7 WARROR MIRROR, ON THE WALL, WHO IS THE MOST RADICAL MIDDLE, EXTREME CENTRE PARTY OF ALL ? NEWS (TEM: RUDEAUS DESCRIPTION OF LIBERAL PARTY DEES EXPLANATION. FISHER AAA - Massive student protests hit legis More than 8,000 students mar- ched on the Ontario legislature March 16 to demonstrate against . education cutbacks and un- employment. The demonstration was organized by the Ontario Federation of Students in response to massive cutbacks at York University and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto and widespread student un- employment. It was “‘the largest demonstra tion of students in Canadian history,” according to Miriam Edelson, chairperson of the OFS. The giant demonstration de- manded immediate emergency funding of post-secondary educa- tion to offset the cutbacks, the removal of financial barriers’ for students to attend university and a massive job creation program. The demonstration was preceded by a series of student occupations of administrative buildings at Guelph University, Ryerson Poly- technical Institute, University of Toronto, Trent University and Carleton University. The occupations at Guelph, Ryerson Polytechnical and University of Toronto ended the day before the demonstration when students said they had achieved their chief goal — publicity for the rally. While Ontario government spokesmen refused to speak to the students, Ontario Federation of Labor president Cliff Pilkey and NDP leader Michael Cassidy addressed the crowd. The Toronto demonstration was Granville Island re-development ‘Liberal boondoggle’ plan called By ALD. HARRY RANKIN* The Granville Island redevelop- ment project looks to me like one big Liberal Party boondoggle de- signed to enhance the image of the party just before a federal election and to satisfy the ego of one of its cabinet ministers at public ex- pense. If the Liberal government has $20 million to spend on Vancouver, then let it take it up with city council and the citizens of Van- couver and we'll tell them what our . priorities are. The redevelopment of Granville Island certainly isn’t one of them at this time. It isn’t that the idea of redevelop- ing the island is bad in itself. It’s a question of what kind of develop- ment, when, how and by whom. The people in the arts and crafts want some centres of their own, and they should have them. But they’re kidding themselves if they think that they’re going to get them for about $1.50 a square foot. At that price somebody will have to subsidize it, and they will need some firm commitments from Ottawa if they are going to get space that they can afford to maintain. As for commercial development, we need it like a hole in the head. What with difficult economic times and increasing bankruptcies,’ commercial expansion is hardly called for in Vancouver right now. Proposals to close industry down on the island to make way for parks and commercial develop- ments, (by not renewing the leases when they expire) when we already have over 100,000 unem- ployed in B.C. is downright ir- responsible. And the whole idea of setting up a so-called Granville Island Trust (made up of Liberal government appointees — I call them the Gang of Five) to carry through the rede- velopment, when any such proposals could and should be pro- cessed through city council and citizens’ groups, certainly smacks: of politics more than economics. These are some of the reasons why I take a dim view of the whole Granville Island redevelopment project. ‘PEOPLE AND ISSUES ‘which Hearings likely to back oil port Continued from pg. 1 the time the NEB considers it in the fall of 1978. One possible switch would be to relocate the site of the port at Port Simpson, near Prince; Rupert, which a federal department of en- vironment report in March lauded as the “‘least risky’’ site for an oil port. The federal government has shelved the touchy oil port issue until after a federal election, but the way to a supertanker oil port will likely be paved by the NEB opens extraordinary hearings into Canadian oil supply fatures the largest of a series of student demonstrations across Canada last week. In Winnipeg, 1,000 students demonstrated at the opening of the Manitoba legislature on March 16 in a rally organized by Manitoba student organizations and the Manitoba Federation of Labor. Also March 16, 400 students demonstrated at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and on March 15, 5,000 Alberta students demonstrated against tuition in- creases and cutbacks at the pro- vincial legislature in Edmonton. CUTBALKS The largest student demonstration in Canadian history hit, the Ontario legislature March 16. pipelines to the U.S. Midwest. and demand next month. The NEB hearings open May 24 in Calgaty and will continue for six weeks with its report due in September: The undecmoratic NEB relié completely on information sur plied by the oil companies, and it feared that its report on supply al! demand will be favorable to a wes! coast oil port. : Last week the United Fisherm# and Allied Workers’ Union call on. federal ministers Rom@ LeBlanc, Len Marchand, Otl Lang and Alastair Gillespie and B.C. MPs to support its demall that Andrew Thompson’s Wes! Coast Oil Ports Inquiry reopened, and that the NEB pr - vide funding for the union a! other interested groups to counte! the oil companies. At Tribune press time, th? UFAWU had received no respons from the cabinet ministers, } Fishery Opposition spokesm@? Arnie -Thomlinson said that union would carry the fight to the NEB hearings, even withol adequate resources. The well organized opposition an oil port by the UFAWU, thé Kitimat Coalition and others ha encouraged support for the ‘@ U.S.” oil port and pipeline at Pot! Angeles, backed by the Northet! Tier consortium of oil companies: Hearings already commencé March 8 in Port Angeles to col sider a proposal to build a supe! tanker oil port that would als? receive liquified natural g4 tankers. The Northern Tier pipelif® project may also incorporate pa of the Trans Mountain propos@! that apparently died this week. Th Northera Tier group has com sidered the option of building ? spur line from Port Angeles # Cherry Point and linking into thé Trans Mountain pipeline to BO monton — which already exists — and from there through existiné The full weight of U.S. pressur on Canada to allow an oil port # either Kitimat or Port Simpson hat not yet been felt. An energy P recently passed in the U.S. senal® calls on President Carter negotiate with Canada for the port, _ by the end of 1978. Coincidentally, that is also thé timetable set out by the NEB review the application for a po and pipeline at Kitimat. | getting this paper labelled, sorted and into the mails. uspicions were aroused in several quarters when ad- vertisements appeared in the Saturday editions of both _ the Vancouver Sun and the Province this week, calling for financial contributions to a strange organization calling itself DARE (Discrimination Against the Rights of Em- ployees). DARE made its demagogic appeal on the basis that Decker Lake Forest Products Mill had allegedly been. certified by the Labor Relations Board with 26 per cent of the employees signed up in the union. According to the ad, the LRB had said that a vote would not express the true wishes of the employees. : On that basis, DARE asked contributors to ‘‘speak out for industrial democracy’’ in financing an appeal to the Supreme Court. Curious about the organization, we contacted Local 1-424 of the International Woodworkers of America in Prince George, the local union certified at the mill. Business agent Don Muirhead told us that the mill was certified several months ago and noted that DARE ‘‘smacks of something like a right-to-work group.” At the IWA regional headquarters in Vancouver, vice- president Bob Blanchard added substance to the suspicions surrounding the ads and the group that sponsored them. Clearly those employees who claim to have been denied a vote at Decker Lake have the same interests at heart as the employer and have been keeping in with him, since the company has refused to negotiate until the appeal against the certification is heard by the Supreme Court. Blanchard told us that the union had fired off a letter to PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 31, 1978—Page 2 the LRB requesting that the Board instruct Decker Lake Forest Products ‘‘to sit down and negotiate’’ with the IWA which has been duly certified. The union also asked for an inquiry into DARE. “We have our suspicions as to who is behind it,” Blan- chard said, “‘but we’re not at liberty to voice them yet.” That DARE isn’t just a few rank-and-file employees seems pretty obvious. For starters, those ads would have cost close to $500. a * ais * * As we went to press this week, our supporters, working people all over this province who have sustained us for more than 40:years, had already begun to respond to our appeal for the 1978 financial drive. And among the first was one of our more venerable supporters, Julius Stelp, who, at 97, remembers campaigns to raise funds for labor and socialist papers long before even the Tribune, then known as the B.C. Workers’ News, was first launched in 1935. Almost completely blind now, Julius wasn’t able to bring. the money in himself, but he told us that he fully intends to take his place among the ranks of the 400 Club, reserved for those who raise $400 or more in the financial campaign. In that, he’s well on his way — his donation this week totalled $390. ome weeks ago this column transmitted a call from the Tribune mailers for assistance in the weekly task of We’re happy to report some response, but the maile® would like us to reissue the call for assistance, with the hop that there are some others who would volunteer a few hou each Thursday afternoon. } On a usual Thursday the paper arrives at the Tribu! office around 12 noon and the mailing takes about tw hours. No experience is necessary; Ed, Ray, Hamish, Gert Eunice and Pat and the others provide immersion trai a cup of coffee and some friendly company that alme makes the job enjoyable. If you have some time to lend to an institution as old a this paper itself — the mailers — give Pat O’Connor a call # -251-1186 or just drop in any Thursday. [RiBsUN Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive, “Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186. ‘Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4,50 for six month? All other countries, $10.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560