BCR key to northern development

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Maurice Rush, the B.C.
provincial leader of the Com-
munist Party, prepared this article
for the Tribune to respond to the
current controversy over the
proposal of the McKenzie Royal
Commission to abandon'the British
Columbia Railway.

By MAURICE RUSH

The drastic action proposed by

the McKenzie royal commission to
shut down all but a quarter of the
B.C. Railway operations in central
and northern B.c., and perhaps
even the line between Vancouver
and Williams Lake later on, should
be rejected by every forward
looking British Columbian. Not
only would it be a major blow to the
municipalities and peoples of. the
north who depend upon it, but it
would also be a major setback to
any future plans for the economic
development of the province.
i The royal commission justifies
its proposals on the grounds of
heavy losses incurred by the
railway over the years, and ‘says
that abandonment of the rail lines
is the only way tolift what it claims
is a milestone for the province. The
fact that B.C. Rail has failed to
stimulate the ceonomy of central
and northern B.C., and has in-
curred large debts, is more a
criticism of the failure of the B.C.
government to develop the vast
economic potential of the area
served by the railway than it is a
criticism of the rail operation it-
self.

The recommendations of the
royal commission stand as a
monumental example of lack of

BCR LINE. . . crucial to economic development

vision and economic  short-
sightedness. The present rail lines,
and their possible future extension
into northern B.C., run through an
area which contains one of the
richest treasures of natural
resources to be found anywhere on
the face of the earth. Instead of
being a millstone it should and
could become the backbone for a
vast economic empire which could
transform B.C. from a raw
material province into a great
manufacturing and processing
province, providing for an ex-
panded population, new large
cities based on modern industries
with tens of thousands of new
permanent jobs.

The area which B.C. Rail could
serve hold vast quantities of coal,

natural gas, timber, oil and
minerals. The November 18 issue
of The Financial Post estimates
that north eastern B.C. contains 10
billion tons of high grade
metallurgical coal or enough to
keep the entire Japanese steel
industry in business for 200 years.

At present B.C, Rail serves a few
sawmills, but the region has huge
timber resources and unlimited
supplies of natural gas. These
create the possibilities for a large
petrochemical and plastics’ in-
dustry. The area is rich in minerals
which could support a steel mill
and copper smelter. The prospects
for manufacturing and processing
in the region are unlimited given
new provincial economic policies.

At present the _ provincial

government and its friends in the
multinational corporations are
only interested in deals to ship the
coal to Japan, the U.S. and West
Germany. They are building
pipelines to carry natural gas to
the U.S. and are only interested in
what profits can be made from
export of sawn lumber and pulp. It
is this policy, more than anything
else which has resulted in the B.C.
Rail crisis and prevented the north
from realizing its full economic
protential. This policy must be
changed if B.C. is to end its
reliance on raw material exports
and become an industrialized and
manufacturing province. Such a
change in policy would create an
entirely new situation as far as
B.C. Rail is concerned.

The Socred government has
remained non-commital on
whether it will implement the
McKenzie commission recom-
mendations. Premier Bennett has
indicated that he will not act on
them now. Undoubtedly, with a
provincial election in the offing in
which the Socreds hope to carry
the northern ridings, it would be
suicidal to implement the drastic
proposals at this time. But once an
election is out of the way, the
Socred government can be counted
on to implement the recom-
mendations in whole or in part.

A word must be said about the
position taken by NDP leader Dave
Barrett. While his stand against
abandoning the rail line is
welcomed, his proposal that B.C.
Rail should be extended to Alaska
with U.S. capital and run north and
south from Alaska to the U.S.

should be rejected by every person
who has the interest of Canada and
B.C. at heart. Barrett claims he
has already spoken to U.S.
politicians and they are prepared
to accept his proposal. Such a
north-south line would open the
vast riches of central and northern
B.C. to further domination and
control by U.S. capital. It would
strengthen U.S. domination of B.C.
and represent a further step
towards the continental integration
of B.C. with the U.S., which would
be to B.C. detriment. It is a further
development of his earlier
proposal that Alaskan oil be
shipped by rail through B.C. to the
U.S. What he is actually ad-
vocating is a second U.S. corridor
through B.C. to the U.S., following
the Alaska natural gas pipeline
corridor which has already been
approved.

The Communist Party of B.C.

urges that the public join in the —

fight to halt the scuttling of B.C.
Rail; that the line be subsidized if
necessary by provincial and
federal governments and be part of
an integrated transportation
system strengthening east-west
development in Canada. Further,
that they join in demanding that
Victoria undertake plans immedi-
ately to nationalize some of the
major multinational corporations
in northern B.C., reject deals to
export raw materials abroad, and
instead undertake a vast program
of economic development based on
manufacturing and processing to
serve present and_ future
generations of British Columbians.

Take over resources to create jobs—labor

A resolution calling for the
creation of secondary industry and
Canadian control, of resources in
order “to guarantee economic
security and the right to a job for

. every Canadian” was unanimously
endorsed by the more than 1,000
delegates as the B.C. Federation of
Labor convention would up its
sessions Friday.

The resolution, which em-
phasized the failure “‘of the present
economic system to provide full
employment’? was a composite of
nearly a dozen similar resolutions
submitted to the convention by
‘several union locals, all of them
pointing to the urgency of a
program to confront the economic
crisis. 3

“The labor movement believes
the right to a meaningful job and
the right to a fair share of the
wealth of society are fundamental
rights of every Canadian,” the
resolution declared.

It condemned both federal and
provincial governments for their
failure to direct the economy
towards full employment and
economic security and called for
the implementation of ‘national
and provincial economic planning
to:

e Guarantee economic security
and that right to a job for every
Canadian;

e Redistribute wealth by means
of an overhauled tax structure
which would shift the tax burden to
corporations;

e Provide indexed pensions at a
liveable levels for all retired
Canadians; -

e Establish a rational plan for
the creation of secondary
manufacturing industries with
requirements that Canadian raw
resources be processed in this
country with such specific projects
as a steel mill in B.C. and the ex-
pansion of the shipbuilding in-
dustry ;

@ Move

towards regaining

control of key Canadian resources:

by Canadians, using a variety of

methods including — public
ownership or control;

e Provide immediate stimulus to
the economy by redirecting
government spending to socially
useful programs such as housing,
day care centres, urban transit and
other public works.

Fishermen’s delegate Homer
Stevens singled out the issue of
resources control as the key to the
economic plan and told the con-
vention: ‘There is no country
where the control of resources and
the question of public ownership so
important as Canada.”

Stevens stressed that the
program could only be effective if
we understand the need for public
ownership of resources.

“It’s time we called on the
government to take over control of
resources that are now controlled
by multinationals,” he said.

Delegates also addressed
themselves to a number of policy
papers which formed a significant
part of the convention business,
emphasizing the variety of im-
portant issues before the
Federation.

One such statement introduced
Friday pledged the B.C. Fed to
fight the federal government’s bill
which would: impose “average
comparability of total com-
pensation’? (ACTC) on public
service bargaining, a scheme
described by one delegate as
“computer bargaining which
compares one poorly-paid group of
workers with another poorly paid
group.”

The ACTC plan is the main ~

provision in Bill C-22, amended
version of an earlier Bill C-28. It
was introduced into the Commons
last week.

The scheme would tie wage —

increases in the public sector to the
average earnings for comparable
employees in the private sector
according to government figures.
Non-union employees in private
industry would be included in the
survey.

‘If this bill passes, unions in the
public service will virtually cease
to exist,” a delegate from the
International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers told the con-
vention.

Canadian Union of Postal
Workers delegate Larry
Honeybourne warned that the bill
devotes several sections ‘‘to
repression of public service
strikes’’ as a means of compelling
unions to accept the comparability
formula.

“Tn fact, the bill would allow the
government to break strikes

without the inconvenience of a

parliamentary debate,” he noted,
referring to provisions which
empower the government to im-
pose back-to-work legislation
without having to recall
Parliament.

John Fryer, B.C. Government

Employees’ general secretary,
warned delegates that if the bill

became law, all public employees,

working for the municipal and
provincial governments as well as
the federal government would
eventually become its targets.

Delegates unanimously endorsed
recommendations in the policy
statement which called on the
Federation to ‘organize demon-
strations, meetings lobbies and
defeat the bill.

It also condemned the Socred
government’s formation of the
Public Sector Employers’ Council
and demanded its immediate
abolition.

Elsewhere in the convention,
delegates voted to reaffirm the
policy that affilates work towards
negotiating a shorter day week or
year under the slogan ‘“‘a 32 hour

on the officers of the CLC to uphold
the policy decision on the 32-hour
work week ‘‘without equivo-
cation.”

Another resolution demanded
that ‘‘appropriate and com-
prehensive amendments to both
provincial and federal labor
codes’? be enacted to give “‘clear
and unassailable” trade union
rights to fishermen, including the
right to organize, bargain
collectively and strike.

Delegates responded with a
spontaneous standing ovation
when IBEW delegate Jim Gee
called on the convention to “‘stand
up to show the federal government
that this Federation is not going to
put up with the attack on the
UFAWU and demands that this
union, which has contributed so
positively to the labor movement,
be granted full trade union rights.”

—Sean Griffin photo

Some 100 unemployed unionists picketed the Hotel Vancouver Friday to demand that Employment and
Immigration minister Bud Cullen, who was addressing a luncheon sponsored by the Men’s Canadian
Club inside, scrap the changes in UIC regulations which would disentitle thousands more jobless.
Earlier, on Wednesday, more than 900 B.C. Fed convention delegates marched through downtown Van-
couver streets to demand scrapping of the changes and government action on unemployment.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 1, 1978—Page 3.

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