——

Spc te

Takeover of E & N railway

demanded on Van. Island

VICTORIA — Demands that
the Esquimalt and Nanaimo
Railway be taken over by the
provincial government will
probably be raised by the peo-
ple of Victoria following the
CPR’s— which operates the rail-
way— application for sharp cut-
backs in passenger service.

The Association of Vancouver
Island Municipalities will meet
early in May to discuss CP
Rail’s actions and the demand
that the E&N be taken over and
added to B.C. Railway.

The short railway, originally
constructed to run from Es-

Cancel fee boost for
museum, planetarium

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

When City Council decided to
turnover responsibility forthe
operation of the planetarium
and museums to an autonomous
organization, the Vancouver
Museum and Planetarium Asso-
ciation, its action had my sup-
port. And last month when Coun-
cilapproved a grant of $591,334
for the operation, I supported
the grant and took issue with
Mayor Phillips who opposed it.

My clear understanding was
that the Association accepted
the fact that its duty was to
make its services equally avail-
able to all section of popu-
lation.

Now I’m having some second
thoughts. The Board of Trustees
of the Association has justsent
out a newsletter announcing a
massive increase in admission
fees.

The annual membership fee
for families is going up from $10
to$15,a50 percent increase. Stu-

dents rates are being boosted
from $4 to $6, a 50 percent in-
crease. On top of that the num-
ber of planetarium tickets avail-
able to each member for the
above fee is being reduced from
6to4. :
The individual admission fees
to the planetarium are to be in-
creased from $1.25 to$1.50,a20
percent increase, while admis-
sion to the Maritime museum is
being raised from 25¢ to 50¢, a
100 percent increase.

Not only that— the free Mon-
day admission to the museums
is to be cancelled and replaced
by one free day a year andeven
this one day is at thediscretion
of the Board of Trustees.

The effect of these inereases,
and that may be its intent as
well, is to limit admission to the
planetarium and museums to
the middle and upper income
brackets and to tourists. Itisa
straight case of discrimination
against all people in the lower in-
come brackets. Our planetar-
ium and museum is to be re-
stricted to the well-to-do; appar-
ently the new Board of Trustees
anditsnew director don’t want
them dirtied up by the peasants.

The operating costs of the
planetarium and museum, the
over half a million dollars a
year provided by the city comes
out of the pockets of all the tax-
payers, not just those who live in
the affluent sections of the city.
To set rates that exclude a big
section of our population is
misuse of public funds, as far as
I am concerned, and should be
treated as such. This Board has
no right to take funds collected
from all the people to provide
facilities to only one half or less.

The new rates are to go into
effect on June 1. There’s still
time to let both City Council and
the Vancouver Museum and
Planetarium Association know
how you feel about this unfair
boost in fees. If anything, the
rates should come down.
Museum admission should not
be more than 25¢ and plane-
tarium rates should not be
higher than 50¢. The Board of
Trustees should include repre-
sentatives of labor and com-
munity organizations.

For the Board of Trustees to
argue that both the planetarium
and museum are open to all is
like saying, as Anatole France
did many years ago, that “‘the
law inits majestic equality, for-
bids the richas well as the poor
to sleep under bridges, to beg in
the streets, and to steal bread.”

If this Board of Trustees does
not take action to cancel this in-
crease in fees, it’s going torun
into stiff opposition when its
next application for a grant
comes round, as well as a
demand that the city cancelits
contract with it and have respon-
sibility for the operation of both
the planetarium and museums
revert back to City Council.

lect me to power,

master.

quimalt to Wellington, with
later extensions to Alberniand
Courtenay — has, epitomized
the giveaway policies of provin-
cial governments for over 90
years. It was built in 1883 by the
Dunsmuir coal interests, but
not before a federal cash grant
of $750,000 and more than
1,900,000 acres of land rich in
mineral and timber wealthhad
been handed over to Dunsmuir
as the ‘‘price’’ of building the
railway. A further cash grant
of $770,650 was given when the Al-
berni and Courtenay exten-
sions were added.

The CPR eventually obtained
control of the railway and the
land that went withitthrougha
sale of the Dunsmuir interests
to MacKenzie and Mann, the
railway promoters. With the
land and all ‘‘substances what-
soever thereupon, therein and
thereunder,’ went colossal tax
concessions. Only after 1945
under the recommendations of
the Sloan Commission on For-
estry, did the CPR pay taxes and
royalties on the sale of the fabu-
lous timber wealth they con-
trolled and sold — despite the
fact that from 1898 to 1944 more
than $14,814,792 in timber sales
had been recorded.

And now CP Rail wants toab-
solve itself of even its meagre
responsibilities to the public—
by dispensing with all its public
agents on the Island and turning
customers over to a telephone
service in Vancouver. :

The people of the Island have
asked that, by the same token,
the CPR give up all-its timber
and mineral rights on the land
that it controls— a demand that
had been voiced by generations
that have deplored the give-
away policies of several provin-
cial governments.

French nuclear test sit

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Map shows the site of nuclear tests scheduled by France for M

Atoll in the near future.

World labor condemns ;
French nuclear tests

The International Confed-
eration of Free Trade Unions
warned last week that France
faces a world wide protest,
which would include strikes
against its ships, planes and
industries, if it goes ahead with
its nuclear test in the Pacific.
(See map above).

The warning came ina resolu-
tion adopted by the ICF TU policy-
making finance and general pur-

- poses committee meeting in

Cuernavaca, Mexico last
Friday.

The ICFTU action is the latest
move and a growing outcry
against the French atmospheric
tests scheduled in the near
future. The South Pacific
Forum,-representing seven na-
tionsin the South Pacific, have
called on France to halt the
tests.

Australia and New Zealand
have said they will appeal to the
International Court of Justice

ururee

in the Hague, but France f
slared this week it will not rec
nize the court’s jurisdictl0

The ICFTU resolution © tng
on its executive board, mee al
in Vienna in July, to call ori
affiliated unions to take @ are
against France, if the tests
not cancelled by then.

n.
allel

The strongly-worded rest
tion noted that the FI y
government had ignored Yay |
and written protests {10

nel
parts of the world, and wire

that the tests involve the We
of genetic birth hee af
leukemia and other for chit

cancer, especially among
dren and the unborn. i

If the French gover
goes ahead with the tests? of
July, action will be taken? aye
iately, said the resolutle tte
main drive in the ICFTU' |
strong action came from
tralian trade unions.

said the blustering Richard

Bedford ‘‘Iron Heel’’ Bennett away back in the early
Hungry 30’s, ‘‘and I will cure unemployment in thirty days.”’

Hungry for power anda return to the flesh pots aftera
long, protracted absence, the Tories did elect him to leadership
at a Winnipeg Tory national convention. With Tory coffers
empty they sure needed his millions more than they needed his
rhetoric bluster, but opined the party would benefit from both.
History proved them to be dead wrong on both counts.

With his millions ‘Iron Heel’’ Bennett had bought the Tory
party as acommon whore to be used or cast aside at will, with
no backchat permitted, whether from cabinet member or back
bencher. When any did, as in the case of Vancouver’s veteran
and “‘venerable”’ the Hon. H.H. Stevens, instant dismissal was
swift and decisive. Inthe Tory harem the bought-and-paid-for
concubine must never oppose the diktats of their lord and

Nearly 50 years later we have a similar manifestation, an
excess hunger for power on the part of Tory leader, the ( Hon. )
Robert Stanfield and his assorted opportunist following.

Coming so near ‘‘and yetsofar’’ from the flesh pots, or
pork barrel or whatever, following the last federal election, in
whicha minority Liberal government returneditself, withthe
big wind all but out of its earlier charisma, Robert and his Tory
cohorts, likea pack of hungry mongrels baying atthe moon,
keep up a doleful and continuous yowl of negative cackle,
aimed at termination of the slender life-cord of the Trudeau
regime, thus opening the way for the Tories to romp into
power; todemonstrate to Big Business at home and abroad
that they are the ‘‘best’’ of two partisan evils.

We have no way of knowing whether Old Underwet

millions canmatch those of old ‘‘Iron Heel”’ or not. Moree
Robert being native of grand old Cape Breton has undouP evel P
inherited some of the fine traits of the ‘‘canny Scot’ ’,1.€- van
to pay for what you can get gratisorona simple “‘promiss *

note, geared to an insatiable hunger for power which br

own “‘certainty”.

Thus we see the Tory party of today emerging 4

eeds its

s the
ra

“‘catch-all’’ for every sort of political scoundrel, fron ne
opportunist to fascist criminal. A motely assortme™

Wagners, Kupiacks, Burkeites, Ku Kluxers, anti-Soviet ig

every vintage; of what Karl Marx might well have terme tae

‘“‘lumpen bourgeoisie.’’ All stricken with a comm
chronic malady similar to that of their Stanfield— a ee.
power that recognizes neither decency, dignity nors

on
get

only a bountious Canadian feed trough. sok UP
Of course Stanfield’s anxiety and readiness to p!€
sorts of monopoly-fed riff-raff to carry the Tory banner ay?

and betweenelections, is not without precendent. ee, gel

that the ‘Right Hon’”’ Tory John Diefenbaker had the ee ory

Quebec fascist, Adrien Arcand on stage with him as

campaigner in the ’57 election.

nist
Arcand was there to ‘“‘halt’’ the socalled “commu was

coddling”’ of the Liberal St. Laurent regime, and)! It
hopeful that his new-found Nazi ‘‘fuehrer’’ would help pie pol |p
few Tory seats in la belle province. To the credit of ao
Habitant this Tory-cum-Nazi combination picked UP :

nothing. . . not evena stray Wagner. jse5 ty
But the hunger persists and the Stanfield prov’ outa :
corporate capital are sweeping and numerous. — ab fot

price controls,’ which mean wage freezes; open sea he e
belly-robbing in the domain of social security; incom |
economy’’ by loading it onto the lower-and-low fol |
brackets. You name it, the Tories have it, and their nuns ike 7
power drives them on to shamelessly display their wat

a common street prostitute.

5 toe |
The trend in Canada as elsewhere in the world 18 to?

remembered by those whoare inclined (or want to if ‘ous

piefwG

gavin

forward. That will not be accomplished by switc re ot |
Stanfield in lieu of a Trudeau, but by getting rid of bot Pat
hungry gourmets. Then Canada can be restored to itst

people— the working class.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1973—PAGE 2