Strategically placed street sign (top right) symbolizes boycott of Shopper’s Drug Mart. Some 50 trade unionists gathered outside store at Thurlow and Robson and distributed leaflets urging consumers not to patronize the stores. Nixon policies push up food prices in Ganada By SEAN GRIFFIN Pressure against an effective food prices review board with power to curb price increases is being mounted steadily in the wake of reports of the disas- trous results of the Nixon freeze on several food items in the United States. Incidents of shortages of such products as poultry and eggs, beef and lamb and some canned goods are becoming more fre- quent and are beginning to find a reaction in Canada. Earlier this week the federal govern- ment moved to widen the export controls and, while the full effects have not yet been felt, indications are that they will not be long in coming. The crisis has its immediate origins in the United States with Nixon’s 60-day price freeze which, while freezing some prices at the retail level, did not impose any controls on those primary suppliers who are dom- inated by huge agribusiness con cerns. The most dramatic effect has been felt among independent livestock producers where skyrocketting feed prices have exceeded the price return on the animal when shipped. Small independent producers and retailers, saddled with high costs, fear they will ultimately be forced into brankruptcy while the huge food monopolies who have interests in every aspect of the industry from pro- ducer to feedlot to retailer are able to grow even wealthier as they manipulate prices wherever the freeze has not been imposed. Nixon, in fact, planned it that way but since the program is, on the face of it, a freeze on food prices, it is being viewed by many consumer advocates in Canada as a model— and many of them are already beginning to express doubts. Penny Wise, inhercolumnin the Vancouver Sun registered her doubt Monday. Though she has long been associated with consumer protection. cam- paigns, she noted with some alarm the reports coming out of the U.S. of meat shortages, plant closures and empty super- market shelves and cited as the cause, the Nixon freeze. ‘‘To freeze prices or not to freeze prices,’’ she says, and con- cludes, ‘‘I frankly, really don’t know.” Others have pointed to the Nixon program asa strong argu- ment in favor of no controls on prices for Canada but the anal- ogy isa false one. Nixon’s freeze was imposed at a time when prices were at unprecedented levels and was designed to enable huge _ agribusiness corporations to aggrandize OKANAGAN Annual Labor-Farmer Picnic SUNDAY JULY 22 — 1 p.m. to ? OYAMA COMMUNITY HALL AND BEACH swimming — sports — basket lunch — folk singer Auspices— Okanagan Regional Ctte., Communist Party of Canada PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 13, 1973—PAGE 8 greater profits and control by squeezing out the small pro- ducer and fixing prices. In Los Angeles, one group, Fight Inflation Together has at- tacked the Nixon scheme and has outlined demands including a freeze oncorporate profits and an investigation into food export profit-making. In Canada, the campaign against the widespread demand for a strong food prices review board has been accompanied with further attacks on wages as in the case of the current salmon strike where workers have been accused of contri- buting to high prices while the unjustified and _ exorbitant retail fish prices are ignored. The campaign continues among consumer groups and the trade union movement for a representative food prices re- view board with power to curb price increases and roll back unjustified price levels. With Nixon facilitating further mono- poly price fixing through the artificial creation of short- ages, the need was never greater. SALMON STRIKE Cont'd. from pg. 1 for springs under 12 pounds, the same fish, filleted into steaks, was Selling at one downtown retail outlet this week for $2.29a pound. The fact that one com- pany— Royal Fish in New West- minster — has_ reportedly offered $3.15 a pound to fisher- men for salmon roe indicates also the whopping price that roe commands in Japan, while com- panies insist that their price to fishermen includes the roe. In addition, fish companies have been making the most from consumers’ shift away from high priced beef and have been pushing up prices in order to exploit the increased demand for fish. LINKED TO MAJORITY MOVEMENT Right wing newspaper | planned in Plans to launch a right wing newspaper in Vancouver this coming October to be called the Vancouver Post are being kept under wraps as is the member- ship of its five-man board of directors. But details are begin- ning to leak out which indicate that the paper will be designed to carry the message of the re- cently formed Majority Move- ment. Probably the best-known back- er of the new paper is hotel own- er and far-right politician Frank Bernard, a long time Tory fed- erally, and supporter of the So- creds provincially. Bernard is quoted by a Vancouver news- paper columnistas having said recently that the new paper will be ‘“‘non-political. The present papers are unbiased tothe left, we'll be unbiased to the right.” A sign of how far to the right Bernard and thenew paper will be is that its owners consider the Province and Sun editorial policy as being to the left. Along with Bernard, the other prime mover in launching the paper is reported to be JohnG. McDonald, a prominent tax lawyer and defeated Tory candi- date. McDonald delivered a speech in Victoria recently for the Majority Movement, whose Vancouver | sponsors are also kept sectel | from the public. one According to reports, the firs! $100,000 needed to get the fits! edition off the press is alread! subscribed. ; To start with it will firs! appear asa Sunday tabloid. Ind! cations ‘are that a staff is belle assembled, and that include among those being talked W! are Erwin Swangard, forme” managing editor of the Suna! currently managing the Ly, room at CJOR. Owner of th radio station is Jim Pattiso® | another prominent big bus | ness type, whoisreportedly™ | volved inorganizing and final’ | cing the new paper. 7 The far right Majority Mov ment and the Vancouver se which will likely be its mor piece, is aimed at every progl’ sive and democratic movem’ in the province. Its main atte will be against the trade unio the NDP government, the coy munist Party and social refort Both the new organization® paper representa well-finan’ movement by ultra right fort to attempt to stem the Hie tb B.C. towards the left, a? t return B.C. to the right win a labor and anti-democrati¢P icies of the Socreds. — Oil tanker threat to B.C. Cont'd. from pg. 1 the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound to the Cherry Point refinery. The only environmental ques- tions begin raisedinthe U.S. are’ those involving dangers to the ecology of Alaska itself if the pipeline is built. As far as U-S. oil interests are concerned, B.C. is expendable and that what may happen to Canada’s Pacific Coast in the event of a catastrophe appears tobeofno interest to them. That the decks are being cleared to give the go-ahead once Congress approves the project was seen in the announcement recently by U.S. interior secre- a tary Rogers Morton tha construction permit fof das | Alaska pipeline will be jssuee f soon as Congress decides. eet! pipe has already — assembled for the pipeline: use Using the monopoly- ‘‘energy crisis’’ as the e* the big oil companies are © “nal ing in their advertisemen’> the Alaska line should be an ceeded with at once and the naié kept over to build the Mack eh pipeline ata later date. Ins they want both. Can Meanwhile, the 1odg? governmenthas failed l0 4. any strong protest wit ef ingtonagainst the supe! threat to the Pacific Coas*