100,000 aw jobs for B.C. workers -- 3

building

By KEITH RALSTON

British Columbia urgently needs
more homes, schools, hospitals,
libraries, community centres, roads
and bridges. The demands of a
fast-growing province can give a
shot in the arm to a construction
industry that faces a slump. ~ A
start on these projects would mean
steady jobs for thousands of: build-
ing trades workers who now face

short working seasons and long

layofts.

Pollyanna statements to the con-

tray, things are not going to get
better in the building field. It is
true that the number of building
permits issued this year is about
the same as last, but the significant
thing is that contracts awarded in
the first five months of 1954 are
down 35 percent from the same
period of 1953.

Only a systematic opening up of
new jobs can cure this situation.
To meet the flood of children
pouring into our public schools
we must build an average of one
10-room school every week of
the school year for the next five
years: $61,000,000 in five years
for new construction is the figure
given by the Department of Edu-
cation.

If the province’s population
grows as fast in the next five years
as it has in the last five, then we'll
need at least 900 more hospital
beds just to take care of the in-
crease, to say nothing about re-
_ placing outworn buildings and ob-
solete equipment. In addition we
urgently need beds for chronic pa-
tients—2,450 at once and another
450 over the five years. To build
these would cost about $18,000,000
at current. cost.

More houses were built in B.C.
in 1953 than ever before but. the
number. is barely sufficient to meet
the needs of the new families be-
ing formed. Nothing is being done
to catch up on the backlog of
houses needed to replace old,
broken down slum houses in city
and~country... The housing pro-
gram must be expanded two or
three times if it is to meet the de-
mand for reasonably-priced dwei-
lings.

There is one type of housing~for |
which the demand is the greatest
that is just not being built — that
is publicly-assisted low-rent houses
and apartments for low-income)
families and pensioners. Except
for the government share of priv-
ately-built old age pensioners pro-
jects like those of the Burnaby
New Vista Society and the Victoria
Kiwanis Village, no money is be-
ing spent for public housing. And
E. E. Winch, MLA has called pre-
sent plans of the OAP a drop in
the bucket.

The biggest part of the work
on the province’s 18,000 mile
road system still has to be done.
For instance, nearly 500 miles
have yet to be built on the B.C.
section of the Trans-Canada

highway, the southern trans-
Provincial highway needs a
major relocation between Trail
and Grand Forks and the north-
ern highway to Prince Rupert
has been barely touched.

Some 250 bridges must be re-
newed in the next five years. That
in itself would be a $35,000,000
job.

The Bennett government has ask-
ed Ottawa to pay part of the cost
of building roads in B.C.’s moun-
tainous and difficult terrain as an
Investment in Canada’s develop-
ment. Certainly it would take only
a small part of the two billion
dollars being squandered annual-

the $30 million spent each year. by
the province.

Provineial jails and mental
homes are terribly overcrowded
and many buildings are unsuitable.
Oakalla and the jails at Prince
George and Nelson need new ac-
commodation, the percentage of
overcrowding at Essondale is up
to an overall 45 percent with some
sections not even designed to hold
patients.

All of this mounts up to° a
whopping $200,000,000 in new
public buildings and roads, Add
to this a minimum $100,000,000
in new housing and you have
a boom in the ailing construc-
tion industry.

Take the needs of the public
schools. Department of Education
officials estimate that the number
of pupils will jump by 12,500 each
year for the next five years. Since
it requires one new classroom for
every. 30 students added, this
amounts to ‘the staggering total of
more than 410 classrooms every
school year. Building costs vary

of construction but educators talk
about $61,000,000 for new schools.
Naturally this is just for the in-
creased enrollment. But many ad-
ditional classrooms will be needed
to replace out-of-date schools.

“Adequate hospital care standards
require at least six acute care beds
and three chronic -care beds for
every 1,000 peopie, according to the
Minister of Health and Welfare.
B.C. has about 7,500 general hos-
pital beds, which measures up to
the standard. But the province is
critically short of beds for the care
of chronic patients — there are
only 1,584 in chronic hospitals and
another 1,844 in approved nursing
homes and licensed institutions.

This represents a deficit of 2,450
beds right at the present moment.

If British Columbia’s population
continues to expand as it has —
150,000 more in five years — then
we shall need another 900 general
beds and 450 chronic beds to keep
pace with the growth.

But many of our existing hos-
pitals need modernization, so as
well as taking care of population
increase, we will have to have more
beds to bring them up-to-date.
Huge sums, in fact more than
the entire provincial budget in pre-
war days, are spent each year on
our highways. And it is vitally
necessary to the industrial and
commercial future of B.C. that we

}push with the extension of a net-

work of first-class roads through-
out the whole province.

But in a mountainous area like
this province, $30,000,000 a year is
not enough. B.C. has not one first-
class highway from the coast to
the Alberta border. The recon-
struction of the main north-south

ly on war to double or even triple

Cariboo highway is only at 150-

STORES CHURCHES: SCHOO

widely with the district and type|_

Mile House after being underway
for six years.

Nearly 500 miles remain to be,

done on the Trans-Canada highway
which is a joint fedral-provincial
project. Just over 100 miles have
been brought up to Trans-Canada
standard in the five years: since
the work began.

In 1953 work was done on 434
miles of the provincial highway

system. Of this 70 miles were new.

arterial and 65.new secondary, the
rest was reconstruction. Obviously
at this pace the backlog will not
disappear very soon. :

The backlog in housing is even
more acute in spite of a record
house-building year in 1953 that
saw 8,000 dwellings completed. A
survey made in 1951 as a part of
the census show the size of the
problem we still face.

A picture of overcrowded houses,
many in need of major. repairs,
many without adequate toilet and
sanitary facilities, emerges from
this survey.

It shows that 33,530 houses, in
B.C. are in need of extensive re-
paid work. They have sagging or
rotting foundations, faulty roofs
and chimneys, unsafe outside steps
and shattered plaster: 17,910 are
in the country and 15,620 in urban
centres. Greater Vancouver has
9,500 of these houses and Greater
Victoria 1,600. :

Overcrowding is also very seri-
ous with 48,000 dwellings having
more than one person per room.
Vancouver has 10,000 crowded
dwellings — 2,500 of them con-
tain two or more families. Since
their average number of rooms is
only three and a half, these stat-
istics translated into human terms
mean intolerably close quarters.

In Greater Vancouver there are
2,600 houses where running water
has not been piped inside, 1,100
of them are in the city proper.
The survey shows 3,100 have no
toilet, 480 in Vancouver itself and
6,600 have no bathtub or shower.
_ Put all these figures together
and the acute need for a large-
scale housing program is self-
evident. The centre of B.C.‘s
larger cities are .decaying and
rings of slums have been created
around the business districts.
New housing is on the edge of
the urban areas — public hous-
ing is a necessity to rehabilitate
the inner parts.

Startling is the extent of “slum”
conditions in rural B.C. — here.
too, no public authority takes over-
all responsibility in large sections
of the country. There are 12 regu-
lated districts, mostly near cities or
towns, where the provincial Reg-
ional Planning Board sets mini-
mum floor areas and sanitary facili-
ties, But no one provides public
money to aid in rural housing.

* If B.C. were to double the
8,000 dwelling units it built last

LS- LIBRARIES - HO

Public works program would give
trades ‘big shot in the arm”

year, that wouid mean jobs for

- another 20,000 building trades

workers.

ive

ith

pn LONER

best method of dealing with poo?
housing-— and the start of a hout
ing scheme is the only means ?
catching up on B.C.’s needs.

A public housing plan is the

——

On the. hational labor front

By WILLIAM KASHTAN

At last year’s Trades and Labor
Congress convention it was widely
rumored that this would be Perey
Bengough’s last year as TLC presi-
dent. This became evident when
proposals for increased pensions
for the officers was under discus-
sion. It was taken for granted that
the officers were preparing them-
selves for a rainy day.

Now Bengough has declared he
will not stand for re-election and
the race to replace him as presi-
dent has begun. Messrs. Jodoin and
Gervin, vice-presidents from Que-
bec and British Columbia, respec-
tively, have thrown their hats into
the ring. ay

The capitalist press-has begun
to speculate on which of these two
gentlemen will make it. ‘

Some of the papers have more
than an overtone to the problem,
trying to nfake it appear that a
battle is developing between Eng-

lish-speaking and French Canada.

And it would easily turn into such
a dangerous wrangle if the cen:
tral question of policy is ignored.
This really is the erux of the prob-
lem ;
: The question of the presidency
1s Important — but the major prob-
lem is: what will be the policies
the candidates are pledged to pur-
sue? The candidates ought to be
Judged on where they stand on the
vital issues of the day. Without
this approach.the convention could
turn into. a sordid affair, with
machine politics and back door
agreements replacing the issue of
policy.

The delegates therefore have a
clear duty when replacing Ben-
gough to also replace the poli-
cies he stood for, policies which
are now bankrupt and act as bar-
riers to the further advance of
the frade union movement.

What are Bengough’s policies?

He at one time paraded as a pro-
gressive-minded trade unionist. It
was he who coined the phrase “‘co-
operation yes, domination no”
when it was a matter of asserting
the autonomous rights of the trade
union movement against the efforts
of the AFL in the U.S. to impose
its arbitrary wili on’ the Canadian
membership. _

But he quickly dropped that
slogan when the orders came
through from Washington and the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 23, 1954 — PAGE 2

New times call for
some new policies

St. Laurent government. :

It doesn’t reauire too muc
hindsight now to see how fat
reaching his change of attitude
was. In dropping the issue he als®:
re-directed the trade union move
ment towards active support of thé
cold war and the perspective of.
war against the lands of socialism: —
And also with it went acceptance
of U.S. world leadership and Cana
dian integration into the U.S. eco!
omy with all its disastrous comse
quences for the independence of
our country. 3

In effect what Bengough wés
dropping was the defense of oUF
national interests and the accept —
ance of a satellite role for Canada
and the trade union movement —
within th@orbit of U.S. imperial
ism,

As a consequence of this policy —
he began to amend the constitu:
tion. Instead of it being in part 4
guarantor of inner union demo —
cracy and the autonomous rights —
of affiliates of the TLC, the const
tution was amended to confor™
with McCarthyism. . :

Unions were expelled, suspended
or destroyed. Militant trade uniol-
ists who had given a lifetime
service to the building up of the —
trade union movement were oust:
ed from positions of JeadershiP
and the right of the membershiP
to elect whomever they chose, t©
local, provincial and national lead
ership taken away from them. .

For this service to U.S. imperial
ism and. its monopoly agents 17
Canada, ’tis said Bengough may
now become a Senator.

The question remains to be 20°
wered—will Bengough’s successo!
continue these same _ policies Obey
change them in:line with the Te#
needs of the labor movement? _

It is for the delegates and the
rank and file to decide. is

The trade union movement i$
entering a period of heavy at
tack. The “boom” is over. Mom :
opoly intends to try to take awaY
the limifed gains the workers
won through bitter struggle. The
new times obviously call for new
policies.and for bold, dynamic —

leadership willing and able f° —
fight for them in unity with the

rest of the labor movement.

This is the way the proble™
ought to be tackled by the co
vention.