in nanos eeieen Three hundred and fifty young men and women from Europe, Asia and Africa attended the International Youth Camp (NOORUS) in the Estonian SSR to attend the Seventh International Summer Course for students. The main topic of study is peace, freedom and independence for all peoples. Photo shows some of the delegates at the camp. NDP leaders blamed © Who scuttled civic unity? By ALD. HARRY RANKIN In the absence of a broad, all- inclusive coalition of the left and centre which COPE tried so hard to establish, COPE is now faced with the responsibility of fielding a full slate of 27 candidates, including a mayoralty candidate. The key to the successful for- mation of a coalition of the left and centre was the attitude of the leadership of the NDP. When the June provincial convention of the NDP took steps to dissolve the Vancouver Area Council of the NDP (a small but vocal group of ultra-lefts who opposed any form of ‘unity and who had become an embarassment to the party), the way seemed clear for a coalition of the reform forces in the city. The leadership of the NDP was faced with two choices. The first was to join with COPE, the trade union movement and community organizations to form a broad, new citizens’ reform grouping. This the predominantly right wing NDP _ leadership rejected out of hand. The second choice was to form a new organization under NDP control but using another name and fielding a slate of candidates ~ all of whom would be NDP’ers. Attempts to set up such an organization also proved a dismal failure. It turned out that many NDP’ ers wanted to have unity with COPE, while those who didn’t realized that the NDP running by itself wouldn’t get anywhere. A group of NDP leaders, I am informed, under the personal guidance of NDP provincial leader Dave Barrett and Bob Williams, who resigned his seat to make way for Barrett, decided on another tactic. This was to take over TEAM and run Alderman Mike Harcourt, an NDP’er already in TEAM, for mayor. This also turned out to be a predictable disaster. According to press reports almost 400 NDP’ers joined TEAM, but alderman Volrich went them one better by signing up over 900 new members. How anyone in his right mind could realistically expect or even want to take over TEAM, a civic group set up by the developers and business interests and dominated by the Liberal Party, is beyond my comprehension. It was a pipe- dream by people who know little about the realities of civic politics. This attempt to infiltrate TEAM did reveal one thing very clearly. It was that the leaders of the NDP were willing to enter into an unholy alliance with the Liberal Party, but shunned any alliance with progressive civic reform groups such as COPE, the trade unions . and community organizations. Politics does indeed make strange bed-fellows. In this case, while some NDP leaders were eager and willing to embrace the Liberals, it was apparently a case of unrequited love. COPE tried its best to bring together all reform groups. It went to the extent of proposing that a new group be formed, open to all reform groups including the NDP, and of which COPE would be a part. But the NDP leadership was adamant. NDP civic aspirants could go as far right as they liked but they must not move to the left. One of the by-products of this long struggle for unity that COPE put up was that many people who werenot in COPE but who also saw the need for a broad reform coalition, have now come over to COPE. They include active members of the NDP. The result is that COPE is considerably strengthened and is now broader in its composition, which is reflected also in the many new people now See CIVIC UNITY, pg. 11 Morgan condemns | propane profits An appeal to ‘‘all suffering at the hands of the wage cutters, the profiteers, the monopolies and their governments which are cutting back on social needs” to unite around the October 14 Day of Protest was made by Nigel Morgan, provincial leader of the Communist Party last weekend at the Sampo Hall in Websters Cor- ners. Morgan was speaking to the 65th Anniversary celebration of the Finnish Organization in B.C. He paid a warm tribute to the mem- bers of ‘‘one of the oldest and most consistent working class cultural organizations in the country” and urged them to join with other ethnic cultural groups, pensioners, students, the unemployed and underprivileged along with the trade union movement, individual members of the NDP and Com- munists, in throwing their support behind the CLC’s historic Day of Protest. Morgan pointed out that because of the fact that ‘consumer prices have increased 32.2 percent on an annual basis, with food costs alone showing anincrease of 54.4 percent — higher than the total price in- crease over the previous twenty years” — a worker could buy more at the end of 1972 with earnings of $7,655 than he can today with an income of $10,100. The weekend report of the B.C. Energy Commission which showed that huge profits had been reaped by the natural gas and propane producers in B.C. over the past year “clearly shows that such companies have as their main and sole objective the amassing of maximum profits at the expense of the people of this province,” Morgan charged.He quoted from the report which stated that more than half of the increase in the price of propane in B.C. between 1973 and mid-1975 was pure profit for the B.C. producers and distributors. “Thus, while fantastic profits are being marked up by the multi- national corporations and the big monopolies, close to one million working people in this country have had their wages and salaries rolled back by the federal government’s so-called ‘‘Anti- Inflation Board,’’ Morgan said. “And right alongside steadily increasing prices, and increasing interference in the rights to collective bargaining, the government’s resulted in the worst year. of unemployment since 1961. And now, with nearly one million jobless in Canada today, rather than work towards creating em- ployment, Trudeau has taken action against the unemployed by — cutting back on Unemployment — Insurance benefits. “The Ottawa and Victoria ad- ministrations have placed themselves on a collision course with the labor and democratic forces of this country and of this province,” Morgan declared. ‘“The historic National Day of Protest shows that working people are determined to compel the government to repeal Bill C-73 and call a halt to the government’s present crisis policies,’ he said. “It’s going to take considerable effort, the broadest possible unity and solidarity between ll democratic forces, ticularly cooperation between the trade unions, the NDP and the Communist Party to bregs through. “But, break through they will to force the withdrawal of the wage freeze bill.’’ Nuclear hazard hit Concern over the threat of nuclear health hazards posed by the Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor, Washington, and the proposed Skagit nuclear power plant, was voiced this week by many B.C. peace and en- vironmental groups following’ the radioactive explosion at Hanford, Washington. A telegram sent to prime minister Trudeau and premier Bill Bennett by 13 organizations drew attention to the Trident base and nuclear power development and said that “the recent explosion at the | Hanford, Washington reprocessing plant, 275 miles from Vancouver, is a warning.” The telegram urged that Canada _ express concern to the U.S. government over nuclear developments south. of the Canadian border, and that Canada bring the issue before the In- ‘ternational Joint Commission. It that a system be — also asks established in B.C. to monitor radiation levels in the province and that the findings be made public. program has | and par-- ’ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 10, 1976—Page 2 J ust what is the role, purpose and/or pretext of the past and current uproar anent the whale: to protect the. present and future life and existence of the sea’s largest _ and most noble mammal, or to transform that ancient calling and industry into an orgy of anti-Soviet red-baiting and calumny? It begins to smell very much of the latter. Long before the advent of those whale ‘‘do gooders”’ of the Greenpeace variety we had a vast and thriving industry in many ports of the world, with the port of Dundee, Scotland probably topping the list. In ‘‘due course,”’ as the historians say, this industry ultimately decreased and finally all but petered out. This was due to a number of causes, but mainly because it was no longer profitable for the ‘“canny”’ Scots or other entrepreneurs to chase half around the world in pursuit of ‘Moby Dick’ when his blubber became unprofitable. So the whale trade hit the doldrums, with only a few “free enterprisers’’ to continue the business of ‘‘thar she blows’’. It may be said however that the Scots, Japanese, Russians andetc., following the whaling industry were not perturbed in their day by any misplaced sentiments. That was to come later, much later, when the flag of Soviet power adorned the masthead of Soviet whaling vessels, providing among other things one more ‘‘plausable”’ excuse, pretext or what not for anti-Sovieteers to gripe about. It may be noted en passant, that ever since the historic year of 1917 the first Socialist power, has proposed (while enacting itself) conservation of every form of life, and not the least conserving the world’s whale species. This has been and is a cardinal principle of Soviet policy, not always recognized by capitalist entrepreneurs or their current stock of barking lap dogs. When the Hunter-Greenpeace et al first started out with their ‘‘mission’’ to save and conserve the whale, a goodly chunk of world opinion supported them, some because of “humanitarian” reasons, many because the friendly leviathan of the deep was being brutally, even criminally decimated to satisfy the greed for profit, pelf and plunder. Obviously however the Greenpeace enterprise has evolved from a friend of Moby Dick to an inveterate enemy of Socialism — from a friend of Socialism and progress to the coldwar blubber of a rabid anti-Sovietism! Of course, don’t get me wrong. There is not much that one or a dozen Greenpeace crews can do to make things bad for the Soviet Union or any other Socialist country. At worst they only have a nuisance value to the opponents of Socialism. One wonders however whether their socialist spleen on this occasion is aimed at rescuing Moby Dick in his long fight anent the evil designs of capitalism, or just because the “‘hunter’’ stems from a new breed of ‘‘live and let live’ make-believe era? Without any evidence to the contrary we are inclined to the latter. The Greenpeace hunters are now yelping, not because Moby Dick is suffering anew, but because the last of a profitableindustry (for capitalism) is nearing the end of its twilight zone. Soon Moby Dick, if he can hold out that long, will once again range the Seven Seas without fear of molest or worse. Had the Greenpeace crews held to their original pur- pose of saving the lives and grandeur of Nature’s finest production from the greed and blood-lust of the closing era of capitalism, they would have earned lasting plaudits from Homo Sapiens and Moby Dick alike. But they chose to make a very cheap racket out of it instead, which, in a world of dying capitalism, became a first-class cannard to _ whale hell out of the Soviet Union with the monstrous lie that only capitalism is set on “saving’’ our whale population . . . and only the Soviet Union is bent upon its destruction. ; Such anti-Soviet drivel could even move Moby Dick to tears were he not engaged in other and more important affairs. For instance with ‘‘friends” like Greenpeace, who needs enemies? ~~ IRBUNE ‘Editor — MAURICE RUSH Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-8108 - Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4.50 for six months; All other countries, $10.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 .