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Civic leaders from all parts of
®province were urged this week
Ke action on housing and
employment as the Union of B.C.
Unicipalities convention con-
*ned in Vernon, B.C.

mee call for action by B.C.’s
tnicipalities came.from Alberni
eo George McKnight, a
Bloe, Operator at the MacMillan
oe plant in Alberni, in a
pon paper distributed to all
“bates at the UBCM parley.
intitle, “Housing and
UrhaPovment-Major Problems of
follows Government Today,”’
Sate we is the text of McKnight’s
latement:

The Prediction of employer

8
wkesmen that up to 10,000
: Workers are laid-off, or facing
‘*Yoff j

i cay n B.C. in the coming weeks
tivie Se for grave concern among
Ministrer municipal ad-
Be gons of this Province
Dod ty cents of every dollar of
indip tion originates directly or
*ctly from this basic industry.
€re are several basic causes
for . Current market difficulties
ther ber, and plywood. Among
&M are:

(1.) Unheard of price increases
‘ OUtthe €mployers have squeezed
@ in qe atest profits ever seen in
Ndustry,
“terest Impossible mortgage in-
Ove, terest rates, 11.5% and
Dossipgr ec tically eliminating the
sa ollity of all but the highest
; (3) orkers building a home.
Ments 8X policies of the Govern-
Materials on all building
: Plus 5% provincial sales

LBERNI ALDERMAN URGES ACTION
Jobs, housing major civic issues

tax, which adds up to about 17%
when you apply tax on tax.

(4.) HIgh cost of building lots,
prices for which have been pushed
up to the very limit by developers
and speculators and further
aggravated by the policies of the
municipal governments.

The employers and many
government spokesmen all speak
piously about the ‘‘market dif-
ficulties’ as being responsible for
the present crisis.

These “market difficulties” do
not relate to the actual need of the
people for housing. There are
hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of Canadians, living in
houses which are unfit for oc-
cupation. And in addition, many
thousands of others who
are inadequately housed and very
badly need a decent place to live in.

In every city in Canada, even
Port Alberni, people are living in
run-down unfit houses with no
possibility to improve their cir-
cumstances.

It is not a market situation
reflecting too many houses, or the
need for houses, it is a market
situation reflecting the fact that
millions of Canadians and a far
greater number of Americans
cannot afford a decent place to
live. And this number includes
many thdusands of woodworkers
who produce the building material
but cannot afford to buy it.

In the face of this situation what
can the Canadian government do to
solve this contradiction? — which
is on the one hand, millions of
Canadians living in inadaquate and
even indecent housing, and on the

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other hand, layoffs and market
crisis in the lumber industry — our
basic supplier of building material.

The Federal, Provincial and
Municipal governments should
recognize housing, good housing as
a basic right of every Canadian
and undertake to guarantee this
right to all our people by adopting a
program of action which would
accomplish this in the next 10
years. In short, make this a
national priority and undertake all
the measures necessary to ac-
complish this objective. Z

The first thing which comes to
mind is that such a program would
cost a lot of money; yes, it would.
There is no doubt of that. But let us
recall these facts.

In 1939, when Canada, after 10
years of depression found it
necessary to go to war, the
government raised the necessary
money by an act of parliament
which was passed in 20 minutes.
Billions were raised, shipyards,
factories, all sorts of industries,
army camps, aeroplanes, airports
etc., etc. were built in a matter of
months. There was no shortage of
money; unemployment disap-
peared; hundreds of thousands
were in uniform, and the rest went
to work. It Was a National
Emergency!

@

Hundreds of thousands are
unemployed; there are slums in
every city which need to be torn
down and replaced; hundreds of
thousands of children have no
decent house to live in; senior
citizens live in deplorable con-
‘ditions because they cannot afford
decent housing even if it was

Labor hits
attack on
pay gains

Answering claims made by
finance minister John Turner
during a recent speech in Van-
couver that wage increases con-
tribute to ‘‘rapid inflation”, B.C.
labor leaders said last weekend
that Turner is out of touch with
realities.

George Johnston, president of
the B.C. Federation of Labor, said.
“Wage rates have nothing to do
with interest rates, or land
speculation, or the increasing
prices for food products, which are
the major causes of inflation. And
certainly profits have not been in
any way restrained by em-
ployers.”

Turned has currently been on a
national speaking tour indicating
that the government is planning
stronger action to deal with in-
flation at the next session. In-
dications from Turner’s speech is
that the government will adopt
some of the Tory thinking on in-
flation and direct its main fire
against the standards of living of
working people.

Asked what he thought of Tur-
ner’s remarks, Johnston said, “‘It
implies in itself that one of the
major factors in inflation are
wages. We think we have the right
to continue to get an ever im-
proving standard of living and a
right to maintain that through cost-
of-living clauses that maintain our
position and don’t erode it.”

Vancouver labor council

president Syd Thompson and head

of IWA local 217, said ‘‘people like
Turner are totally out of touch with
the realities of inflation and have

See LABOR HITS, pg. 12

Ald. George McKnight, who this
week took the fight for action
on housing and unemployment
to the floor of the UBCM
convention in Vernon.

available; people’s health and
living standards decline because of
unemployment and disgraceful
housing conditions all over the
country. And in the face of all this,
the Federal government increases
interest rates to ‘cool down the
economy!”’

This situation is a disgrace; a
national disaster; and yes, a
“National Emergency”’, as much
so as any war situtation for those
who are unemployed and
inadaquately housed.

What can we do about it? The
Federal government needs to seize
the initiative to launch the greatest
housing program the country has
ever seen. We should immediately
declare an emergency situation in
housing; enact the necessary
legislation to raise the money for a
“crash program” of 350 to 500
thousand living units per year for
the next ten years; cooperate with
the provinces to build senior
citizen’s housing and low rental
housing on a massive scale.
Cooperate with the municipalities
to tear down the slums and replace
them with modern housing with all
the amenities needed for the
people.

Meet this National Emergency in
housing with a national program of
action to meet the needs of the
people for housing now!

There is no aspect of the
economy which generates em-

r

ployment to the level that housing
generates from planners and ar-
chitects to carpenters and plum-
bers, from manufacturers of
plumbing material to cement and
furniture, appliances and furnaces
to glass and electric wire, all
branches of the economy.

Woodworkers.and all the various
trades in the construction industry,
workers in manufacturing plants;
municipal and provincial
statesmen — we should all unite to
see to it that government action is
taken now! 2

Parliament meets at the end of
September. It is time for the
parliament of Canada to act, and to
act decisively just as it did in 1939.

Food, clothing and shelter are
the three most basic needs of the
people. Housing in our country
cannot be adequately provided on
the basis of the so-called “private
enterprise” methods of the past.
The developers, the promoters, the
speculators, the mortgage com-
panies have pushed the cost of
housing beyond the ability of the
majority of Canadians to pay. But
the country as a whole can meet
the need by national action.

All we need is the will to act. We
have the material, we have the
people, we have the money as was
proven during the war. Let’s start
now:

o Reduce expenditure for arms
by $1,000 million a year. This would
build 40,000-25,000 living units per
year for a start. The employment
so generated would return millions
in taxation, to build thousands
more homes.

0 Reform the tax structure to
increase taxation on the rick and
lower it on the poor. This could
raise another billion a year which
would duplicate the above. In this
way the process would very
quickly snowball and housing
construction slum clerance and
increased employment would
rapidly regenerate the whole
country, renew our sense of
national purpose, improve the
living standards and well being of
our people and prove that with
government leadership, rising
employment, improving living
standards, our people’s whole lives
would take on new meaning, our
jobs would be more secure and our
whole country and it’s people
would be the benefactors.

eA

KEEP REPEATING
THAT TO THE

“WAGES ARE
TO BLAME FOR

PUBLIC/
oe