8 THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER: WORKER Bec. 1905 POVERTY STAKES CLC CONFERENCE OTTAWA — The Canadian a considerable part of the Canada’s biggest city holds undisputed first place in the poverty stakes race with the largest mass of poor and un- derprivileged of any city in the country. © This was the evidence pro- duced by a study sponsored by the Montreal Labor Coun- cil and announced on the oc- casion of a banquet with about one thousand guests celebrat- ing the Council’s 80th birth- day. DELEGATES Coinciding with the 9th an- nual convention of the Que- bec Federation of Labor, most of the guests were convention delegates who got a statistical earful about low - income groups, dubbed by the author of the report, “the third solitude.” (The Two Solitudes was the title of a best-seller by Cana- dian author Hugh MacLennan about Canada’s two major language groups, the English and the French). Emile Gosselin, professor of industrial relations at the Uni- versity of Montreal, who pre- pared the report, charged that 48.6 percent of the people of Metropolitan Montreal “lived a precarious or marginal ex- istence.” One-third of the pop- ulation lived in actual priva- tion or abject poverty. The situation was so bad, according to Council secre- tary Gerard Rancourt, that anyone in the area making a union wage could be consider- ed to be “among the aristoc- racy.” BODIE’S Quick Action Service COLLISION REPAIRS Free Estimates and Terms a ae ALIGNMENT le — PAINTING Factory Finish Mobile Infra-Red Bake Oven PHONE | 681-9267 | Night Calls 266-7414 COLLISIONS LYD. 1150 Seymour, near Davie Specialists for over 33 years Commenting on his report, Prof. Gosselin said that Can- ada’s social legislation does little to help the poverty- stricken because it is aimed at the so-called “average fam- ily.” This was the case, he claimed, not only in Montreal but in all North America. His survey broke down the low-income groups into four categories, those who live in misery, in poverty, in priva- tion or a marginal existence. ‘The groups ranged from in- comes of under $1,000 a year for an individual or $2,000 for a family to under $2,500 per individual or $5,000 per fam- ily. Thirty-eight percent of the people in the city of Montreal proper come within the three lowest categories, with an esti- mated 423,418 persons living in misery, poverty or priva- tion. In the Metro area, 706,830 people or 33 percent fall in these lowest three groups with another 17 percent living a marginal existence. LOW SALARY “Fifty-one percent of the poor families in Montreal are earning a wage and, independ- ent of other reasons, owe their poverty to the low salary of the family head.” The president of the Labor Council, Jean-Paul Menard, said the object of the survey was to bring to light “this social plague, since politicians claim prosperity exists,” add- ing that if there is inflation, it is inflation of profits and not of wages. Prof. Gosselin gave the cue for this line of reasoning by stating in the report, “In our time as in all others, progress _has not prevented poverty. But our society shows a char- acteristic which no other has ever had — it tolerates pov- erty in the midst of abund- ance, at a moment when it has everything it needs to settle the problem.” WAGES The average wage in Metro Montreal is over $6,000 a year, about $600 a year over the Canadian average, so “it is hard to believe” said the pro- “YOU EVER GET THE FEELING THE BOSS KNOWS EXACTLY HOW MUCH TIME WE SPEND AT THIS WATER COOLER 2“ fessor, that a third of the people are in needy circum- stances, with 48.6 percent “economically weak.” Two- thirds of Montreal families have incomes under the $6,000 mark. The upper levels of income show “Four percent of the families in the metropolitan zone, those which receive an annual revenue of $15,000 or more, earn by themselves 10 percent of all the revenues earned by all the families of the Montreal region.” Professor Gosselin said town planning and housing were badly needed along with both legal and economic meas- ures to overcome the shocking situation, “The structure of our cities, the spread of the suburbs, everything prevents us from seeing, hearing, un- derstanding the poor” who, he added, were becoming less and less visible and partici- pating less and less in the normal functioning of society. Welfare alone will not do the job, he emphasized, as it will always come too late “as long as we refuse to take the © real economic and _ political decisions which our various states of poverty require.” BROADWAY PRINTERS printers and lithographers since 1911 115 EAST 8th AVENUE VANCOUVER 10, B.C. Telephone 876-2101 bcalyy ‘FLY B.C. AIR LINES’ Labour Congress will spon- sor its first manpower train- ing conference in Ottawa Feb. 20-24, This was announced by Joe Morris, CLC executive vice-president and chairman of the CLC’s advisory com- mittee on manpower training. The conference program has been designed to study existing manpower training programs in Canada, to eval- uate the programs and recom- mend changes, to advise the CLC: on manpower -training policies, and to encourage la- bor participation in training programs. : Speakers will include a number of prominent govern- ment personalities concerned with manpower training and program will be devoted to group study of the present situation and future needs. “Tt has become increasing- ly apparent that employment in Canada does now and will continue to depend in large measure on an adequate sup- ply of skilled manpower, Mor- ris said. “We consider the whole subject of training to be one of the most vital mat- ters we face and we are anxious that organized labor, as represented by the CLC, should do everything possible to play its full role.” It is expected that the con- ference will be attended by about 250 leading trade union- ists and it will be conducted in both English and French with simultaneous translation. SEE a} -h WHEN YOU NEED ‘ TIME YOUR SAW CHAIN CAN SAVE FOR YOU- - ¥ pine, a APES ALL THE USE OREGON MICRO-BIT Use the chain that stays on the job through any kind of cutting, in any kind of weather — the chain that’s made to cut longer between stops for filing and maintenance. MICRO-BIT istough and sharp — and built tostay that way! USE PRECISION-MATCHED OREGON SAW CHAINS, SAW BARS AND SPROCKETS TO GET THE MOST FROM ANY to) OREGON DIRECT DRIVE SPECIAL ——. OMARK INDUSTRIES OF CANADA LTD. 505 EDINBURGH RD. N., GUELPH, ONTARIO