;
;
4
;
3
;
:
3

ee ee, ee

+

ts a eee ee, Te

Delegates
leave for
conference

Despite inclement weather, many
supporters were at the CPR station
here on Monday night as B.C. dele-
gates left to attend the Congress
of Support for Negotiated Peace,
to be held in Toronto this week-
end, January 30-31.

Delegates were: Ray Gardner,
chairman of B.C. Peace Council;
Mrs. Mary Jewell, Vancouver; Mrs.
Minnie Searle, North Vancouver,
Mrs. Jean Amy, New Westminster,
Mrs. Ruth Dougherty, Vancouver,
Mrs. Kathleen Rowe, Haney, and
Mrs. Mary Gawricki, Vancouver.

One million teenagers
before U.S. courts

WASHINGTON

A million American teenagers
were before the courts last year.
More than half the car thefts and
burglaries in the United States
last year were committed by
young people under 18.

Of his file of 7,500 letters from
organizations and individuals on
the problem, Republican Senator
Robert Hendrickson said nearly
90 percent attribute > growing
juvenile crime to increasing
emphasis on sex, and crime in
public entertainment.

=

Labor unites to fight
Quebec anti-union bill

By HARRY GULKIN

MONTREAL

Legislation heralding fresh onslaughts on French Canada’s embattled labor movement has been
passed through its decisive second reading in the Quebec legislature. Passage of Bills 19 and 20 design-
ed to decertify all unions which have at one time or another engaged in wage struggles, was accompanied
by Premier Maurice Duplessis’ rabit McCarthyite accusations that Le

“bolshevik journals.” x
Liberal complicity in passage of
both bills was clear. Only one
Liberal member rose to oppose
passage of Bill 19. It was a Liberal
member who called for the ques-
tion on the second reading thus
ending debate. Only after the 60-
19 vote was taken did Liberal Op-
position leader Georges La Palme

Canadian coal for Canadian
markets can save industry

“Not a single miner need lose his job: the depression in the coal industry can be
beaten!’’ declares a leaflet issued by the Labor-Progressive party’s provincial committees

in British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia.

“A major reason why coal production is

declining is because Canadian coal is not permitted to fill the Canadian market. Why,
even the parliament buildings at Ottawa are heated with American coal!’’
Full text of the LPP statement follows:

For thousands of Canadian coal
miners a depression (like that of
the Hungry Thirties) is already
here. Production is , dropping
steadily, mines are closing down,
miners are laid off or forced to go
on part time work.

Once thriving communities
(like Cadomin, Mountain Park
and Rosedale in Alberta; West-
ville and Inverness in Nova
Scotia; Nanaimo, Wellington and
Princeton mining communities
in British Columbia) have be-
come or are being turned into
ghost towns.

Men who have spent a full life-
time of toil in the mines, who
should now be able to look forward
to a measure of security in old age,
find themselves without a job, their
homes uprooted, and expected to
move somewhere else and start life
all over again.

As for youth, there is little or no
future fer them in coal mining. If
this situation continues the pros-
pects for all who depend on coal
for a living becomes very grim in-
deed.

Admittedly the use of oil and
natural gas for both domestic and
industrial uses has severely cut
into the home market for coal, es-
pecially in Western Canada. In
Nova Scotia modernization and
mechanization of the mines has un-
doubtedly aggravated the employ-
ment situation.

But neither of the above are the
main reasons why we have a
dwindling market for Canadian
coal with all its consequences. The
trouble is that Canadian coal is not
being used to supply the Canadian
market. Look at the facts:

- In 1952 Canada used over 41
million tons of coal. Despite
our tremendous coal reserves
only 17 million tons of this were
mined in Canada. (In 1953 it
was even less). The rest of it,
some 24 million tons, was import-
ed from the United States.

So it is clear that a major rea-
son why Canadian coal production
is declining is not because there is
no ample supply of coal and no
home market; it is because Cana-
dian coal is not permitted to fill
the Canadian market. Why even
the parliament buildings at Ottawa
are heated with American coal!

This is a direct result of the
policy of the St. Laurent govern-
ment which is selling out Canada
to the U.S. It puts the super-
profits of U.S. coal trusts ahead’
of the welfare of Canadian min-
ers. This is the real root of the
problem.

The LPP believes there is a place
for coal in an expanding Canadian

What does the future offer?

economy, just as there is for oil

and natural gas. We say there can
be a market for every ton of coal
Canadian miners can produce, now
and for years to come. Not a single
miner need lose his job. The de-
pression in the coal industry can
be beaten. :

‘How? By following a policy of
Put Canada First! It is as simple
as. that.

Here is the coal policy of the
LPP! 1

Canadian coal for the Cana-
dian market. No importation
of U.S. coal as long as Canadian

miners are idle. Increased govern-,

ment subyentions to make possible
the sale of coal in Central Canada.

Government action to estab-

lish industries to. process
coal for its many valuable by-pro-
ducts.

Expand the home market

for coal by the all-rounded
economie development of our
country, by processing our rich
natural resources right here at
home instead of shipping them in
their raw state to the U.S.

y izade with the whole world
on a sterling or _ barter
basis. This would provide new ex-
port markets for Canadian coal;
thriving industries resulting from

such trade would also use more
coal. 7

Full support to the miners

~in their struggle for security
and decent living standards, in-
cluding higher wages and reduc-
tion in the work week; improved
pensions; an increase in unem-
ployment insurance payments to
75 percent of earnings and their
continuation until gainful employ-
ment is again secured.

If such a national coal policy
were pursued there would be no
depression in the coal industry and
no idle miners.

The Labor-Progressive party
believes this is a practical plan.
It will benefit. not only the min-
ers and the mining communi-
ties, it will serve the national in-
terest as well. That is why the
LPP gives full support to Dist-
ricts 18 and 26 of the. United
Mine Workers of America, in
their fight for a national coal
policy.

The LPP calls upon all people
affected by the coal industry —
miners, mining communities, busi-
ness people, operators — to unite
their efforts for public action to
compel Ottawa to adopt a policy to
Put Canada First and end the U.S.
domination of our country.

It can be done! It must be done!

s

Devour and I’Action Catholique are

take the floor to deliver a dema-
gogic post mortem on the iniquities
of the legislation.

It is clear, however, from the
mounting protests, that Bill 19 and
20 can still be stopped. Before
they become law they have to be
passed by the Legislative Council,
Quebec’s Upper House, where the
Liberals have a majority. United
action by the labor movement can
stop Bills 19 and 20 and forestall
further anti-labor legislation.

Bill 19 provides for decertifica-
tion of any“union that “tolerates”
among its organizers or officers
“one or more persons adhering to
a- Communist party or movement.”

Gerard Gilion, director of Le
Devoir, wrote on January 14 that
with this “idiotic statement” (that
Le Devoir is a bolshevik journal)
Duplessis confirms the opposition
of his adversaries to the bill.

“Tt is precisely the absence of
a definition of the word commun-
ism, and the premier’s mania in
seeing Communists everywhere,
particularly among his adversar-
ies, that is the basis of the oppo-
sition to Bill 19,” he pointed out.

“Tf Le Devoir is a bolshevik
journal there is a good chance
that all the unions that don’t please
him, are also in the same category,
and therefore the Labor Relations
Board, acting as it is accustomed
to, on the premier’s instructions,
would be justified in decertifying
them.” ged

Bill 20 is a Duplessis refinement
of the Public Service Employees
Act passed by the Godbout Liberal
administration in 1944. The act
forbade strikes among workers in
all public services. Bill 20, an
amendment to that act, calls for
immediate and automatic decerti-
fication of any union “which ord-
ers, declares or encourages, or

encourage, or whose members car-
ry out a strike.”

Bill 20 also has the distinction
of being retroactive. This means
that the law can be used to de-
certify unions in public services
which have struck at any time
since the passage of the Public
Service Employees Act in 1944.

Specifically, it is aimed at. the
Catholic Teachers: Alliance which
went on strike in 1949, and was
subsequently decertified. The Su-
preme Court restored the alliance’s
certificate. Bill 20 would override
the Supreme Court’s decision, and

Workers Union and others.
Passage of Bills 19 and 20 has

aroused a storm of protest. Cath-

olic Syndicates president Gerrard

Picard termed Bill 20 “an affront
to the Supreme Court of Can-

ada.” He said that the fegisla-
tion “was an abuse of power.”

The Canadian Congress of Labor
Political Action Committee has
denounced the bills.

Romeo Mathieu, secretary of the
CCL Quebec Federation of Indus-
trial Unions, declared it is “high
time that citizens of all classes
give a hand to stop this march to-
wards totalitarianism.”

Roger Provost, president of the

AFL-TLC, submitted that the bills
were “useless, dangerous and fur-
ther complicate labor-management
relations.”

Montreal Trade Union Rights
Committee distributed thousands of
leaflets to Montreal workers call-
ing for protest action against the
bills.

Passage of Bills 19 and 20 is re-
creating the kind of labor unity

at produced the Cartel of 1949.
That year labor’s unity Cartel de-
feated Bill 5, similar in many re-

whose directors order, declare or

spects to Bills 19 and 20.

Reply to Duplessis

‘Bolshevik’ Le Devoir

awaits padlocksquad

MONTREAL |
Premier Duplessis’ assertion that |
‘Action Catholique and Le Devoir |
are “bolshevik journals” elicited
sharp and pointed commentary
from Le Devoir. The premier later
magnanimously exonerated l’Action
Catholique, but he has not with-
sedate his characterization of Le
evoir.

On January 14, Le Devoir’s di-
rector, Gerard Filion, asked: “. . .
if Le Devoir is a bolshevik journal,
why doesn’t the premier padlock
it? Duplessis is failing in his dut-
ies; if he is not he is a vulgar
slanderer.” Filion concludes: “It
is the latter that is true.”

In the same issue of Le Devoir

appeared a satirical column headed |

Le Devoir.” ;
The law proposes among other
things: that Le Devoir be consid-
ered “bolshevik, reprehensible and
amoral.” (Thé terms “reprehen-
sible and amoral” were those used
by Labor Minister Barrette in de-
nouncing the debate on Bill 19.)
It proposes that Le Devoir be
sold and that the proceeds go to
the Union Nationale electoral slush
fund; that the Le Devoir editors
“be condemned to write paeans of
praise to the Union Nationale for
the rest of their lives . . . ; that
the editors of Le Devoir eat every
word of criticism that they have

“A Law to Rid the Province of

directed against Union Nationale.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE

“This law goes into force with
retroactive effect because of the

Lieutenant-Governor’s special sanc-\

tion, under the personal instruc
tion of the premier, Maurice-Le-
goblet Duplessis.”

The following day Le Devoir re-
ported that the entire Le “Devoir
staff had been in a state of jitters
for “the last 24 hours . . . waiting
for the visit from the most effi-
cient antl subversive squad.” How-
ever, lamented Le Devoir, “nothin:
happened.” ee

“Has the premier changed his
mind, or is he waiting for a pro-
pitious moment to send his agents
to padlock Le Devoir?” .

Le Devoir goes on to assure its
readers that its director, Gerard
Filion, “is now taking the neces-
Sary measures, so that if the worst
comes to the worst, the clandes-
tine publication of Le Devoir will
be assured.”

Split Season proposed

Vancouver halibut fishermen
are proposing a split season for
1954, and are circulating halibut
fleets in B.C., Alaska and “Wash-
ington with their proposals. Sug-
gestions adopted by United Fisher-
men and Allied Workers Union
will go before the conference board

and the halibut commission which :

meets January 26-28 in Seattle.
— JANUARY 29, 1954 — PAGE 2

would also affect the Tramway |

Provincial Federation of Labor °

f