ibiliti ment side of the House. OMe I On Ue en ee Te TET mn a ToT aT ‘1 BROKE THE EAW’ Liquor restrictions on Native Indians absurd By KEITH-RALSTON I've been breaking the Jaw again. No, I've not been putting up posters within 10)0 feet of a public highway, nor dishing out leaflets likely to cause litter on the streets, nor watching ani besetting some innocent employer. This time-it’s something much more heinous. The other night I bought a drink for We went up to one of the local clubs, he ordered a whiskey sour and I had an ale. Then I bought breaking came in. a round and that’s where the law- You see, even though my friend is a member of the legislature, one of the 48 men chosen by the people of this province to run their affairs, even though he is an honest and hard-working citizen, a gradu- ate in theology from our provincial university and a member of the fishermen’s union, I can’t legally buy him a whiskey sour. Why? Because this friend of mine is a Native Indian and like every other member of his race is a second-class citizen in this matter of drinking. Native Indians in B.C. can go into beer parlors, or public houses as they are now called, but they can’t go into cocktail-lounges, or buy a bottle at the liquor store, and anyone who offers a drink to an India even in the privacy of his own home is breaking the law. : So I was in good company that night, along with the management of the club, the waiter who served us, and Lieutenant-Governor Clar- ence Wallace, who only a couple of weeks ago offered Frank Calder, MLA for Atlin; a drink at the annual state dinner for mem- bers of the legislature. $e g se sos It is this situation that angers Frank Calder whenever he dis- cusses the liquor laws as fect his people. Just that afternoon I’d listened they af- to him lash out at Social Credit ‘members who suggested that the Native peoples could not handle their liquor and should be denied access even to beer parlors. It’s not that Calder thinks equal access to alcoholic bever- ages is the most important prob- lem facing his people — far from it. He wants an end to the dependent life of the re- serves, equal treatment in prov- incial government grants to municipalities, in health and hos- pitalization services and ‘in edu- _ cation. ‘ But this problem of liquor has become a symbol. In this session it has been discussed a good deal ‘and the discussion has revealed the outlines of two schools of thought about the problems of the _ B.C. Indians — those who want the province to take more respons- for the welfare of the Native Indians and those who are reluctant to extend any more rights to them. ‘Calder is the chief spokesman for the first group and he has the Support of many opposition mem- bers. But two Social Credit back- benchers have given an indication of a different view on the govern- j /DO YOU KNOW — —that Tribune readers get a Special ‘discount at _ DUNSMUIR VARIETIES — when purchasing Trunks, Suit- cases, Handbags, English Bone China and other Varieties? ‘ - Dunsmuir Varieties 519 Dunsmuir St. HO HO | CHOP SUEY: ‘UNEXCELLED AUTHENTIC CHINESE CUISINE Reservation for. Parties or : ‘ Banquets ._ Phone PA. 1030, PA. 0713 — 102 PENDER STREET EAST ; Vancouver, B.C. ne = FRANK CALDER, MLA Bert Price (SC, Vancouver-Bur- rard) called admission of Indians to beer parlors “progress in re- verse.” told some lurid tales of Indians who had fallen asleep on the rail- road tracks on their way home from the pubs and been run over, concluding with this remark, “I don’t want their blood on my hands.” Calder, who is usually very mild- mannered, tore into the two mem- bers, attacking their discriminat- ory remarks. He admitted that there were abuses. “A certain number of my people are abusing it, I’m not proud of them,” he said, and add- ed, “You shouldn’t be proud of your skidroads.” Calder said that Price was “mis- informed” and told the Vancouver member, “Clean up your own backyard.” He said Vancouver had “drug addiction and every known crime connected with it.” He also scored the newspapers for mentioning the fact that the ac- cused was an Indian when report- infi a crime. “If John Smith' was Scottish, they wouldn’t put down that he was Scottish, or if he was Nor- wegian that he was Norwegian,” he said. “The public look at that ‘John Smith, Indian’ and think — ‘those savages’ ” ; Calder also ticked off Labor Minister Lyle Wicks for the “con- descension” in his speech on Indian problems.’ (Wicks is responsible for handling the provincial Indian affairs). : “He talked as if it was a special privilege for us to enter public schools,” said the CCF member. “We ask no special privileges but the privileges you have had years ago.” x ‘ “We belong, period,” Canada’s only Native Indian MLA asserted emphatically. ~~ . myself and a friend of mine — and that’s how I broke the law. The legislature rose that evening at 11 o’clock. It had been a long and rather tiring day — the fag end of a long and tiring week. As I was walking across the Causeway I met my friend also heading home from the session and we decided to stop in for a couple to chase away the night chill. jhe had conducted a private in- Irvine Corbett (SC, Yale) | VICTORIA, B.C. Native chiefs want end fo discrimination HOPE, B.C. A special meeting of nine chiefs, representing Native Indian bands throughout southern British Col- umia, convened here last weekend to discuss charges made in the legislature by I. F. Corbett, Social Credit member for Yale, claimed that Indians were running crazy and committing suicide on railway tracks in this district after drinking sprees in beer par- lors. Condemning Corbett’s charges, the chiefs are demanding an apol- ogy on the floor of the legislature from the Social Credit party. Robert Clifton, president of the Native Brotherhood of B.C., said vestigation and found that Cor- bett’s charges were “absurd.” Indians do not get drunk in beer parlors, said Clifton, but they do get drunk at times from drinking bootleg liquor, because they ‘are not allowed to purchase liquor in government stores. The chiefs called upon the government to end this discrim- ination by giving Native Indians equal rights with other Cana- dians. ; Valley farm local set up WALNUT GROVE, B.C. A local of B.C. Farmers’ Union is being organized in this district, | following an enthusiastic meeting; of farmers held in West Langley Hall on February 8. . Guest speaker at the rally was James Gray of the Interprovincial Farmers’ Union, who spoke of the unfair deal handed agriculture, pointing out that approximately 20 percent of the population re- ceive only about 10 percent of the | national income. “The farmer,, who is the basis of our economy, is paid the least for his work,” said Gray, — Stating emphatically that agri- culture must be stabilized by guar- anteed minimum prices in rela-|. tionship to the cost of production, the speaker also stressed the -ne-|. cessity of labor and farmers un- derstanding each other’s prob- lems. ‘ ~ “Farmers’ unions are organized. and on the march in Manitoba. Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberts and in the Peace River block in British Columbia,” “They ‘have an Interprovincial Farmers’ Union made up of rep- resentatives .of the provinciial bodies. The aim is to build a strong national farmers’ union which will protect the interests of every farming group — grain, fruit, livestock or dairying.” The meeting was chaired by A. who |. said Gray.| E. Bolton of: Walnut Grove. Jobless ‘sleop in faniel Many of Toronto’s jobless, sleeping these cold nights in a like the ‘man shown above, are tunne! near the city’s downtown lakefront. Warmth is provided by a steampipe, and unemployed workers are jammed solid for passageway. the full length of the 150-foot | 1 ; Alberta Socred gov’t | evades major issues By BEN SWANKEY ~ EDMONTON The Throne Speech last week through which the Social Credit gov- ernment of Premier E. C. Manning projected its policies for this session of the Alberta legislature was not the kind anyone could get very excited about. In dry words and general terms it set out some of the legislation the government intends to in- troduce. The main measures to be put before the House are some form of “voluntary prepaid medi- cal services insurance plan’ and “a very substantial increase in the appropriation for operational school grants,’* the major part of which is apparently to be in the form of a “school tax reduction subsidy.” : Exactly what legislation is to be introduced remains to be seen, but it is clear that the government | feels that it cannot any longér ignore the widespread demand ‘in the province for a health insur- ance scheme and for greater finan-. cial aid to education. However, the Throne Speech ignored most of the big issues fac- ing the people of Alberta. There was not a word about the increasing U.S. control of Alberta, and particularly the province’s rich resources of oil and natural gas. This is hardly surprising since U.S. control is the direct re- suit of policies deliberately adopt- ed py the Social Credit govern- ment. There was no reference to the developing economic crisis, to the serious market crisis facing farm- declined, or to the need of emerg- ency action to take care of the thousands of unemployed. (In Edmonton, the “boom city, there were over 14,000 unemploy- ed registered at the beginning of this month and the figure is be- lieved to have gone up several thousand ‘since then.) The Throne Speech also failed to deal adequately with the grow- ing burden of municipal debt, which is being passed on to home- owners and farm-owners in the form of higher taxes. Edmonton’s debt, for instance, | has risen from $20 million to $80 million in the past seven years and the city’s debenture debt is. now greater than the whole provincial debt! This is _ the direct result of government policies placing the load on tax- payers and municipalities. The government proposes to tackle this problem now by in- creasing provincial government loans to the ‘municipalities at low interest rates. This however, evades the real problem, that the municipalities simply can’t raise enough money through taxes to provincial government must now expenses, ; ATTENTION POWELL PUBLIC Socialism MEETING Hear JOM mewn’ Friday, March 4, 8 p.m. ey RIVER & WESTVIEW ! at Work MOOSE HALL — WESTVIEW x ae 4 Everyone Welcome ; ; DS a ¢ te ers whose income has drastically . ; meet their needs and that the {begin to take over some of these” PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 25, 1955 — PAGE 2.