Withdraw act
pending probe,
LPP demands

“Premier Johnson and his cab-
inet should withdraw the amend-
ments, to the Hospital Insurance
Act pending a public inquiry into
operation of the scheme, hospital
costs and the shortage of hospital
beds,” says a Labor-Progressive
party statement issued this week
under the signature of provincial
organizer Alf Dewhurst.

“The record of the government’s
handling of hospital insurance is a
sorry. one,” the LPP states. “Hos-
pital premiums have been raised
from $30 a year for families in. 1948
to $42 under the new proposals,
plus the cutting off of beneficiaries
under the so-called deductible plan.

*

“Hospital costs have risen from
$6.50 a day to $13.50 a day at Van-
couver General Hospital. Tho
chronic shortage of hospital beds is

Women agitate ue ie Me

@ scandal,

“The LPP joins with thousands
of citizens who individually and
through their organizations are de-
manding a full public inquiry into
BCHIS. An investigation will re-
veal the causes of the bungling
which is doing so much harm to the
principle of hospital insurance, and
only after such an investigation
will it be possible to determine
what finances are required to put
the scheme on its feet.

“Present deficits should be made
up from consolidated revenue un-
til mew sources of revenue are
found. These new sources of re-
venue should ‘be secured from soar-
ing corporate profits and not from
the pay envelopes of the already
over-burdened working people.”

“Everything in Flowers”
FROM...

EARL SYKES

56 E. Hastings St. PA. 3855
Vancouver, B.C.

SHOPPERS’ GUIDE

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Barristers
STANTON & MUNRO
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STUDIO
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J unionists;

Here militant. members of the Bent El Nil Feminist Union
march through the streets of Cairo to-present their demands for
direct women’s suffrage ,before president of the Egyptian Senate.

4

CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

penalize

Gov't to

hospital patients

Adamant in its belief! that Pia
government ‘can do no wrong,”
the Coalition cabinet this week gave
a quick brush-off to a Canadian
Congress of Women’s delegation
protesting hospital rate hikes; turn-
ed a deaf ear to a lobby of trade
and sstonily ‘ignored
wires and letters pouring in from
all parts of the province.

Indifferent to the plight of the
public because of a chronic short-
age of hospital ‘beds (in Varicou-
ver alone more than 1,000 pa-
tients are awaiting admission)
the Qoalition cracked the whip
over Liberal and Tory members,
forcing them into line and rush-
ed through second—and decisive
—reading of the Act béosting
fees and adding a co-insurance
clause which is actually a penal-
ty—up to $3.50 a day for the first
10 days—imposed on. those un-
fortunate enough tio require and
obtain hospitalization.

Some 30 Canadian Congress. of
Women lobbyists from Vancouver,
Victoria, Nanaimo, Lake Cowichan,
Wellington and Courtenay met the
cabinet for a few minutes Monday
afternoon, presented a brief op-
posing changes in the hospital
scheme, and were ushered out with-
out having an opportunity to dis-
cuss the matter further.

he government’s “damn_ the
ie attitude, which is ae
widespread resentment throughout
B.C., found expression in Anscomb’s
bullying budget speech to the leg-
islature. Hinting that he would
have favored higher premiums
still, the finance minister asserted
that “far too great emphasis is
being placéd on social assistance,
welfare and education, and not
enough on productive services.”

What is happening is that the
Coalition government is penalizing
citizens who require hospitalization,
Despite the higher premiums they
will now be forced to pay, an ad-
ditional bill for part of the cost
of the first 10 days in hospital will
be presented to them.

It is common knowledge that the
hospital insurance scheme has been
bungled from the start. Since it
went into operation, hospital costs
have doubled, with the public pay-
ing the shot in increased premiums.

The Hamilton Report, ordered
by the government and then pig-
eon-holed without ever being
made public, is said to contain
blunt criticisms of the Coalition’s
blunders. Public pressure to
force a probe into hpspital costs
and the hospital insurance
schéme is n®w on the order of
the day.

—*

‘Do your part’ women

urged by peace speaker

Crump and an accordian solo by

, “The fight for peace cannot be
won unless women play their full
part, but if we women do live up
to this responsibility, then succéss
of the peace forces is assured,”
Minerva Miller told more than 200
people at an International Wom-
en’s Day affair last Sunday after-
noon in Swedish Community Hall.

Mrs. Velma Chen, acting as chair-
man, introduced Mrs. Effie Jones,
who spoke briefly and paid tribute
to many women who have led labor
struggles here.

The musical program included
piano selections by Ira Dickson,
soprano numbers by Lizzie Kangis,
a recitation by Lucy Kazakoff, vo-
cal numbers by Robert and Ronald

Luba Lopshinoff.

:

Agnes Jackson,

hospitalization, rent controls and
prices.
Refreshments served featured

wakes form recipes of many lands,
and lucky youngsters Gwen Pearce
and Nan Tornblad won _ Icelandic
and English cakes as prizes.

¢
Grace and Elgin Ruddell com-

petently managed a nursery all af-

ternoon, freeing many «mothers
from charge of their offspring, and
thus adding to their enjoyment of

executive secre-
tary of the Canadian Congress of
Women, made an appeal to help
finance the lobby to Victoria on

the celebration.

Action in the struggle
Women was the keynote of
of Women held in Bathurst

Congress. of Canadian Women, to
the departure of-a delegation to
make representations to the fed-
eral government in Ottawa, the
theme struck by the delegates and
in the resolutions, \was action® —
action based upon the demand for
peace, the first and ‘basic Right
of Women. The Conference brought
a new understanding of the power
of women united and a new resolve
to win unity in action,

Delegates came from every prov-
ince from Quebec to B.C. they came
from the industrial centers of On-
tario and the farming communities
of the prairies; they represented
many thousands of women, work-
ing women, housewives, profession-

als. And they took their lead from
the challenging words of Mrs.
Luckock: ‘

“For it is peace and peace alone
that will make possible for our
hopes and dreams to come true:
our hopes and dreams that every
family in our country, and in
every land, be a happy home, a
carefree and happy family, and ,
that our children may inherit a
better life than we have’ known
in this generation; that our aged
may live their years’ in comfort
‘and honor. . . . These are the
things we think of when we speak
of Women’s. Rights. ... . These

are things We are organizing to
win. ” *

*

The conference was mindful of
these words when it adopted a
10-point program on “Future Work
for. Women’s Rights,’ point 4 of
which, voted ‘hearty endorsa&tion of
the National Assembly to Save
Peace,” which is being held in
Toronto April 7 and 8, and appeal-
ed to’all women and all women’s
organizations, including the - Con-
gress of Canadian Women, to send
delegates—and if they could not
come personally, to become corres-
ponding delegates,

It was unanimously agreed that
all conference delegates would act
as delegates or corresponding dele-

sembly.

The right to peace also under-
lined the brief. of the conference
to the Canadian government which
was urged “to exert its every
effort to work together to initiate
and support action “through the
United Nations, to have the Five
Great Powers,’ Britain, the U.S.,
France, China and the _ Soviet
Union conclude a Pact of Peace
pledging these decisive powers
never to go to war against each
other.” ’ :

All resolutions were based upon
speeches of delegates and sumis-
sions from various branches. There
was a report from Port Arthur on
how action by the women resulted
in the school, board turning down
cadet training.

There was a persistent démand
from many parts-of the country
for more day nursery and day
care centers, hot noon meals, re-
creational facilities—all of which
art today idotally inadequate and
thwarted by huge war expendi-
tures.

( There was the vivid description

Peace alone can
give us security,
women declare

for the Rights

gates to the National Peace As-|

‘GREETINGS

STORK COFFEE SHOP |
YOUR HOST - TOMMY KOLT

317 W. Pender - MA. 2828

Vancouver

.

TORONTO
of Canadian
the All-Canadian Conference
St. United Church March 9

and 10, From the moment the conference opened with the
keynote address by Mrs. Rae Luckock, president of , the

of what it felt like to live under
the Nazi blitz of England, and
every delegate there was thinking
of the Korean women and children
and the American napalm bombs.

Delegates were told of the action
of hundreds of women in the peace
movement, the petition campaign,
against conscription, for subsidies
for milk, in protest against the
plan to put fear into the hearts
of children by school ‘atom bomb
defense” drills.

i, Phebe were reports of wonien
visiting their MP’s; of beginning
chain letters urging recognition of
People’s ,China, or protesting con-
scription, or against rearming Ger-
many, or for a 100 percent tax on,
excess profits.

The conference heard that me
women of French Canada are on
the move and “beginning to under-
stands the reasons for their second-
ary position”; that an Anti-Con-
scription League has been started
in Montreal.

A report from the west told of
the “recognize China” speech of
Premier Douglas and the grass
roots peace action behind it; an-
other said the CCW was broad
enough to include women in Mon-
treal who fought for traffic lights
and. farm women in Alberta who
were still fighting for electricity
in a land that had become a Yan-
kee war base.

There was applause for a re-
quest from the Indian women of
Canada that the Congress demand
the government pay Indian moth-
ers the mothers’ allpwances, now,
denied them.

These are but some of the points
covered and they have been ‘sum-
med up into action resolutions and
a powerful Appeal to the Women
of Canada to unite the inbreakable
stfength of their millions in a
mighty demand for peace, for the
curbing of war profiteering through
a 100 percent excess profits tax, for
subsidies to bring down prices, for
equal pay for women doing the
same work as men, for a 50 per-
cent increase in family allowances
and an old-age pension of $65 a
month.

But action requires organiza-
tion, as retiring executive secre--
tary Mrs. Libbie C. Park told the
conference. She called upon the
Congress of Canadian Women to
extend its work to reach those
who “have so far stbod aside from
the struggles in which we have
been engageg.”’ She said the CCW
program has something of inter-
est for all groups of women,
whether in trade union auxiliar-

ies, farm organizations or other
associations. |
She urged the spreading of the
CCW journal Women’s Voice and
the making of direct approaches
for cooperative activity with other
women’s groups in the community.

It is worthy also to note the
fine exhibition of the ‘work of
many fingers in the display of
Indian crafts, the work of Ukrain-
ian, Hungarian and Slovak em-
broidery, pottery and dolls, the
bronze and copper work of the

adian book display by Toronto
Public Library. /

woop
SAWDUST
FA. 7663
FA. 0242

UNION FUELS LTD.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 16;,1951:— PAGE 6

Women’s ArtsSociety and the Can-~