You see, Senator, ours aren't POWs. They're Communists.

World peace parley to meet

Plans areunderway tosenda
large, representative delega-
tion from B.C. to the World
Congress of Peace Forces being
held in Moscow October 2-7, 1973.

In March an international
consultative - meeting to
prepare for this congress
brought together representa-
tives from 40internationaland
81 national organizations from
60 countries. This meeting
issued a communique emphasiz-
ing thatitssearchfor solutions
to the dangers of war which still
exist in the world will require
the participation of various
political, religious and social
movements as well as com-
munity groups and individuals

from all walks of life.

In Vancouver, aB.C. Commit-
tee for World Congress of Peace
Forces was formed with Dr. J.G.
Foulks as temporary chairman.
The Committee has sent outan
invitation to interested organiza-
tions and individuals for a supper
conference on Wednesday, May
30 at 6:30 p.m. at the Unitarian
Church, 49th and Oak Street.

Last Tuesday the Vancouver
and District Labor Council
decided to send a representa-
tive to the conference.
Indications are that many other
groups will be naming their
representatives to this impor-
tant peace gathering.

Public officials should
disclose income sources

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

For some time I have advoca-
ted that public officials should
disclose their sources of
income, investments, land
holdings and other business
interests. A person would have to
be naive indeed to believe that
in these days of developers,
applications for rezonings, etc.
some public officials are not

taking advantage of their -

position.

Because I believe we should
have some legislation to protect
the public against politicians of
this sort, I was pleased when on
March 16 Attorney-General
Alex Macdonald introduced Bill
132, the Public Officials’
Disclosure Act. It’s intent, he
explained, ‘‘is to eliminate
corrupt influences that may
guide the decisions of legisla-
Loris

The bill required every
M.L.A., Mayor, Alderman and
School Trustee to declare his or
her business interests and
sources of income twice a year,
exclusive of such matters asa
mortgage on his home or
personal debts. This would’also
apply to the spouse and children.
The penalty for violation was a
fine of up to $10,000, six months
imprisonment, or both.

The bill ran into predictable

opposition from Social Credit -

benches in the legislature and a
number of Mayors and Alder-
menacrosstheprovince. A few
even resigned their positions.

One of the arguments of its:

opponents was that the bill was
‘‘an invasion of privacy’. The
answer to that is simple. Oncea
person is elected to public office,
his business affairs are opento
public scrutiny. The public hasa
right to know. Furthermore itis
protection for elected public offi-
cials against unfounded rumours

about their business invest-
ments.
Asecondargument trotted out
against the billisthat **youcan’t
legislate honesty’ or the other
version of the same thing, ‘‘you
can’t legislate social standards’’.
Any .person making this
ridiculous assertion must have
left his brains at home. If we
can’t legislate honesty, should
we then repeal all our laws
against crime? Laws against
stealing don’t eliminate theft,
but they help to keep it down.
Society needs some protection

Prices rally
set for city

An open air public rally to
protest high food prices, and to
demand a Prices Review Board
with power to take action to halt
price increases and roll back
prices will be held in Vancou-
ver’s City Hall Square, Sunday,
May 27 at2p.m.

Sponsored by the Co-or-
dinating Committee of Con-
cerned Organizations, speakers
invited include NDP-MP Paddy
Neale and Rosemary Brown,
NDP-MLA. The Vancouver and
District Labor Council last Tues-
day decided to provide the chair-
man for the rally.

The Committee has also
printed a large quantity of
petitions addressed to Prime
Minister Trudeau calling on the
Federal government to give the
projected Price Board power to
roll back prices on food and
other basic necessities. Copies
of the petition are available by

phoning Mrs. Pat Anderson, 939- -

0245, or Mrs. Elaine
Podovinnikoff, 987-4585.

: us
ture. Probably it could oa

ust as Banquo’s ghost disturbed the evil machinations

J of Macbeth, Watergate persists in haunting the

White House. So much so that President Nixon is now going to
have the place ‘‘cleaned with honor”’ instead of whitewash.

Initially it was hoped that whitewash would do the job, but
with more and more of Tricky Dicky’s bosom pals being
exposed to the public view, the Watergate ghost just couldn’t
be buried. Now, after many emphatic denials, six of these high-
ranking porch and transom climbers are to be indicted, with
more to follow. Nixon has promised the nation and the worlda
cleanup with honor and invoked God’s help in meeting his
responsibility and preserving his integrity.

Watergate, it may be recalled, was the bugging of the
National Democratic Convention in 1972 by top-level
Republican poohbahs who banded together ina gang knownas
the Committee to Re-elect the President, abbreviated to
CREEP, and afine bunch of Creeps they have proven tobe.
Two attorneys-general, one incumbent and ‘ex’; the chief of
the FBI, who is alleged to have destroyed a lot of documents
incriminating a bunchof other transom climbers, anda whole
raft of top presidential advisors, aides, co-conspirators and
similar riffraff— all Nixon appointees to key posts.

When the Watergate ghost began to hot-foot it through the
murky corridors built by CREEP, as they say in jail parlance,
some of these bugging rodents began tosing, i.e. toexpose
others involved in the crime, and what began as a creepy crime
to re-elect a Mad Bomber is now exposed as a major adminis-
trative scandal, involving the top ruling circles of the United
States.

In essence, Watergate confirms an irrefutable Marxist

= PR. Se 8

analysis of capitalist crisis; a bourgeois resort to violence,
crime, lies and cupidity to cover up its obvious failures at home
and abroad; in crisis, a readiness of the bourgeois to “‘sing’’, to
throw its own kind to the wolves, just as soon as danger
appears and credibility gaps no longer suffice to meet the
crisis; and always and ever to don the mantle of patriotism as
a final cover-up for its administrative trickery. Watergate
merely emphasizes the deep trouble and the profound crisis of
U.S. imperialism, at home and throughout the world. Nixon
didn’t say it in last Monday night’s pre-funeral oration on
Watergate, but it was there ‘“‘between the lines’’ of his TV
script.

Can Canada have cause or reason to feel smug, to assume
that Watergate is purely a U.S. phenomenon, and doesn’t
concern or affect us in any way? The sharpening crisis below
our unprotected border, including Watergate, can and willbe
felt in our day-to-day struggle for food, clothing and shelter.

Moreover while we may have some legislation that frowns
upon or is aimed at banning bugging, the bourgeoisie, be they
Tory, Liberal, Socred, or a combination of the lot, care little
about legislation when the class interests of their monopoly
paymasters is at stake.

Sure we had the ‘‘labor leader’ Pat O’ Neal ‘‘bugging’’ a
convention of fellow unionists ( with the aid of the RCMP) just
to see what was going on. It was asmall affair, nothing like the
cloak of Watergate, but from the same shoddy cloth. And
unlike the Watergate transom climbers of the electronic age,
Pat didn’t even lose his well-paid job.

Then we had a spot of RCMP bedroom bugging in the
Gerda Munsinger romances, and while Pierre Elliot Trudeau
insists we have ‘‘no right to invade the nation’s bedroom’”’ the
call of political romances was too strong to resist. ;

Moreover few Canadians know the magnitude of the
electronic bugging that took place during and after the same
Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in peace time against
the people of Quebec, orhow many dossiers against the citizen
was compiled from bug records.

And just to make security doubly secure, we often bug our
security jails in hopes of catching some stray morsel of gossip
to incriminate another. Watergate symbolizes thechronic
decay of U.S. imperialism, now serving its people, and the
world hogwash with ‘‘honor”’!

against anti-social elemer
including some politicians ve
have been aptly described ast
best people that money call ee
A third argument is that ht
bill becomes law, good per,
won’t want to run for publ
office because they don’t W a
to disclose their bust
interests. That’s an argue
that should be taken withM |
grain but a ton of salt. f A |
have nothing to hide, they a
nothing to fear. And if they 40 :
want to disclose their busin”
investments, they don’t havé
run for public office.

(
Actually the bill as Wom,
: st 10) |

lenient I wouldsay. it provi
that a public official whom?
mistake in listing his Dust), |
interests could legitimatel! at
fend himself on the grounes (i
he had.complied with the a¢ and |
the best of his knowledge”, |
belief’. How much a
leeway does anyone requir eri
On April 5 Attorney-GeP” |
Macdonald gave into theo ;
tionand tabled the bill wit) ,,
announcement that it wou inf
amended and brought up a6 sie |
the fall session of the leBh_

mm
+

i—a

>.

= —=
a

fully amended, but I sinc?
hope that the amen iatel!
aren’t designed to emascl that
and make it nothing more ast
lip service to genuine pub
closure. j cred!
The Liberal and Social 9
opposition, for example; ie!
the billlimited toM.L.A-, enes
would destroy its effectiN al
because it is in the mune sto}
field where the publics sel!
lose the most today from ate
seeking, developer? :
municipal officials. \d pe
I think: the bill co ait
strengthened with thea net)
of a clause providing that” id)
public officials pass laws von!
clearly are in their owns isl?
business interests, such Tid:
tion should be declared IY cat

‘i 4

ee 1 i"
ANNOUNCEME® ||
WINNERS OF NIE" |
MAKELA RAFF é

Ist Winner — 2nd wir" yot

G. Jarvis 3
1357 Barclay R.R. No-

- 3rd Winner —
M. Mosher

ni
R.R. No. 2, Port Albet 7

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1973—-PAGE 2