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The Communist Party booth at the

SOLUTION

COMMUNIST
PARTY4CANADA

=
Aon Sen
‘ 4

PNE, shown above, is attracting wide attention. Booth attendants shown:

here are Pat Anderson and William Turner. .

Meet Indian people as equals

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

; I'm glad to see that the

_ provincial government has agreed
to negotiate a settlement with the
Indian people of B.C. regarding the
“cut-off lands’? issue. This con-
cerns 34,000 acres of land taken
away from Indian reserves by the
McKenna-McBridge Commission
Some 60 years ago. Twenty-three

Indian bands are involved.

What is significant about the

agreement reached between the
- Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the
_ provincial government on_ this
issue is that they will meet as
_~ equals. The committee which will
draw up the terms of reference, for
instance, will be composed of one
representative from each side with

a third member jointly -selected.
- This set of negotiations does: not
include the much bigger issue of
the general land claims of the
native peoples (including Metis
and Innuit) based on hereditary
rights and broken treaties, -nor
does it include hunting and fishing
rights. These are issues that

cannot be settled without Ottawa’s’

- direct involvement. So far Ottawa
has refused to recognize these land
_ claims of the native peoples or to

negotiate the issue. In other words
_ the federal government refuses to
meet with the native peoples as
~ equals.

_ A similar problem emerges

-where Indian reserves are located "

in the midst of built up areas under
municipal control. Vancouver,
West Vancouver and Kamloops are
examples.

The municipalities were content
to leave these Indian reserves as
festering sores with starving
people for over 50 years, as long as
these Indian lands weren’t worth a
hoot. They could have offered fire,
police ambulance and road ser-
vice, but they did damn little to
help. The moment developers saw
the value of the lands~ go up,
however, the municipalities tried
to impose their regulations on the
reserves, in fact to take over,
control of them.

I took a stand on this question a
long time ago when differences
developed between the Musqueam
Band and Vancouver city council. I
believe I was to quite an extent
responsible for convincing the old
NPA council that we could and
should negotiate the issue. We
bought out their.sewer system, in
fact we spent over a million dollars
in buying it out and spent some
more in fixing it up. We reached an
agreement with them on sewers,
on by-laws affecting the Block

‘Brothers development on their

reserve, on _ planning and
development standards. In every
discussion it was a meeting bet-
ween equals.

A similar problem now faces

KD ste

wi

VA
Mes

—Mike Gidora photo

West Vancouver. The municipal

‘ council there has taken a rather

arrogant stand in its dealing with
the Squamish Indian band over the
issue of zoning and _ other
regulations that will govern the
projected $18 million Park Royal
expansion on. Indian lands. It
wanted nothing less than control
over reserve lands. The Indian
band has shown a strong desire to
work things out with the municipal
council, but based on years of
unhappy experiences, it is
suspicious of the municipality’s
intentions, and rightly so.

When a municipal council meets
with an Indian band that has
inhabited an area for probably
hundreds of years, it can’t go in
there and tell what it is going to
give them. It has to meet with the
Indian council as equals; the In-
dian councils are elected in exactly
the same way as municipal
councils.

Certainly we don’t want lower
standards of building where a
reserve is cheek by jowl with a
municipality. But neither do the
Indian people want lower stan-
dards. Roads, water, sewage,
services, building standards; these
are all matters to be worked out in
negotiations. But such negotiations
can only be successful if we meet
with the Indian representatives as
equals. That’s the key. Equality,
not dominance. ° :

YCL takes minimum

wage fight

Visitors to the PNE last weekend
were met by members of the
Young Communist League who
were demonstrating in protest of
the separate minimum wage for
workers under the age of 18. The
YCL’ers distributed leaflets in
front of the main gates calling‘upon
the public to protest to William
King, minister of labor, demanding
the removal of the clause in the
minimum wage act which allows
employers to pay as little as $2.10
per hour to people 17 and under.

One of the demonstrators told the
Tribune that the demonstration
was part of an ongoing campaign
to force the removal of this
discriminatory clause from the
minimum wage act, as have three
other provinces. “‘We plan to carry
on demonstrations wherever there
are large numbers of young people
employed at this separate wage.”
Two of the employers mentioned
were MacDonald’s Restaurant and
Burrard Amusements _ Ltd.,
operators of Playland.

The leaflet distributed in front of
the PNE was directed specifically
at those going to the exhibition.
Fred Wilson, provincial secretary
of the YCL said, “We wanted
people to enjoy the PNE as much
as possible, but we also want them
to realize that there are upwards of
1,000 young people who are the
victims of intense exploitation and

rae

Young Communist League executive member Mike Gidora distributing
leaflet at PNE gate calling for an end to discrimination against young Le

workers under minimum wage laws.

to PNE

discrimination during the fair.
Burrard Amusements Ltd. have

two ‘distinct wage rates, $2.50 per |
hour if the employee’ is 18 or over, |

and $2.20 if under 18. \
“They do the same work, so the

only reason for the difference in-

wages is age. When you consider

that over 60 per cent of their em-— ?

ployees are students, you have to
realize that this loophole in the law
means thousands of dollars in
extra profits.”

The demonstrators ‘compared
the wages paid to those under 18 by °
private exhibitors with the wage
rates. of the regular PNE em-
ployees, who are covered by a
CUPE collective agreement. ‘“‘Any
PNE employee, regardless of his”
age, receives-a minimum of $3.34
per hour. That is a direct result of
union affiliation. We are urging all —
young people who are victims of —
wage discrimination to seek union ©

affiliation,’ Wilson said.

The YCL campaign, which has
been going on for a month and is
directed toward the fall legislature
has had.a warm reception from the

labor movement, including the |
assertion of Paddy Neale, former —

secretary-treasurer of the Van-
couver Labor Council that ‘‘these
young people doing this are right,
the labor movement should get
behind the campaign.” ae

"> TOM
‘McEWE

fJe was writing a “history” of the Communist Party and
; I be so good as to help him with.the job? Always

deeply interested in history and historians I agreed and .

my home and time at his disposal. :

_ He was with the History Department of the UBC; his
_ name Ivan I. Avakumovic, and the ultimate result of his
labors The History of the Communist Party in Canada,

now published by McLelland & Stewart of Toronto.
_ IT haven’t read this screed which passes for ‘‘history,”
but from some characteristic reviews by the trained seals
of a class-encrusted press (with picture forgeries at-

tached) to read it would be a further waste of valuable

Suffice it to.say that the main gist of this alleged

~* “history” is a puny attempt to slander and distort the

“memory and the Leninist life work of Tim Buck.
- Having sét himself this course, doubtless to suit the

literary “tastes” of his immediate and long-range

paymasters, “historian’’ Avakumovic has no difficulty
subordinating the Communist Party of Canada to the
“Moscow line,” thereby furthering the well-touted
Ss ion”’ that the Party has ne “line” or leadership

of its own. It may be said of this old gag, like the stories*

about ‘‘Moscow gold’” the newshawks used to peddle, has

- worn threadbare, thin and outmoded — a fact of history
that must have slipped past Avakumovic unnoticed.

_ Since the time when federal governments of the day

began handing out substantial grants to university

professors, doctors of letters, students and others to begin
the recording of Communist and labor history, the writer
of this column’s home has always been open and his ad-

_ vice. and suggestions readily given, when requested. In

correspondence with university students and. in in-
terviews, the hours spent in this digging up the history of
events, have run into the hundreds. No doubt a few of
these have been RCMP-FBI-CIA or similar agents, out to

weasel what they could gather so that it could be distorted
" to the liking of their cold-war bosses. Invariably, however,
I waived the benefit of the doubt in their favor and gave

such help and advice as I was capable of.
Some have graciously thanked me for what help I was

able to give, others have reduced a three-hour waste of my

time to a paragraph of 20 words or less, while others again

_ like “‘historian” Avakumovic have remained silent or-
» Worse, clothing their dishonesty with a contemptible

distortion — and dubbing it “history.” Le
' Attempting through the media of a phoney “history” to

downgrade the memory of an outstanding and widely-  ~
_ respected Communist leader, Tim Buck. The literary

heritage itself which he left Canadians will remain green
and fresh and dynamically practical when the
Avakumovic brand of “histories”? shall have become a

~ handful of rotting and decaying pulp.

The “thirty pieces of silver’ for the service of a Judas
changes with the changing times. It too suffers from in-

flation and the rising strength of the great Union of Soviet _

Socialist Republics. : ;
The “‘coward does it with a kiss” wrote the immortal

Sis cana

~ monopoly-dominated

Karl Marx observed, for his “freedom” and readiness to

torture and. kill his fellow men; for historians of the

Avakumovic breed, the fleeting adulations of a ruling

‘Establishment who have become jittery, nay, ever —

hysterical .at the rising strength and. growth of a new:
Communist society.

, But again, to quote Wilde and be as charitable as we
can, “There is no such a thing as a moral or an unmoral
book.Booksare well written or badly written. That is all.”

Obviously, from the spate of bourgeois-oriented © i

“reviews,” with expertly forged pictures attached, Ivan I.

Avakumovic’s book definitely belongs in the second. |,

category. :

Far be it from us however to -seek to deprive a eS

bourgeoisie of the “comfort of their own propaganda. |

After all they pay for it, and like a “fix” from hashish, are
entitled to its joys. : »
“A spectre- is haunting Europe,” wrote Marx and

Engels in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, “‘the spectre

of Communism.” Today he would have to write.that same
“‘spectre’’” — no longer a spectre, is haunting every
Establishment, with its
“historians’” rattling the gourds. :

FIGUNE |

. Editor — MAURICE RUSH .
_ Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, .
* 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-8108
Business. and Circulation Manager, FRED WILSON 3
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