points from the 1979
election to 45 percent of the vote.
That the Socreds did not- lose
Kamloops, as they should have, is
attributable to two main factors.
First, the Socreds owe a vote of
thanks to right wirig alderman and
returning officer Patricia Wallace
for making the decision not to con-
duct a proper enumeration of vot-
ers with the result that 8,000 fewer
votes were cast than in 1979. After
the Socred government called the

byelection, there were eight days to

get on the voters’ list. The thou-
‘sands who were disenfranchised:in
the process almost certainly would
have decided the election different-
ly.

But second, and more import-
ant, was the failure of the New
Democratic Party to exploit the
widespread. feeling for change
which existed and mobilize a ma-
jority behind their candidate
Howard Dack.

Kenna Cartwright, Dack’s cam-

-paign manager, said that NDP

leader Dave Barrett had phoned
from New Zealand and accepted
“personal responsibility” for the
defeat. And so he should. -

It was Barrett who mastermind-
ed Dack’s candidacy to demon-
strate the ‘‘new’’ kind of person
joining the NDP. Here was a living
example of the ‘‘populism’’ which
Barrett has touted as an alternative

to basing the NDP on the labor .

movement and the working class.

As it turned out, Dack’s per-
sonal popularity and supposed
ability to reach Liberal voters add-
ed less than two percent to the NDP
share of the vote achieved by
PPWC past president Andy Lapa
in 1979.

Instead of broadening the NDP
base, Dack disillusioned many of

the most principed and committed
of NDP supporters. Their dismay
with Dack, picked over Andy Lapa
and constituency association presi-
dent Fred Carley, was only accent-
uated when in mid campaign the
Kamloops News floated a story
that the Socreds had approached
Dack in January, before he joined
the NDP, to be their candidate.

- didate meetings.

ANALYSIS

“= Dack is not a Socred and would

not have run for them. But neither

- was he an NDP’ er and it soon was
apparent that he was not well vers- .

ed in NDP policy.

To his credit, Dack called the
northeast coal deal a sellout, al-
though he did not stress-the issue.
On the contentious issue of the pro-
posed Hat Creek open pit coal
mine and thermal power project,
he called for a halt to the project
until environmental questions are
answered. This, however, was well
short of a principled opposition to
Hat Creek on the basis of a sound
energy and resource policy.

The NDP campaign tended to
centre not on any issue which could
mobilize people, but on “‘Dack the
fighter.’’ There was no real attempt
to rally community organizations
and the labor movement into the
forefront of the NDP campaign on
the basis of i issues.

The Socreds began their cam-
paign in earnest in January, well
before the election was called. Or-
ganizer Hugh Harris hired a mar-
ket analyst who in February pro-
vided a three point election strat-
egy: emphasize job security as an
issue, attack the NDP over mining
policy and keep local issues in the
forefront.

- The Socreds stuck to the ‘plan
and spent well over $100,000 in sat-
uration advertising on radio and in
print. The recurring theme was an
old fashioned scare tactic, recalling
a Se mining industry during

“win by 779 votes, a feat whicll

‘ party leader Maurice Rush receiv

- and for nationalization of energy

-— Most of all, this byelection wasé

the NDP government years.

Most. observers agree. thal
Dack’s response on the mining is:
sue was weak, especially in all cam

Then came the government pork
barrel. With each cabine
minister’s arrival, another
nouncement: the addition of a sixtl
floor to the extended care hospi I,
a tender on the Yellowhead !
way, a $600,000 medical facility a
Clearwater, and the commence:
ment of work on the Halstot
bridge by 1982. j

‘The high power Socred camaigi
and the poor NDP campaign al
lowed the Socreds to overcome a 19
percent NDP lead in February t

should not have been possible.

Many NDP’ers stayed home of!
May 14, either disillusioned, com
placent or just not organized.

A bright spot in the campaigl
was the role of the Kamloops and
District Labor Council which rané
spirited parallel campaign stressin§
resource issues, nationalization o}

B.C. Telephone and anti-labor leg:

islation.
The Communist Party als?
made a mark on the campaign wit!

ing wide attention during his vis
on the May 1 weekend. The
loops Club of the CP inserted lar;
ads in the local press calling for
stop to the sellout of B.C. resour:

and natural resource industries. ~

An incidental footnote. to. thé
campaign was the brief appearance
of Maoist candidate Charles Boy’
lan. However Boylan left Kam
loops unable to secure the neces
sary 50 signatures to be nominated

This byelection should hav

victory, it revealed how vulnerabl
the government is.

lesson for the labor movement —
elections can not be won by dé
fault.

eople in this province were scandalized a number of

months ago by the revelations of the Socred’s ‘‘dirty
tricks’’ — the phony letters written by Socred staffers to
discredit members of the NDP, among others. But even
before those revelations came to light, a much more exten-
_} sive dirty tricks campaign was carried on by the RCMP —
‘}-and with a much more sinister intent. -

Earlier this month, the Communist Party got confirma-
tion that a couple of 10-year-old letters, obviously written
to.discredit the CP in the eyes of the organizations to which
they were sent, were indeed forged by the RCMP.

The letters, one written in 1970 and sent to the Canadian
Labor Congress, and another, written a year later and sent
to the National Farmers Union, were both condemned by
the CP at the time as ‘‘crude forgeries’’ but it was not until
May 2 of this year that press reports in Edmonton con-
firmed that the letters were the work of the Mounties.

Apparently, they were penned by some RCMP ghost
writer as part of an operation code-named ‘‘Operation
Checkmate’. Although the press reports offered no more
information, the existence of the RCMP operation
presumably came to light through evidence given before
the MacDonald Royal Commission investigating RCMP

Alberta attorney-general Neil Crawford by federal
solicitor-general Robert Kaplan.

But just as the Socreds shoved thedirtytricks revelations
into a corner, the Alberta government — which is respon-
sible for the RCMP activities in that province — wants to
pass the whole sinister affair off as nothing more than a

Interviewed about the incident, A-G Crawford termed
it ‘‘mischievous’” and dismissed the idea of pursuing
criminal charges, claiming that they were “‘unwarranted.”’

In response, the Communist Party has demanded that

wrongdoing — evidence which was made available to

ea ai a i ae ar or a alin in
criminal charges of forgery be laid against the RCMP. In

letters to both Crawford and federal minister Kaplan, CP
leader William Kashtan declared: “‘A forgery is a forgery,
a criminal offence which should be acted upon, not

covered up as a little game of no consequence. at

‘*We urge you to reconsider your position and take legal
action against the RCMP and those responsible for having
committed a criminal offence,’’ Kashtan told Crawford,

adding that the CP would also be exploring ‘‘whether —

other ways are open tO undertake such legal action.”’

* * *

R eaders who noted the story last week on the harass- _
ment by a federal immigration official of Jamaican

tourist Sonia Barnett, will no doubt by angered — and sad-
dened — to know that Barnett was compelled to return
home early because of the immigration department’s ac-
tions. Deeply upset over her treatment on her arrival in the
country and fearing more of the same at the immigration
hearing set for May 20, in Toronto, she left Vancouver for
Jamaica Tuesday, May 19, her long-awaited casei! cut

- in half.

Delicia Crump, chairperson of the Coalition AGAinst:
Racism, which had taken up her-case, told us that her plan-
ned holiday was “‘completely destroyed’’ and added that
her aunt was also faced with many extra costs as a result of
the harassment.

There is also a political footnote to the incident which
space last week prevented us from making. In condemning
the treatment given Barnett by the immigration officer,
CAR contrasted it with the ‘ SDA ease with mh

- despite a criminal record.’’

~-brunch sponsored by the Kingsway Club CPC. The com- ©

David Duke, grand wizard of the KKK, entered Canada,

“We hesitate to pigntsi that the acionnistt of im-
migration is racist and the Ku Klux Klan is more acceptable -
than a law-abiding Jamaican citizen by the facts speak for
themselves,’’ Crump commented.

CAR will be demonstrating outside the immigration —
department offices at 1055-W. Georgia May 22 at 12: 15-
p.m. to PrOlestt the incident.

Pet Peer ee ee *

Mo follow-up on a related issue: We have now been -
told that Robert Ryder, the Ku Klux Klan organizer |
who was thwarted in his efforts to circulate his hate litera-
ture around the Canron steel fabricating plant in Vancou-
ver, has now pulled out his time.card and quit.

Readers will recall from - earlier stories that
Marineworkers and Boilermakers Union steward Chris —
Brown first challenged Ryder’s literature with a leaflet of
his own and then, after the Klansman’s identity was
discovered, proceeded to take action against him. Still pen-
ding are possible charges against him by the union.

it, * *

: I t’s not often that classified ads make their r way into the
regular columns of the paper but in this case, the error
has been repeated so many times — and had defied correc-
tion an equal number of times — that it must hereby be -
corrected. The problem is the ad for the May 24 Sunday

puter typesetter has continued to spit out the words ‘‘meal
served between 11 and 12.’ But it should read ‘‘between 11
and 2’”, giving you an extra two hours to eat. And that’s
important — especially considering that the proceeds are
coming to the Tribune.

Lithia tee Fg PUP EF ds yo igi gs Bh egy ee

a TB eg ik | x ap eS as ag

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 22, 1981— Page 2

fe ay ey ei Nllgya  eagy PR