“NOTE COMMUNIST

An election is not a race
here you look for a winner

Show or place.

Here where the classes

Meet in strife,

You back your class

For you bet your life.

—J. S. Wallace

Companies Zero In
on the Pipeline

Reserves of natural gas on the
Northern slope of Alaska have been
timated at 26 trillion cubic feet, some

Which -cannot be produced until
akan oil is pumped out to market.
€ probable reserve in the Mackenzie
Elta are said to be around 15 trillion
tubic feet. But no one knows how
Much potential exists in the Canadian
Tctic,

This explains why a consortium of

COmpanies of producers, transport-
*s and distributors, most of them
Merican, are busily preparing for an
*Pplication to the Canadian Energy
bead for a license to build pipeline
&ilities. More than a dozen other
‘Ompanies are preparing to join the
€nture.
Neither the federal government, the
Uebec government, nor any of the
evinces seem prepared to insist upon
io ority public »wnership in so-called
Int ventures. On the contrary, their
te licy is to leave both the burden and
Ward of providing energy and mineral
Dede ments to private monopolies,

Ominantly U.S.-controlled.

Not in the Interests
of Canadian People

e hypocritical stance that private

Monopoly interests are going to pro-

oe

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ee SS Se
—

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mote some undefined aims and objec-
tives serving our national and public
interest, is a gross insult to the intel-
ligence of every thinking Canadian,
The time is long overdue for a com-
plete about turn in national policy. The
present election campaign provides an
opportunity and a challenge to move
Canadian politics to the Left, to curb
monopoly, to begin putting an end to

U.S. economic domination, to develop

a publicly owned pipeline in the Mac-
kenzie Valley as part of an overall plan
for development of the Canadian North,
to provide new opportunities for im-
provement in the life of our native
peoples, to provide opportunities for
jobs and careers for our unemployed
and our youth, to lift the living stand-
ards of Canadians everywhere.

It is not enough to declare for Arctic
sovereignty. Steps have to be taken
now to make it a reality by means of
economic and social development. It is
not enough to pontifically declare that
a Canadian identity is no longer an
issue. It will keep becoming ever more
serious as an issue until the strangle-
hold of U.S. and home-grown monopo-
lies is broken and our national indepen-
dence is assured. It is not enough to
pay lip service to Canadian unity, nor
of any special status for anyone, but of
a voluntary union of two equal na-
tions—French and English speaking—
in a democratic state moving towards
peace and progress and a_ socialist

future.
*

The Communist Party appeals to
working men and women, and to those
who vote for the first time, to admin-
ister a setback to the Liberals, Tories
and Social Crediters — the parties of
monopoly—and to send a large bloc of
progressives, including NDP members
and Communists, to Canada’s 29th Par-

liament on October 30.

Can Canada’s North be transformed?
It is being done on the other side of
the globe, in the Soviet Far North.

In the prison-house of nations that
constituted the Russian Empire under
the tsars, Siberia served as an exile for
revolutionaries. The socialist revolu-
tion of 1917 changed all that.

Today Canadian TV viewers can see
for themselves the conditions of living
in a modern Soviet city of three hund-
red thousand people, and built on
permafrost. Norilsk was the first city of
its size to be built beyond the Arctic
Circle. Two-thirds of its housing is of
stone construction, incorporating hot
and cold running water and sewage
facilities. Ninety percent of the apart-
ments in Norilsk are provided with
central heating. :

The Soviet Union has four cities be-
yond the Arctic Circle today: Vorkuta,
Murmansk, Magadan and Norilsk. The
population of the new northern regions
in the Soviet Union is growing much
faster than that of Central Russia. Ten
times faster, if compared with the
areas of industrial development in
Chukotka. In the next decade and a
half at Ieast 800,000 to 850,000 Soviet
citizens will move into the polar and
sub-polar regions of the USSR to live
and work.

Having solved the problems of hous-
ing and public amenities for a large
population in the Far North, it became
possible to develop the 11 million
square kilometres of Arctic waste,
tundra, taiga and permafrost, which
contains colossal deposits of gold,
nickel, oil, gas, timber, furs etc.

It is to develop this wealth that 15
billion roubles were allocated to such
a development in the years 1966 to

- 1970, and which will be increased to

60 billion roubles between 1971 and
1980.

Those who have studied potential
oil and gas resources claim that Siberia
is the biggest oil bearing basin on our
planet Earth. In fact the whole of
Siberia is floating on oil and gas. By
the year 2000, Siberia will have the
world’s biggest power complex. The
bulk of Siberia’s industry will consist
of giant enterprises. The population
will be doubled.

* % *

Soviet experience in developing the
North should be of much special and
practical interest to Canadian special-
ists in economic geography and north-

About 40°, of the territory of both
Canada and the USSR lie above the
60th parallel containing incalculable
wealth in oil, gas, minerals, hydro power
and timber.

ern development. About 40% of the
territory for both Canada and USSR
is situated above the 60th parallel, and
contains incalculable wealth in oil, gas,
minerals, hydro power and timber.

After all, we too have our Sans
Sault, Yellowknife, Inuvik and Fro-
bisher Bay, to mention some places
most people have heard something
about. But we are far behind the
USSR in Northern developments.

The main reason for this is the race
after monopoly profits for a few,
rather than all-sided development to
make life richer and more meaningful
for the people as a whole.

It is a contrast between a system of
socialist humanism, and a system that
places the Almighty Dollar before
people.

urn about in national policy. The pre
ty and a challenge to move Canadian
n end to U.S. economic
ackenzie Valley as part
It is not enough to
a reality...

en's ame is long overdue for a complete tu
Politi, pion campaign provides an opportunity 7
domi s to the Left, to curb monopoly, to begin putting “
Of Nation, to develop a publicly-owned pipeline in the. #
| > deg}, Yerall plan for the development of the Canadian North. ie
Lo “te for Arctic sovereignty, steps must be taken now to make

‘if they won't make aircraft,
let's do it by public control

The worker’s tenacity has paid off
and the De Havilland strike has been
won. It was a long strike, one of the
longest Toronto has ever seen. Before
and during the strike the company was
claiming that the plant was “unecono-
mical,” losing money. The now familiar
bluff of “If you don’t come back to
work on our terms, we will close,” was
called by the workers. They have now
won a settlement.

But it is time to take the company at
its word. Their claim has been that the
plant, under control of the Hawker-
Siddley empire of which De Havilland
is a part, is uneconomical.

If De Havilland cannot produce the
sorely needed STOL (short take-off and
landing) aircraft for use in Canada,
particularly in the Northern areas, then
the government should take over the
firm and make it a Crown Corporation.

The government has a precedent for
this. Several years ago, the same par-
ent corporation, Hawker-Siddley of
Great Britain, claimed that it could not
economically run the steel mills it
owned in Sydney, Nova Scotia. When
Hawker-Siddley closed the mills, the
government of Nova Scotia took the
firm over and is now running it at a
profit. «

The Canadian people need the STOL
aircraft. We need a firm guarantee that
those planes will be produced> We do
not need the De Havilland executives
if they say that they cannot produce
the aircraft.

If they cannot produce what is need-
ed and pay decent wages, then the cor-

poration should be turned over to the
Canadian people to produce for the
needs of our country’s development.

» 3 PACIFIC TRIBUNE ERIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1972—PAGE 7