‘increases 100

~ MacMillan Bloedel profit

per cent

200 ee

rofit triples

at Weldwood

Clippings from financial pages of the daily press.:

Stop gas p

EDITORIAL

Th
itm, NDP government should order an

Dic “diate halt to the hike in gasoline

Vile announced this week by the major
Dub; panies pending the holding of a

ew By faring in the near future by the
he : Energy Commission.

nis re announced by Shell Oil, which
Ubanies ‘Glately followed by the other oil

Ment, my tt What looks like a monopoly arrange-

the, Mm
‘ebubiest Not be allowed to stand. It is against

Coming iterests.

rey vitg aa time when the cost of living is
ea fase i. y upward, as shown by the index
Dreotin di S Week, the boost in the price of
myyedcts St “sel fuel, heating oil, and other oil

lic’ Sikes a hard blow at the consuming

Polies in B.C. have been acting as
‘ Power unto themselves. They have
Vinca. their noses at the public and
Year sa Sovernment. Only in January of
Y ignored Premier Barrett’s appeal

ere

rice boost

and pushed through a price increase. Having got
away with it then, they are repeating their
arrogant action less than four months later.

All the major oil companies now seeking to
squeeze more out of the public, have shown big
increases in profits. While they keep their B.C.
operations underwraps, Shell Oilreported net
profits in 1971 of $244,504,000. Imperial Oil
reported profits in 1971 of $136 million. Gulf Oil
reported that its net earnings after taxes for 1972
were up $64.4 million.

The January price boost, like the current one, is
plain and simply a profit gouge of the public.

It’s not good enough for the NDP government
to say: we have just set up the new Energy Com-
mission so we can’t do anything now about gas
prices. They have a well-established procedure
by which to halt the boost. They should
immediately set a date for a public hearing at
which the oil monopolies would have to justify ‘
their increase, and at which the public could be
heard.

Until such a hearing takes place, the price
boost should be stopped.

HUGE FOREST PROFITS
ST HOUSING COSTS

By MAURICE RUSH
The huge profits being rolled up by the forest giants
are directly responsible for the sharp rise in housing
costs in B.C., and are pricing homes out of the range of
tens of thousands of needy families.

A report released Tuesday by
the Canadian Real Estate Asso-
ciation shows that the average
price of homes on the Lower
Mainland went up by 17 percent
in the past year — the highest
increase in Canada. Victoria was
second.

The average increase in
Canada was 11 percent, which
means that the B.C. increase in
housing costs has been more
than 50 percent higher than the
national average. And thisina
province which boasts of the
world’s richest timber re
sources.

The major reason for that is to
be seen in the clippings along
side this story taken from the
financial pages of the daily press
in recent days. The forest mono-
polies are piling up the biggest
profits in their history. Inrecent
months they have made profit
gains surpassing by many times
those made by other companies
in North America.

Here in a nutshell is why
housing costs are so high: Inthe
first three months of 1973 B.C.
Forest Products’ profits jumped
300 percent. MacMillan
Bloedel’s profits rose 100
percent. Crown Zellerbach’s
profits went up 144 percent.
Weldwood of Canada tripled its
profits in the same period.

Not only are these mono-

Tenants plan campaign... rs
Labor hoycotts Seagram ...»:.:

polies, most of which are U:S.-
owned, making their profits
from high prices on the world
market. They are charging all
the traffic will bear on the
domestic market, and have
pushed prices up to an all-time
high.

The greed of the forest mono-
polies knows no bounds. The orgy
of profiteering.is so bad that a
few weeks ago the Minister of
Highways Bob Strachan
charged the industry with.
“criminal irresponsibility.’ He
pointed out that ina two month
period before January sawlogs
jumped fifty percent; lumber
rose about 70 percent, while two-
by-four hemlock went up 45
percent.

The forest monopolies can’t
pass the blame off on the
workers this time. It’s a year
since there was any increasein
wages in the forest industry and
that settlement added up to
about 15 cents on 1,000 feet of
lumber.

When working people and
people on higher incomes can’t
afford to buy ahomethereason
is that they can’t pay theransom
the fat cats inthe forest industry
are demanding. And what
makes it worse is that they are

See FOREST PROFITS, pg. 3

Woodward profits Zoom... rs. 1

A program for B.C. woodworkers

—Pg. 12