—Richard Morgan photo
The Women’s Auxiliary of the UFAWU presented delegates from the
Soviet Food Workers Union with a cake decorated with flags of both the
USSR and Canada during their visit in Vancouver arranged by the
UFAWU. The delegates, Sergei Belyaev, Timofei Tokarev and their
interpreter Viadimir Kirilov, left Vancouver November 10. .

GAS PRICES

Continued from page |!

would be generated by the price in-
crease. It’s also quite probable to
asume that MacDonald was citing a
fairly accurate figure for expected
revenue from gas price increases.

In fact, the discrepancy between
the two figures may well explain
the tranquility with which Kelly

- Gibson, chairman and chief ex-
ecutive officer of Westcoast
Transmision, has greeted the
whole scheme.

Included in the agreement
between the provincial govern-
ment and Westcoast is a clause
granting Westcoast an allowable
rate of return on investment of
9.5%. While this figure means very
little by itself, last year it was
8.2%. That translated into a 96%
“increase in profits for the first nine
months of 1972 as compared to the
corresponding period for the
previous year.

An increase in the allowable rate
of return means greater profits for
Westcoast and a correspondingly
smaller amount finally being
returned by Westcoast to the
Crown corporation.

In addition, the government has
announced that it will pay higher
prices to the producers as an ‘’ex-
ploration incentive.”’ And since the
81% increase is on the present
price, any extra cost that has to be
paid to the producer will mean that
much less in final returns to the
province.

When MacDonald spoke of $40
million going to the province from
the increased price, he was
probably being deceptively ac-
curate. What he didn’t say but
what is probably going to happen is
that the rest will be going into the
coffers of Pacific Petroleum —
either at the producing end by a
direct link or at the distribution
end by the fact of increased profits
to Westcoast Transmission.

And no one has yet indicated any
benefit to the residential con-
-Sumer. In fact, he may face in-
creased costs himself for the whole
elaborate scheme.

And yet the purpose of the
hearings into the natural gas in-
dustry held undér the auspices of
the B.C. Energy Commission was
to ensure that the resource was be-
ing exploited in the public interest.
And, if there was one common
note sounded by several
organizations presenting briefs, it
~ was to ask for higher returns to the
province on the sale of export gas
and for lower or, at least, stable
prices to residential users.

CIVIC ELECTION

Cont'd. from pg. 1

Workers (IBEW), was returned
with an impressive 7;820 votes,

more than 3,000 ahead of his clos-*

est opponent. Constable headed
the Burnaby Citizens  Associa-
tion slate.

Also elected as alderman was
trade unionist Gerry Ast. Colin
Snell, business agent for Local 452
of the Carpenters Union, polled 5,-
183 votes but fell short of election
to council. Another BCA can-
didate, Gary Begin, was elected at
the top of the school board race
with 6,583 votes.

Many labor or labor-endorsed
candidates ran in municipalities
throughout B.C., including impor-
tant working class areas such as
Nanaimo, New Westminster, Trail,
Fernie, etc. In Nanaimo, Bert
Ogden, organizer of the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union, fell short of election but
polled 931 votes. Trail trade un-
ionist Elmer Pontius polled 510
votes for alderman. In Fernie,
labor-backed Vernon Uphill, was
returned as mayor.

Kamloops Labor Council
delegate Robert Smits polled 654
votes for school trustee. In Surrey,
trade unionist Wilfred Lennox poll-
ed 667 votes. North Vancouver’s
civic progressive organization,
Association for Community Action
(ACA), which last year broke
through with the election to coun-
cil in North Van city and district,
failed to elect its candidates this
time around.

The revenue generated by the in-
creased prices should go for sub-
sidizing residential consumers. It
should go for providing funds for
expanding and upgrading a public
transit system for the major cen-
tres of population in the province.

Instead, it seems that Westcoast

Transmission and _ its parent, —

Pacific Pertroleums, will enjoy the
benefits. While the B.C. Petroleum
Corporastion has leaped into the
fray, the two companies will still
dominate the natural gas industry.
Big business clearly left its imprint

on the Barrett government’s deci-
sion.

Only public ownership of the
natural gas industry, including
production, transmission and dis-
tribution will ensure control of the

resource and rational prices to B.C.
consumers.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1973—PAGE 12

Endorses aims of World Peace Congress

Council urges recall]
of Chile ambassador

While the federal government’s
external affairs department con-
tinued to do everything possible to
thwart the efforts of Chileans seek-
ing political asylum in this country,
delegates to the Vancouver Labor
Council Tuesday night voted un-
animously to urge the Canadian
Labor Congress to petition the
government demanding the recall
of Canada’s ambassador to Chile,
Andrew Ross.

The council action was in
response to a letter from Sue
Radosevic on behalf of the
Canadians for Democracy in Chile

Committee who pointed out the.

acceptance of the facist regime
that Ross revealed as well as his
contempt for the democratically-
elected Popular Unity government.
The information came to light
when cables that Ross had sent to
this country were leaked to the
press last week. ,

Delegates had earlier condemn-
ed the military coup at a meeting
in September and the resolution
calling for Andrew Ross’ recall
adds to the mounting pressure

. from several organizations all of

which have emphasized that Ross,
as ambassador to Chile, is comp-
letely unrepresentative of Cana-
dian opinion.

Elsewhere in the meeting Coun-
cil president Syd Thompson told
delegates that meetings were going
on this week between the provin-
cial government and the owners of
Evans Products Ltd. concerning
the scheduled shutdown of Evans
Plywood plant in Vancouver.

At its last meeting, the. labor
council had adopted a resolution
calling on the government to keep
the plywood plant open “‘by
whatever means necessary”’ in-
cluding takeover, and Thompson
said that he was satisfied with the
hearing that IWA had got. from
resources minister Bob Williams
and the action that had been taken
by the government so far.

Thompson said. however, that
there were no guarantees that the
government would take the plant
over but added that there was a
“vast difference’ between the ap-
proach of this government and that
of the previous Social Credit ad-
ministration.

The IWA had also enlisted the
help of NDP MP Paddy Neale in
investigating government grants to
Evans Products at the federal
level. :

Thompson reported that Neale
had discovered some $946,000 in
federal grants to Evans Products
for ‘‘expansion and moder-
nization” of its operation in the
B.C. interior.

Evans has thriving operations in
the interior and delegates had

earlier urged the government ta ex-

propriate those holdings as well as
the plywood plant in Vancouver.

Thompson said that the grants to
totalling nearly a million’
dollars made for an “impossible
situation”. He noted that “‘we’re
giving money to a wealthy corpora-
tion in the U.S. so that our natural

resources can be raped that much
more easily.”’

Delegate to the World Congress

- of Peace Forces from the labor

council Bob Hamilton reported
back to the council Tuesday night
and told other unionists that while
he had always had a mental picture
of the Soviet people as “very
austere”, that mental picture was

obliterated within the first five
inutes after his arrival.

a was very impressed with the

pride of the people in their

achievements,” he said, “and their

hospitality was second to none.”’

Hamilton spoke of the tremen-
dous accomplishments of the
‘Congress and emphasized par-
ticularly the speeches of two
delegates from the Middle East,
from Israel and the Arab countries
who had both called for an end to
the bloodletting and the peaceful
negotiation on the basis of the
United Nations resolution passed
in 1967.

He also praised the speech given
to the assembly by Leonid
Brezhnev and cited several sections
from his address which epitomized
the aims of the conference.

Hamilton pointed out that while
he was in Moscow, the war in the
Middle East was raging, a fact

Moscow Congre

which served as the measure of
difference in attitude between the
press of the Soviet U
Canada.

““One has to be j

said, ‘‘by the sincere desire of
Soviet people for peace.” Banneg
marking the Congress
acrosS every street
languages and virtually eve

the proceedings of t ae

he j e
national meeting were televise

mpressed,”’ he

in five

By way of co

ntr, :
~ noted that in this ¢, ast, Hamilton

country “it’s yn-
fortunate that war ene it's Ung

address any un
SS.

nion and in

were strung”

ion local on the

Bosses open drive

Cont'd. from pg. |:

living costs ever experienced,
which saw their last wage gains
more than wiped out, can be eX-
pected to go for substantial wage
gains in their 1974 contracts.

ile the economic position of
Pow workers in B.C ane
progressively deteriorated, the oe
monopolies have rolled up the
most phenomenal profits in their
history, and these profits are con-
tinuing to rise, aS a sampling of
newspaper clippings on page one
reveals.

The extent of corporation profits
is shown by the figures released in
October for 37 major compayjes 1n
B.C. These showed that net €ar-
nings for the three months period
prior to September reached 128
percent. Compared to the national
average of a 38 percent increase In
earnings during the same period,
it’s easy to see that B.C cor-
porations are rolling in profits and
can well afford substantjg} n-
creases in 1974.

The major profit gains are peing
made precisely in those Major in-
dustries for which Lanskail and the

ie

earning of fin far the average

In the three i

month

tioned above the net fe =a
the top eight fo ee
B.C. increaseg
over the same

For the Em

Of these facts, that a
living wage for workers is

real inflationg is ridiculous. The

from other soy i i
, r
vast profits of mits corporal ai
More pure
pe ge Way to stimulate the
sae he fight for substantial
perce the © Working people will
some oF the cee olin a
spread the eat e
ete Wealth around a little.
ber ‘we e economy, not br-
Employers’ «,7iSaster”’, as the
mprloyers’ Council warns.

Ployers’ Council to.
ty pressure comes .

hasing power by the

:

insets eRe

ggg tis