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1

‘[Joyi in the boardrooms over Socred budget |

By MAURICE RUSH

There will be joy in the board-
rooms of the large forest
companies and mining com-
panies this week. They get all the
big breaks in the budget brought
down in the legislature Tuesday
by finance minister Hugh Curtis.

There are only crumbs in the
budget for the people. There is no
attempt to come to grips with un-
employment, inflation or the
housing crisis. In fact, this budget

| will increase unemployment and
| inflation in 1980.

ine pen ss companies are

the main recipients of the increas-
ed expenditures trumpeted by
Curtis: The $1.4 billion, five year
reforestation program means that
the public will pay to restore the
forests cut down and left barren
by the forest companies.

A large scale reforestation pro-
gram is overdue. But the forest
companies should pay for it out
of their fabulous profits. Stump-
age revenues from the companies
will pay only a portion of the cost,
$84.1 million of the $338 million
to be spent in the first year.

Another major concession to
big business is =the. decision to

spend $20 million to speed the ex-
port of coal from Northeastern
B.C. The mining cartels, backed
by Japanese capital, want to get
their hands on that coal, and now
they will, facilitated by public
funds.

There are better uses for pro-
vincial revenues than. outright
subsidies to giant corporations.

The modest increases in the

health and education budgets are

attempts to shore up the image of
the Socreds as a government
which cares for people. But the
increases will barely cover infla-
tion. The $30 million for Denti-

care is far from sufficient to pro-
vide a comprehensive program.

The promise of tax relief with
cuts in the sales tax on electricity
and natural gas are the most de-
ceitful feature of this budget.
Curtis made a big point of this,
the $54 million in cuts, about one
percent of the budget.

But effective April.1, Hydro
rates are going up seven percent.
Even with the tax cut the net in-
crease in Hydro bills will be about
$40 per year for each household.
This is why the increases were
pushed through without waiting
for the establishment of the

‘Curb multinational control’ =
fishermen demand ¢ of gov't

— --omumtiinsmes ("" ‘ ee

|
yg ON STRME The United Fishermen and

Allied Workers Union announc-
ment this week that it would take a
mass lobby to Victoria Thursday to
demand provincial government ac-
tion to restrict the control of the
multinational corporations whose
_ grip on the’ roe herring fishery has
sparked a major crisis.

The lobby call came as the
UFAWU and the Native
Brotherhood entered their second
week of strike against the attempt

ste FSH arian WORKERS UHR

| ware eon 5

1 ON SIRE

Paap

Raieerating their partie stand in refustiiy to accept price cuts, herring fishermen in the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers Union and the Native Brotherhood gathered at Vancouver's Olympia
Theatre (top) March 5 to vote by 71 per Cent to reject the latest Fisheries Association offer. BOTTOM:
Picket boats in Esperanza Inlet, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, site of one fisheries department openings
opening.

FISHERMAN PHOTOS—GEOFF MEGGS, ELIAS STAVRIDES

by the Fisheries Assocation, which
bargains for the major companies,
to force herring fishermen to pay
the cost for market manipulation
by huge Japanese multinationals.

Standing firm in their refusal to
accept cuts, fishermen voted Mar.
5and Mar. 9, first to reject the offer
of $650 a ton for gillnet-caught fish
and $350 for seine fish from the
Fisheries Assocation, and later to
turn down an offer from two in-
dependents which, though higher,
was: still well below last year’s
minimum prices.

“Fishermen have made it clear
that they can’t afford to fish for
those prices,’” UFAWU president
Jack Nichol told a press conference
Tuesday. ~

At the same time, openings
allowed. by the federal fisheries
department for scab fishermen and
those fishing for two co-ops have
threatened to decimate a
dangerously depleted resource.
The department has allowed the
despite union-
See HERRING page 12

The Canadian Paperworkers
Union has blasted as ‘‘a hell of a
mess” the government’s handling
of the shutdown of the Ocean Falls
pulp and newsprint mill and the re-
fusal of B.C. Cellulose president
Ray Williston to make a commit-
ment that Ocean Falls workers will
be given first chance at jobs in a
wood chip mill projected for the
northern town.

‘‘We’re totally disgusted,’’ CPU
staff representative Brian Payne
told the Tribune Wednesday.

“First we read about the closure in
the newspapers and now that there
is a proposed new wood chip and
lumber mill, we don’t even know
who the employer is or whether our
people are going to get the jobs.”

Williston, president of the
crown-owned B.C. Cellulose Cor-
poration, announced last week, af-
ter meetings with the provincial
cabinet, that the operation would
close April 1 and would later be
converted to a lumber mill at’a net
loss of more than 300 jobs.

But as Payne, pointed out, that
decision was virtually sprung on the
CPU which had held earlier meet-
ings with premier Bennett and Wil-
liston without any indication that
closure was imminent. —

He said that he and three other
CPU officers met with Bennett
Jan. 16 following months of
rumors in Ocean Falls that the
crown company, saved from shut-
down by an NDP government
takeover from Crown Zellerbach

in 1973, was again threatened.

CPU blasts gov't on Ocean Falls closure

“Bennett told us that he didn’t
know anything and said that his
concern was for people’s jobs,”’

Payne said, adding that the premier

committed himself to coming to
Ocean Falls ‘‘somewhere around
April i PA

Payne called Williston Feb. 28
after rumor persisted but again got
the answer that the company ee
ident ‘‘didn’t know.

‘‘And then I pick up the ereiie

See OCEAN page 3

Public Utilities Commission. It is |
the old Socred tactic of pretend- |
ing to give concessions with one }
hand, while taking away more |
than they are giving with the |
other.

The poor are victims of the
same sleight of hand. The human }
resources budget is increased by /
17 percent, but most of this will be |
eaten up by last year’s and this {
year’s inflation. Over 60,000 peo- |
ple in B.C., most of them |
children, can not meet the basic |
costs of food and shelter with |
what this government allows |

_See TAX page 3 }

ee

| @ BCRIC: An anelyate of |

~ what is at stake in the
dramatic share pur-
chases of MacMillan
Bloedel and Kaiser Re- |
sources by the former |
crown corporations in |
BCRIC, page 3.

{| © ZIMBABWE: An_ inter-

} view with the North Am-
H erican representative of
} the Zimbabwe African
People’s Union about the
direction of the new gov-
ernment, page 11.

NOREEN ITER

WOMEN: Day care, the
changing role of women
in Canadian society, and
i a report on Vancouver's
f successful International
Women’s Day celebra-
tion, pages 6, 7 and 10.

LETICIA