EDITORIAL Jan. 30 — and the future The trade union movement and broad spectrum of people’s organizations united in the Solidarity Coali- tion are waiting apprehensively for the Bennett government to reveal its intentions when the year-end ceasefire expires next Monday with the re-opening of the B.C. legislature. The relative silence from government may indicate that there will be an attempt to defuse the confrontation with the people set off by last year’s disastrous session. July 7, remembered as Black Thursday, began what was surely the most ignoble session ever of this provin- ce’s legislature. It was a comment on the governing party and the political system which made it possible that the most democratic moment during that session was its adjournment, called to allow the government to deal with Solidarity over its anti-democratic legislative program. The Socreds return to the legislature with their pro- gram partially intact, partially defeated. The corner- stone of that program, Bill 3 and the elimination of seniority in the public sector, has been rendered impo- tent, at least for now. Bill 2, which sought to gut the B.C. Government Employees’ Union agreement; Bill 5, which sought to strip tenants of rent controls and just cause for eviction; and Bill 27, which eliminated the Human Rights Commission and protection against unreasonable discrimination, remain as unfinished business. The government was forced to pay lip service, at best, to a consultative process over the critical issues of edu- cation and health budgets, social services and labor legislation. If the government interprets the participation of the Solidarity Coalition in the consultative process or the decision by Operation Solidarity to defer further job action over education layoffs — however questionable these decisions may have been — as signs of weakness and a signal to renew the legislative attack, it will repeat the error of July 7. But the government must also be made to under- stand that adopting different methods — or the failure to restore fundamental rights that have been lost —will not be allowed to accomplish the same objectives. : Rent controls, which have been eliminated by regula- tion, must be restored. Just cause for eviction, which remains the law of this province, must be enforced. The B.C. Human Rights Act, which also remains law in B.C. and which provides for a commission and enforcement, must be given substance by establishment of an agency free of government interference. Massive education layoffs which hang over B.C.’s school system must be forestalled by a restoration of school board budgets. GAIN recipients, their numbers at record levels, deserve respite from the cruel poverty imposed upon them by a substantial increase in GAIN rates and the full reinstitution of the Community Incentive Program. These are the minimum measures required by the provincial government if it is to begin to reach a rap- prochement with the people. And with the new revela- tion that the government deliberately overestimated is deficit by $300 million or more to justify its right wing assault, they should be well within its means. So far, however, the signals from Victoria point in the opposite direction. New budget announcements con- tinue to shock and dismay. Only the most recent is the stunning 33 per cent increase in student tuitions at UBC, the result of a six per cent cut in provincial funding and the refusal to distribute an increase in federal grant money earmarked for the universities. It must be assumed that this session of the legislature will hold out nothing but more bad news for B.C. Solidarity should await the session with vigilance and mobilization, for just as the last sitting required the formation of a strong extra-parliamentary opposition, this sitting is likely to put that opposition to the test again. Kaplan bill echoes 50s In retrospect, parts of the “puzzle” of political harassment of the late 1950s fit snugly together. Omi- nously, they fit all too readily into today’s instruments of harassment. Trade unionists, the political left, outspoken demo- crats, peace champions and advocates of international cooperation, enemies of fascism and of U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy, as well as a lot of innocent bystanders, were railroaded out of jobs, refused entry to U.S. and spied upon, questioned and harassed by officers of the law, employers, and the government’s bevy of hired brow-beaters. The recently declassified papers of former Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent (who held that office from November 1948 to June 1957) literally flame with the red scare, rumor-mongering, perceived communist threats and guilt by association that marks the period. Worse, they reveal the federal government bowed down with craven cowardice before the U.S: administration and all its agencies. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, ever at the service of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, handed over many thousand of names of Canadians whom they branded a threat to U.S. security, who are forbidden to cross the misnamed “unguarded” border between Can- ada and the U.S. Some 3,000 are still on that list. Also, the other list of some 800,000 Canadians is juggled in the hands of the state police and the minister of justice. Are they suspect? No one will say. Bill C-157, sponsored by Kaplan, would have made illegalities legal. Telephone tapping, planted listening devices, breaking and entefing, burglary, searches of premises — whatever the police might want to do — would now be legal. A new bill before parliament would only make the process more sophisticated. If it were not for the high level fightback mood of the Canadian working class, and the strong resistance of all the democratic forces against authoritarian shackles, the repression would be smothering. But that fight goes on. It needs to be taken up again with the demand that the government’s new security bill be withdrawn immediately. Cy Hawes Vas //ty NEWS ITEM: In the 14 months since Brian Mulroney, then president of the Iron Ore Co. of Canada, closed the company down in Schefferville, Quebec, the town itself has been gragually closing down andis on its way to becoming a ghost own. The year ended back on Oct. 31 for the Canadian Imperial Bank 4 of Commerce, and nicely, with an after-tax profit of $314,873,000. Second class mail registration number 1560 n the course of events, one frequently runs up against things decidely coarse in nature. But it’s seldom the party responsible actually admits it. We refer to the letter Vancouver alderman Libby Davies received inviting her to the “World Affairs Dinner” spon- sored by the Junior League and the Arts, Science and Technology Centre. Set for Feb. 22, it is to feature the man infamous for the bombing of Cambodia, the toppling of Chilean president Salvador Allende, and, most recently, for recommending increased funding and U.S. military presence to prop up the crumbling reactionary forces in Central America: Henry Kissinger. 5 In extending the invitation to the $150-per-plate affair to city council members, the event’s organizers noted the affair would include “a full coarse (sic) dinner and drinks.” Of coarse...er, of course, the organizers had made a mistake, just as they had in inviting to the city the person whose name has become a modern byword for war crimes. They haven’t yet acknowledged the latter mistake, but they did apologize to Davies — who, incidently, was addressed as “Mr. Davies” in the initial invitation — in a subsequent letter. The follow-up letter was prompted by Davies’ response to the invitation. Like the other COPE aldermen, she opposes the use of the publicly funded Arts and Science centre in bringing Kissinger to the city, and replied that she was “unable to attend your coarse dinner.” Other people also think the whole affair a coarse one. People and Issues They'll be planning protests over the visit (story, page 11), and its sponsorship by the centre, which, incidently, received grants from the city of $68,900 and $9,000 last year. x*« * * t’s not uncommon for the corporate elite’s various groupies to recall some personal anecdote when a major executive passes on — but the ink that has gushed out about Ray Kroc the MacDonald’s hamburger baron who died Jan. 14, is harder to swallow than a month-old Mac- Chicken sandwich. The worst was Vancouver Sun columnist Denny Boyd’s Horatio Alger piece on Jan. 20 which recalled an anecdote by another restauratuer about the time Kroc came to visit a MacDonald’s franchise in Richmond and — praise be! — got right down on his hands and knees to inspect the grease traps to see if they’d been cleaned. The same issue of the Sun carried a full page advertise- ment in memory of Kroc which said: “On behalf of the -millions of people around the world whose lives have been touched and brightened by this extraordinary man, we honor the memory of a business pioneer, a humanitarian and a below friend.” It was signed by the “employees, franchisees and associates of MacDonald’s.” ; It boggles the mind — especially since Ray Kroc prob- ably did more that any other person in either the U.S. or Canada to ensure that young people under 18 earned less than the minimum wage. In fact, Ray Kroc was so notorious for that role that the various pieces of legislation in both this country and the U.S. which exempted those under 18 from the minimum ~ wage law became known as the “MacDonald’s laws.” Readers may recall the campaign launched by the Young Communist League in this province in 1975 calling on the then NDP government to include under-18 workers in the minimum wage law — and the outcry it provoked from. MacDonald’s franchisees who threatened legal action when members leafletted MacDonalds outlets. That same year, a former MacDonald’s representative told a food workers conference that MacDonald’s fran- chise managers had been instructed to lay off employees on their 18th birthday and, if they didn’t, they would risk losing their franchises. So, it’s not surprising that Kroc rode the golden arches to towering heights of business success — he successfully exploited cheap teenage labor and passed it off as “‘provid- ing employment and opportunities for advancement for’ thousands of young people.” And his sycophants now call it “humanitarianism.” If the flags are flying at half mast — it’s fora man who paid wages at half price. : 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 25, 1984 That’s not counting a provision for loan losses of $381-million. And a just to prove that “recovery” is here for some, profit was up from — the previous year’s $280,840,000. TRIBUNE Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR ‘Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C., VSK 1Z5 Phone: (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada — $14 one year; $8 six months; Foreign — $20 one year; ore