PARLIAMENT HILL

By MARK FRANK

~ Gov't housing program offers
nothing to those most in need

—OTTAWA

« aban fanfare of publicity about the latest Dominion
government housing proposals will not hide the fact
that it is a pretty dismal program. |

Every Canadian will not be provided with a good
home under terms of the bill being drafted by Recon-

Struction Minister R. H. Winters, news handouts to th :

e
Contrary. ‘ a

. Even the minister himself was gloomy in his remarks
to the House of Commons, “No one can estimate the
amount of additional housing which these proposals will
Create,” he remarked. He listed a series of factors,
including level of income and the ability of private
: industry to cope with the problem, as conditioning the
building program. And he admitted, “New housing
€ven at the present record rate of production is barely
Keeping up with current needs and making no im-
portant inroads into the backlog.’ He concluded with
the uncertain hope that “measures proposed today
_ Should be helpful. They may have the effect of in-
Creasing the total number of completions.”

This shadow of a housing “program” is presented
by the. Liberal government as substantially fulfilling
Glection pledges, epitomized by Prime Minister St,
Laurent on March 19 when he asserted that “we are
not going to be satisfied until decent housing is pro-
_ vided for every family.”

Winter’s announcement, however, is a cynical answer
to the needs of those whose incomes—and uncertain
@mployment prospects for the future—prohibit them
from undertaking construction of a new home at
$6,000 to $10,000—even at a lowered down payment.

The fact is that even those who can afford the re-
duced down payment will be faced with higher annual
Carrying charges, so that the down payment proposal
Offers no relief for those who need it most. \
® .

It should also be noted that the Dominion govern-

Ment does not guarantee low-rental projects to meet
the pocketbooks of the average family. Instead it says:
“All costs of any project ,.. would be a charge against
the project.” :

Amortization of the original 75 percent and 25 per-
cent investment by the Dominion and province respec-
tively will be charged against the project and reflect
itself in rents which most workers wil] be hard-pressed
to pay. Some estimate that such projects would rent
for $60 to $65. With fuel costs going up and devaluation
Yaising living costs, no certain figure can be placed on
rentals. : :
Winters made it clear that the government had not
accepted the principle of its: responsibility for solving
the housing crisis when he declared, “There is no de-

Sire by the Dominion to enter the direct construction,

fleld.” The statement that private enterprise could
handle the situation is belied by the record of such
_ construction. a é

Sharply condemning the government’s proposals,
-W. Ross Thatcher (CCF, Moosé Jaw) said Winters had
“betrayed the desperate hopes of many Canadian fami-
lies.” He pointed out: “The minister's statement is
Qo solution at all to the housing problem. ... I think
it is going to cause bitter disappointment in the country.”

Thatcher believed private enterprise could not cope

with the situation and that direct government responsi-
‘bility should be assumed for large-scale slum clearance

8nd low-rental subsidies, both of which were not in-—

volved in the government plan. The program was a
Set of “handouts” and not a serious attack on the
_ Program, he declared. tame geet

WHAT DID TRUMAN WANT?

— Atomic ‘blast’ gets
me WASHINGTON, House Republican Leader Joseph

W. Martin, Jr., (Mass.) recently took the anouncement
of a Russian atomic explosion as a “scare” stoity that

~

Should be backed up by more official information.

“We need more information before we get alarmed
Over the president’s announcement,” Martin told news-—
men, f . :

_ Martin’s first reaction was that the president’s an-
-Rouncement means that “some new administration re-
‘Quest is going to be sent) to the hill” | :

e
“Of course, these scares always come when Congress
is dealing with administration requests,” he said. “There

_ Must be something coming up. He must be going to ask

for something new.’—Associated Press dispatch, Septem-
“ee 3 toHe, oe ‘oem

Delirium Trumans
£€COMMENTING on the atomic explosions

reported in Russia he said it would be in-

teresting to learn if faint tremors of the earth along

_ the B.C. coast last summer might have been such
explosions.”’ Major General R. G. Pearkes (Prog.
Cons., Nanaimo), in a speech to the House of
Commons urging the government to strengthen
armed forces on the Pacific coast, as reported in

the Vancouver News-Herald, September 27, 1949.

We suggest the government promote the hon-
orable member for Nanaimo to command a fleet
of flying saucers to defend the Queen Charlotte

oe

Islands against earthquakes.

lron resources

plundered by U.S.

TORONTO

. *

Be 6 hesaht of Steep Rock iron mine, if milled in Can-
4 ada, could supply our country with all the steel
it now imports from the United States,” A. A. MacLeod,
LPP member of the Ontario legislature, stated here on
his return from a tour of the northern districts of the -
province. “Yet all this ore goes across the line, and
U.S. steel magnate Cyrus Eaton exacts a tribute from
1,500,000 shares in the company which‘ he got for one

cent a share, plus two percent on every ton of ore
mined.” ‘ :

He reported claims that a mill could be built at

' Port Arthur, 140 miles from Steep Rock, to handle

the entire output and employ more men than those
presently employed at Sault Ste. Marie. “The skill of
young Canadian engineers was responsible for the
pumping of eight billion gallons of water from the
lake and the removal of 45 million yards of silt to
get at the ore. Yet all this goes for the main benefit of
Americans like Cyrus Eaton.” 4

_ The LPP provincial leader said what was true of
Steep Rock was largely true of other branches of
mining and of the pulp and paper industry also. In
the gold towns of Timmins and Kirkland Lake 85 per-

_ cent of the tax burden is borne by the miners. The
‘companies are so unscrupulous they will not even es-

tablish their offices there. Head office of the Wright-
Hargreaves mine, from which money came to buy

the Toronto Globe and Mail and Toronto Telegram,

is in Buffalo, N.Y., to escape taxation. .

He charged provincial and federal] governments
with twisting the application of Canadian technique and
labor to enrich great monopolies in the U.S., and said,
“When the data on the anarchistic northern develop-

‘ment is compiled it will be a terrible indictment of

provineial governments for the last 60 or 70 years.
There has been no interest in an over-all plan to de-
velop northern Ontario for the full benefit of our
economy. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been
wasted.” :

.

arms bill through

A ROUSED by the atomic blast in Russia, a Senate-
House of Representatives conference swiftly approv-
ed Monday a $1,314,010,000 plan to arm foreign countries
against Communism, :

With the non-Communist world stirred by evidence

that the Russians have the atom bomb, all efforts to chop

the bill were thrown into the discard.’

House members of the conference committee tossed
overboard the House Bill, which granted $444,595,000 less

than the $1,314,010,000 voted by the Senate. 4

The measure, urgently sought by President Truman,
is designed to supply arms to signers of the North At-
lantic Security Treaty.—Associated Press dispatch, Sep-

tember 27, 1949. : "

THE NATION By TIM BUCK

Throne Speech
and devaluation

HE speech from the Throne submitted to parlia-
ment on September 15, was overshadowed and, in a

sense, made obsolete even before the members started
to discuss it, by the earlier announcement that the St
Laurent government had devalued the dollar.

Because of its over-riding importance to Canadians _
through its effects upon our national economy, that
cheapening of our dollar becomes the starting point of
any serious discussion of the Speech from the Throne.
Indeed, the government’s announcement that it had
devalued the dollar make the Speech front the Throne
noteworthy, not for-what it proposes but for the dis-

regard of parliament and the authority of the electorate
that it reflects.

_ The government knew officially from the first week
in September that the British pound was to be devalued.
When the Speech from the Throne was read to the
members of the» House of Commons and the Senate
the government had known more than a week that it was
going to devalue our dollar also—with all the far-

reaching effects upon our national economy of that
action.

Yet the legislative program that it submitted to
steerage in the form of an Address from the Throne
implied quite strongly that everything was proceeding as
the government had promised; that there was to be no
divergence from the policies to which the government
had committed itself during the elections.

There was a distinct suggestion that our national
economy is on an even keel and riding high in the pointed —
reference to the fact that “the nation of Western
Europe . . . have not yet been able to restore completely
their economic strength.” Certainly there was no sug-
gestion whatever that the government had already re-
versed itself upon its election pledge concerning an
issue’ that was crucial in the recent general election.

During the general election, the Tories, under Col.
Drew’s leadership, advocated devaluation of our dollar.
The overwhelming majority of the workers, farmers,
and middle class people opposed Drew’s proposal, know-
ing that cheapening our dollar would increase the cost.
of living and worsen still further our economic position
in relation to the United States. es

The Liberals, under St. Laurent’s’ leadership, de-
cleared themselves to be completely in agreement with
popular opinion on that qustion. St. Laurent promised
that there would be no devaluation’ of Canada’s dollar
if his government were returned to power.

In an election speech broadcast to the nation as
recently as May 31, the prime minister declared: “‘De-
valuation would make Anglo-Canadian trade more diffi-
cult, increase the general cost of living and benefit those
gold mines which need least help.” Everything that St.
Laurent said there was true and it is still true. But
on September 19, he devalued our dollar to accomplish
precisely the results that he condemned on May 31.
That’s the sort of thing that makes so many democratic
people skeptical of capitalist democracy.

It must be emphasized that this repudiation of
election pledges so soon after they were made did not
take the members of the government by surprise. It
was not the result of a decision made to meet. an un- —
expected situation—on the contrary, it was the expected —
result of the policy that the government has been pursuing
consistently ever smce the present prime minister became
minister of external affairs; the policy which made Louis
St. Laurent the unanimous choice of Wall Street and
Washington for the positions of prime minister of Canada ~

and leader of its Liberal Party. Every member of the
~ St. Laurent government knew that in helping the United —
States treasury and state department to bludgeon Britain

into devaluing the pound sterling they were helping to
bring closer the day when they themselves would devalue
the Canadian dollar.

What they said in their election speeches did not
mirror what they intended to do or policies that they
intended to fight for; what they said mirrored only their
determination to get votes by any means so that they,
and not their rivals in service to fina ital, would
be the ones to put devaluation into effect. No wonder
the Tory Toronto Globe and Mail’ prints an article on

“its editorial page under the headline “Can Parliament.

Survive?”

@ Ina second article next week Tim Buck will out- pis

line the effects of devaluation on the pocketbooks
of Canadians and what can be done about ica ds,

: Be: . PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 30, 1949 — PAGE 9

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