Insurance firms bucking health scheme This month Vancouver is officially 70 years old. But there are still many oldtimers who can remember when Cordova Street (shown above around the turn of the century) was the the city’s main thoroughfare and horse-drawn vehicles still ruled the road. For further reading on Vancouver's anniversary turn to Maurice Rush’s article on page 2 and see Hal Griffin’s column On page 5. Coldwell favors & Testing of atomic and hydro- en weapons has been opposed in statements given to the B.C. teace movement by M. J. Cold- Well, CCF national leader, and Erhart Regier, CCF MP for Burnaby-Coquitlam. In an interview with support- ers of Burnaby Peace Council, Regier said he was in “whole- hearted agreement” with their View that all countries should enter into an international €@greement to stop nuclear tests. Coldwell, in a-letter to B.C. Peace Council, urged a mora- torium on the tests until the UN Scientific Committee, study- ‘ing the dangers of radioactivity, Makes its report. . The statements came as peace Supporters in this province pre- Dared for the collection of sig- Natures to this appeal: = “We call on all countries to Buck on CPSU meet in next week’s issue Tim Buck, national leader of the Labor-Progressive party, has written an article on the - recent 20th congress of the Com- Munist Party of the Soviet Union, Which he attended as a frater- Ral delegate. The article, re- Porting on and examining the Congress’ decisions in detail, Will appear in next week’s Pacific Tribune. Readers are Urged to reserve additional Copies immediately. H-tests stop testing atomic and hydro- gen bombs. “We wang Canada to work for an international agreement to end these dangerous explosions at once.” A one-day campaign for sig- natures will take place on Sat- urday, April 14, although the peace council announced that signatures may be obtained up until April 27. nee eeu LUTE SEE STORY ON PAGE 7 al LV BLT] stssU Stray VOL. 15, No. 15 ; VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, APRIL 13, 1956 28 PRICE 10 CENTS Authorized by the Post Office Department as second class mail. Demand swells for all-Canada pipeline TORONTO The battle to regain control of the all-Canadian gas pipeline project from U.S. hands is reaching fever pitch across the nation following the Transport Board’s govern ment-ordered decision to give its fourth extension to the Texas corporation now in control. Here are the latest developments as the issue moves back into the House of Commons: @® It became known last week that an all-Canadian firm was ready to take over from Trans-Canada Pipelines Ltd., if the extension had not been granted. The government knew of the offer but sided with the U.S. company. . ® Jack St. John, Manitoba Liberal - Progressive, called a meeting of MPPs in Winnipeg April 2 to tell them that an all- Canadian firm could build the line from Alberta to Manitoba. — which is losing industry be- cause of the delays in building the line, Of the Winnipeg Cen- tral Gas Company’s offer of $1 million cash to help the U.S. firm get started, St. John said the Texas tycoons had sneered at it. This, he said, indicated to revitalize By BERT WHYTE Trans-Canada was more anxious to keep American control for export than to build a Canadian line. : @ George Hees, Toronto "Tory MP, told a meeting in To- ronto April 2 that Canadian tax- payers are being asked to sub- sidize the project for the U.S. firm and guarantee it against loss but would not share in any profits made. Thus, Canadians are to be “economic vassals,” he charged. He said if private Canadian interests could not build it, then let the five prov- inces concerned, together with the federal government, build it as a publicly-owned venture. _ Continued on page 7 See PIPELINE Strachan’s task is CCF Bob Strachan, 42-year-old MLA for’ Cowichan-Newcastle, whose acrossthe-floor heckling has upset Premier Bennett at every session of the legislature since the Socreds came to power four years ago, was elected provincial leader of the CCF last Friday night and immediately called for a province-wide rally of CCF forces to ensure the defeat of Social Credit at the next provincial elections. Speaking in broad Scots (the premier refers to him as “the breeze from . the Hebrides’’) Strachan told delegates attend- ing the CCF’s 23rd provincial convention of the tradition of the fiery cross in the Highlands, and then said: “I hope that each and every one of you will take the fiery cross so that all over British Columbia you can set the heath- er afire, so that all over BCs the CCFers can tumble out to our assistance.” No one should know better \ than Bob Strachan that words without deeds mean little — and that the CCF in its present state in B.C. is in no position to “go it alone” in battle against the Social Credit government. Yet the CCF convention, with- out even debating the subject, rejected a Labor - Progressive party proposal for “unity in ac- tion to stop the betrayals of the Bennett government and to win policies which put the people’s interest first.” This casual rejection of unity around issues on which both the LPP and CCF agree — the need to stop the grab of B.C. resources by U.S. monopolies, and to develop industries here and provide jobs — symbolized the confusion on policy evident at the convention. Unity with the LPP and other progressive organizations would be a source of new life and strength to the CCF which over the past year has shown a. de- Continued on back page See CCF Dep’t bar on Robeson ‘arbitrary’ TORONTO Action of the department of citizenship and immigration in refusing to admit Paul Robeson, world-renowned singer, and Alan Booth, his pianist, to this country for a concert tour is denounced as “high-handed and arbitrary interference in the concert business” in a statement ° issued here by Jerom Concerts and Artists Ltd., managers of Robeson’s concert tour. “To our knowledge, not a single country in the British Commonwealth would today prevent Robeson from coming in to give commercial concerts,” said the statement made by the firm’s managing director, John Boyd. . “On the contrary, in Britain and other countries there is a great demand for his services both as.a singer and actor. “We do not believe the de- partment’s action will be en- dorsed by the Canadian concert- going public.” Boyd, noting that Robeson was scheduled to sing in 17 Canadian cities (among them Vancouver, on May 23), said that when the itinerary. was com- pleted his firm notified the de- partment “as a matter of rou- tine.” Jerom Concerts was “greatly amazed and very much dis- turbed” when it received a let- ter from the department ruling that Robeson could not be ad- mitted for the purpose stated and that the decision would not be reconsidered.