ALD. McKNIGHT SAYS:

must pay

PORT ALBERNI, B.C. —
Alderman George McKnight
has opened a fight before the
city’s Court of Revision against
the unfair assessment of homes
in this industrial city, and for an
end to the under-assessment and
under-taxation of the giant
MacMillan Bloedel properties
here.

In a brief to the chairman and
members of the Court of
Revision on February 6,
McKnight points out that assess-
ments on residential land have
been drastically increased this
year while the giant forest
monopoly has a fixed assess-
ment far below what it should be.

Pointing out that a 1962 ruling
of an appeal court set the M-B
assessment on valuable
waterfront property at about
$4,000 an acre maximum,
McKnight said that similar
waterfront property in Nanaimo
is assessed four times as high
and deepsea dock properties are
six times as high. :

Further, McKnight points out
that on the Port Alberni water-
front some property held by
other companies is assessed at
$8,000 and acre — double that of
M-B. The Port Alberni labor
alderman proposes in his brief
that the Court of Revision ‘raise
the assessment of MacMillan
Bloedel property at least to a
figure equal to that above
mentioned ($8,000) as a first step
toward achieving equity in assess
ment.”

The brief points out that the
company’s 1967 financial
statement indicated a_ gross
profit before taxes of $81,870,416.
About one third of M-B’s manu-
facturing potential is located
within the city of Port Alberni
“It should be easy enough to

determine that ratio of what °

DONALD GREENWELL, prominent

community worker and COPE
candidate for parks board in last
December's civic election, was this
week appointed to the Vancouver
Athletic Commission by the City
Council. Appointments to the
Commission and other civic boards
is made by a vote of city
aldermen.

‘MacMillan Bloedel

PUBLIC MEETING
“WITHDRAW FROM NATO”

Hear
NIGEL MORGAN, Provincial Leader CPC

Document The Case For Canada’s
Withdrawal from NATO.

THURSDAY-FEBRUARY 27th-8 PM
DELL HOTEL in WHALLEY

Everyone Welcome

tax share’

profit emanates from the Port
Alberni mills and to determine,
by using the capitalization
method the real value of the
company's properties in the city
. .. There can be no equity in
assessment until the waterfront
industrial property of MacMillan
Bloedel is assessed upon the
same relationship to its real
value as the property in the rest
of the city," say McKnight.

Pointing out that M-B can, as
any other business, deduct
municipal taxation as a
deductible business expense for
purpose of income tax, McKnight
concludes his brief by warning
that ‘‘failure to deal with these
problems and rectify them will
result in even more glaring
inequity in taxation within our
community."’

ALD. GEORGE McKNIGHT . .
challenges giant M-B monopoly in
Port Alberni,

TEACHERS

Cont'd from pg. 2

arising from the formula. These
will be distributed to MLAs and
others.

The BCTF_has also decided
that members of their executive
and finance committee will visit
various districts to discuss the
formula. Representatives of the
Federation will also meet with
MLAs and cabinet ministers in
Victoria during the current
session of the legislature to
make known the concern of the
Federation.

The BCTF’s press and
information officer, John Arnett
said that plans are being made
now for an information
campaign to take place
immediately prior to the next
provincial election.

Arnett said that in addition to
the province-wide campaign to
be conducted by the BCTF, local
associations will be asked to
work at the local level. A special
information kit is being prepared
to assist in the campaign in
localities.

LABOR SCENE:

UFAWU raps gov't policy
ishing industry

in B.C.

The week-long 24th Annual
convention of the United Fisher-
men and Allied Workers Union
(UFAWU) with some 150
delegates representing all
fishing areas of B.C., including
four delegates from the Atlantic
Coast region, has set another out-
standing milestone in the history
of the Pacific Coast fishing
industry and for the advance-
ment of organized labor in B.C.

A great many issues relative to
the well-being of the fishing
industry came before the
UFAWU for debate and
approval, with the convention
spotlight turned on full glare
upon the federal fisheries depart-
ment and its incumbent minister
Jack Davis.

In his address to convention
delegates and in other meetings
during the week Fisheries
Minister Jack Davis sought to
defend the government's new
licensing scheme, which would
transfer a license to fish to the
vessel rather than the fisherman
owner.

Convention opinion branded the
federal scheme as ‘‘a callous
disregard of the rights and views
of fishermen ... and that the
scheme will tighten the grip of
giant fishing companies on the
industry ... and speed up the
process of monopolization in the
fishing industry."’

Under close questioning by
UFAWU delegates Fisheries
Minister Davis tried to brush
aside the idea that the big
monopoly interests in the B.C.
fishing industry were under the
control of even bigger
monopolies in Britain, the U.S,

Rush speaks
on resources

Maurice Rush, PT associate
editor, will speak at a public
rally in Victoria this Sunday
on the subject, ‘Stop the
Plunder of B.C.’s Mineral Re-
sources.”. The rally is at ‘The
Inn”, 1528 Cook St., starting
at 8 p.m,

The meeting is part of the
province-wide campaign
launched by the B.C. Com-
munist Party to stop the sellout
of the province's natural re-
sources, and to press for new
policies to process raw
materials in B.C.

GAS RATES

Cont'd. from pg. 1

Paso Natural Gas Co., last week
will bring the total export to the
U.S. to 650 million cubic feet
each day. And this is not the end.
There will be further increases
as U.S. requirements increase.
There is still time to stop this
latest giveaway. The applica-
tion to approve the deal must
now go before Canadian govern-
ment agencies, Ottawa can still
stop the deal and the public
should demand that the National
Energy Board and Prime
Minister Trudeau halt any

_ further deals of this kind until

the whole future of our natural
gas industry is examined from
the viewpoint of its fullest use

for Canadian needs first.

and Japan, In most of his denials
however, Davis had to weakly
conclude by saying, “... the
company says not. . . but again
this was open to debate’’.

Noting that the fishing
companies had not come out in
opposition to the government's
licensing scheme, UFAWU secre-
tary Homer Stevens said the
reason the companies wanted
control of boats was simple— ‘‘to
ensure the largest possible profit
to themselves’.

Other highlights of the
UFAWU convention include:

@An immediate withdrawal
by Canada from the NATO and
NORAD alliances, and that
“Canada's only defense in the
nuclear age is strict neutrality
and a policy of friendly relations
with all countries"’.

Other foreign affairs conven-
tion resolutions called for the
federal government to prohibit
all shipment of arms to the U.S.
for use in Vietnam, and urged
upon the U.S. to ‘‘get down to
business in the Paris peace nego
tiations”’.

e The convention also
demanded that a five vessel fleet
of subsidized tuna seiners owned
by Atlantic Sugar Refineries (but
built by Canadian taxpayers at a
cost of $5-million) be manned by
Canadian crews and operated in
the interests of this country's
economy ... and “an end to
buck-passing by federal govern-
ment departments on the issue
of the $1l-million tuna fleet’’.
Fisheries Minister Davis
conceeded “‘it’s been a mess and
we won't repeat that mistake.”’

e Addressing UFAWU dele-
gates, provincial Health Minister
Ralph Loffmark stated that ‘‘one
of the worst offenders’’ in
polluting provincial waters with
sewage ‘‘was the Esquimalt
naval base. ‘And no one knows
better than a fisherman pulling a
net on the lower Fraser what the
problem is,’’ said Loffmark.

@On the closing down of
numerous fish canneries,
especially in the Prince Rupert
area by the big monopoly
packers, several hundred Native
Indians are faced with the loss of
employment. A_ résolution
approved by the convention calls
on the federal government to
“take steps to require these two
big foreign monopolies (George
Weston Ltd. and New England
Fishing Company), either to
provide employment for their
displaced workers in other
sections of industry” or accept

federal responsibility for
retraining and assistance
programs. The convention

named a sub-committee to meet
with Indian Affairs officials on
this urgent question.

Other issues coming before the
UFAWU convention included
further reiteration of union
policy in its efforts for reaffilia-
tion to the Canadian Labor
Congress (CLC) Business Agent
Jack Nichol told delegates,
“There is no indication that the
CLC executive is prepard to act
on the will of the majority as
expressed at the last CLC and
BCFL conventions, and that
clearly was for admitting the
UFAWU as a direct affiliate

Nichol urged the union to
continue to press for such direct
affiliation, ‘while not closing the
door to merger discussion’’.

Considerable criticism was
also voiced by UFAWU delegates
at the seeming inability of the
BCFL leadership to mount a
readily realizable rank-and-file
union campaign against Bill 33
and its compulsory arbitration
objectives. “We can't rely on
business agents to defeat this
legislation,’’ stated Homer
Stevens, ‘‘we have to involve the
membership of all unions. Ky
rejecting united action by ll
organized labor— the only demon
stration of opposition the gover n-
ment will be forced to respect,
they (the BCFL) have
strengthened the government's
ability to pick off unions one by
one,”’ said Stevens.

Titled officers of the UFAWU
were returned by acclamation
These are H. Steve Stavenes,
president, Homer Stevens,
secretary-treasurer and Jack
Nichol, business agent. A new
general executive board of 22
members was also elected by the
convention.

***

Delegates to the December
session of the Prince George &
District Building Trades Council
on motion condemned ‘the
treacherous actions of those
labor leaders who went over to
labor’s enemies and accepted
highly paid jobs on the Socred
compulsory arbitration Bill 33

“The odiousness of those
moves to embarrass the labor
movement and weaken its ranks
indicates the lengths the present
Socred government is prepared
to go in order to stifle and leg-
iron the trade union movement

“This Council condemns the
actions of those individuals and
reaffirms its position of support-
ing the policies of the B.C.
Federation of Labor and the
B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council, on having no truck with
Bill 33.”"

Logs & jobs exported

British Columbia exported 185.4 billion board feet of raw logs in
1968. This fact was revealed in the legislature last week by Forests
Minister Ray Williston in a review of the industry.

Although the figure is down slightly from last year, it is still
higher than it has been for many years. An idea of what the wholesale
export of logs means to B.C. was given by the Sloan Commission

Report on Forestry.

The report pointed out that 12 times more jobs would be provided
in B.C. for each 1,000 board feet of logs if they were processed into
finished paper products instead of being exported in raw form.

Want to do a little arithmetic? Figure out the number of jobs

which would be provided in B.C. or Canada if the 185.4 billion board _
feet of raw logs exported in 1968 were processed here. 4