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More than 400 women questioned the province’s 55 MLAs on their attitudes towards various issues affecting
Women last Monday in Victoria. The MLA‘s responses to the women’s questions were charted on a large
“lobby board’”’ erected outside of the Legislature, and they showed that not only was there little response to
their demands, but an alarmingly high number of MLAs were not even aware of what the issues were, let

alone how to overcome them.

Ubyssey photo by Steve Bosch

REGINA — The Saskatchewan
€deration of Labor, representing
1,000 organized workers in the

Province, called on the provincial

80vernment to withdraw its
“0operation from the federal
S0vernment’s wage-cutting
Program and urged the govern-

¢ Ment to reject wage controls as a
_ Means ‘of combatting inflation.

The SFL was presenting its

as SESS Ss SN
GEORGE SEMENIUK

Combatting —

inflation?

ie few working Canadians
Sea believe the anti-inflation
Ane was really intended to
cea Inflation, it must be in-
Inf, Singly difficult for the Anti-

“tion Board to believe it either

mitt Will be spending some $12.5

;
:

1

;
;
;
:
W
}
’

eee Or $240,000 a week begin-
ae! 1 to hold down workers’
S.

: mite board has already spent $4.9

Mion in the six months since the

8 control program began.

a8 Chairman Jean-Luc Pepin
sen eS: $1,038 a week for his
Sie while vice-chairman
Thay Plumptre gets $770 a week.
eh Sa bit of a comedown from
Rane €vious salary as Food Prices
ag ‘ew Board chairman but then

in, she would undoubtedly

a
aa She has to do her part to
™bat inflation.

annual brief to the provincial New
Democratic Party government
March 10, led by -Federation
president George Semeniuk and
the SFL 14-man executive council.

In a hard hitting: statement the
federation charged, ‘‘this wage
control program guarantees profit
levels at the same time as it at-
tempts to keep labor costs down by
force.”

“We feel,’ the brief went on,
“your government has been lured
into participating in a fraud. For
these reasons and many other
reasons we state our strong op-
position to your participation in the
wage control program.”

Citing ‘‘the unwillingness of
companies to cooperate with the
government in the past’ the
Federation brief also called on the
government to nationalize the total
potash industry, rather than just
retaining a 50% interest.

“Private ownership of part of the
industry is unacceptable as it will
leave a substantial part of the.
industry in the hands of foreign
corporations,’ the brief stated.
“Profits that rightfully belong to
the people of Saskatchewan will
continue to be siphoned off to
foreign countries or head offices in
Eastern Canada.”

The Federation outlined a 10-
point program to halt inflation
which included: ;

e rollback of exorbitant prices

e lowering of interest rates and
pressure for anti-profiteering
legislation at the federal level

e development of a real, low-cost
public housing program

e lowering of rents to no more
than 10% of a family’s income

e pressure- for significant
changes in income tax exemptions
to protect those on low incomes

e increased old age pensions
supplements and proper indexing
to cost of living

@ improved controls to lower the
cost of energy to consumers

e government ownership and
control of essential industries

e removal of corporate tax

concessions that lead to higher
profits and contribute to the in-

flationary spiral.
The federation brief also ex-
tended support to the National

Withdraw wage controls’
SFL tells Blakeney gov‘t

Farmers Union efforts to obtain an
adequate beef stabilization
program provincially, urged the
government Transportation
Research Branch to work with the
SFL, the NFU and the unions in-
volved, on matters dealing with
branch line abandonment and
inland grain terminals, and sup-
ported the opposition by the
students of the province’s two
universities to the tuition fee in-
crease.

McGeer

unmoved |

by ICBC protest

Faced with over 250,000
signatures demanding changes in
current ICBC premiums, and a
recordof countless demonstrations
of all kinds over the last two

months demanding that
automobile insurance rates be
reduced, the Socred cabinet

minister reSponsible for ICBC has
flatly refused to change anything.
Pat McGeer rejected the

demands for substantial changes

to his government’s premium
pricing policy in a meeting with
representatives of the B.C.
Federation of Labor and the
Concerned Citizens Association of
B.C. in Victoria last week.

The meeting with McGeer was
part of a full day of activity in-
volving representatives from
various community, tenants and
labor organizations in which every
MLA was interviewed and asked to
answer a prepared questionnaire
dealing with their opinions on
various -items affecting the
government-owned insurance
company, including one asking
whether or not they favored the re-
entry of private insurance com-
panies into the province. The
results of the questionnaire were to
be compiled and released later this
week.

As well, the delegation delivered
the 250,000 signature petition
demanding a rollback in rates to a
meeting of the joint opposition. The
petition is expected to be tabled in
the House as part of the debate
over last week’s speech from the
throne.

The meeting with McGeer was
characterized by the minister’s
refusal to discuss any. of the
questions which the delegation had
come to ask him. Norm Black,
spokesman for the Concerned
Citizens Association, said after the
meeting that he was ‘‘shocked, just

Chg 4

Consummating an agreement on collaboration in artificial heart research signed
doctors this month implanted two different artificial heart models in
have stressed the importance of finding answers to the increasin
program was designed to facilitate cooperation. At top,
V. 1. Shumakov display the artificial hearts. Below, the sc

shocked. We brought 250,000 names
on a petition and he (McGeer) just
shrugs it off as a difference of
opinion.’’ Black said that he was
particularly disappointed that
McGeer even refused to discuss the
questions that they had come to
ask him.

Black said that even when
McGeer was pressed as to his
opinion on detailed cases of hard-
ships, such as those faced by
drivers under 25 whose insurance
rates generally tripled, or those
affected by the cancellation of the
territorial equalization program,
he would only reply that the
government had decided not to
“subsidize the automobile.’’ That
has been McGeer’s response to all
of the protests staged since the new
rates were introduced in early
January.

McGeer’s refusal to answer any
questions prompted Len Guy,
secretary-treasurer of the B.C.
Federation of Labor to charge that
all McGeer wanted was ‘‘to quote
actuarial statistics when we are
here to talk about real people.
Inasmuch as we are speaking for
250,000 people, don’t you think he
should answer our questions?”

Inside the Legislature itself, the
Socred government faced its first
motion of non-confidence which
was brought forward by NDP
house leader Bill King in response
to the government’s introduction of
oppressive ICBC rate increases.

Although not expected to get past
the Socred majority, King’s motion
would have the effect of making
the government apologize for the
size of the premium increases, the .
removal of the _ territorial
equalization program, and the
government’s ‘discriminatory
attitude toward drivers under 25
years old,” all major changes to
ICBC introduced by the Socreds.

in 1974, Soviet and American

an operation in Moscow. Both countries
g problems of cardiovascular disease and the
American surgeon, George Noon (right) and Soviet
ene during the operation.

—Tass photos

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 26, 1976—Page 3