“PROVINCIAL ELECTION

Communists run in three ridings"
to push program of ‘real change

Doing everything possible to defeat the
Credit government and winning
joadened support for its candidates and
rogram will be top on the agenda for the
| (ommunist Party in the provincial election
ywmpaign, CP leader Maurice Rush said
pis week.

"The Communist Party is running in three
wlected ridings in the Oct. 22 elections, to
gavance the party’s program “for real

ge”” while at the same time pressing for
ynity of all anti-Socred forces to defeat the
Yander Zalm government, he said.

Rush will be spearheading the campaign
jo Vancouver East while longshoreman
god Doran is contesting New Westminster
gad unemployed advocate Deborah Mac-
fonald Nanaimo. Both Vancouver East
gnd Nanaimo are two-member ridings, the
fatter created as part of the Socreds’ redis-
gibution.

Anticipating an early election call, the CP
galled a special meeting of its provincial
gommittee and constituency organizations
Sept. 21 to get the election apparatus in

The campaign gets underway formally
this week with the opening of the Nanaimo

. MAURICE RUSH

campaign office on Commercial Street
Wednesday at which Rush will speak. He
will also be on the platform with Mac-
Donald at a public meeting in Nanaimo
scheduled for Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Oct. 2, he will be speaking
at a public meeting in Courtenay followed
by a meeting in Port Alberni Oct. 3.

The main rally of the campaign will be in
Vancouver’s Trout Lake Centre, Oct. 10
where Rush will be joined by lecturer and
author Ben Swankey whose new pamphlet
“The Two Faces of Vander Zalm” has
already been successful in cracking the
glossy image that the media has created for
Vander Zalm. It is now into its second print-
ing less than 10 days after the first run of
5,000 came off the press.

The Oct. 10 rally is set for 7:30 p.m.

Rush charged that the media had created
“a mania” about Vander Zalm as part of
the right-wing strategy to overcome the
anti-Bennett mood in the province and to
re-elect Social Gredit under Vander Zalm’s
leadership. “They’re trying to get a band-
wagon rolling for Vander Zalm that will
carry his government back into office.”

But a vigorous campaign to expose
Vander Zalm’s continued adherence to a
right-wing program, and a rallying of all
those opposed to Social Credit around
strong alternative policies, could turn it
around, he emphasized.

Vander Zalm is agreeing to “study this”
and “look at that” to mask his real agenda
which is a continuation of Bennett’s res-
traint and giveaway of resources, Rush said,
adding that the party would be doing “every-
thing we can to expose that.”

The CP leader pointed out that the New
Democrats, because of their slowness in
developing policy, had enabled the Vander
Zalm campaign, with its emphasis on style,
to gain momentum.

That is changing, he noted, with the
recent NDP initiatives on job security legis-
lation and call for abolition of the Compen-
sation Stabilization Program and health
care user fees “‘but it still needs to be taken

further on basic issues such as the forest
industry and labor legislation,” he said.

The Communist Party campaign will
press for “real change” in the economic and
political direction of the province, based on
ending reliance on the private sector and
introducing strong government interven-
tion as well as public ownership in key sec-
tors of the economy.

The party has already issued a compre-
hensive 21-point election platform outlining
the program steps necessary to upgrade the
public sector, develop new industry and
jobs and expand social services.

DEBORAH MacDONALD

Among other points it calls for:

© Immediate job creation projects includ-
ing a massive housing construction pro-
gram of 60,000 units annually; a reforestation
program costing $15 billion over five years;
and a municipal works program based on
the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
plan;

@ Restoration of funding for education
and health care;

e A doubling of welfare rates and an
increase in the minimum wage to $6 an
hour;

e@ Repeal of all anti-labor legislation
including the Compensation Stabilization
Program and special economic projects leg-
islation;

@ Nationalization of MacMillan Bloedel
to provide the basis for a publicly-owned
wood products industry based on secon-
dary processing;

ROD DORAN

e@ Expanded public ownership of energy
resources to provide industrial develop-
ment;

@ Full support for Native land claims
negotiations;

@ Legislation to enact equal pay for work
of equal value;

@ Rejection of a free trade deal with the
LOSS

: ~ Campaign =|
headquarters

50h

A shorter version of the platform will be Rog

distributed to some 50,000 households in
the ridings as well as several thousand more
in other areas in the province.

“Maurice Rush: 107, 2747 East Hast-
ings St., Vancouvr, V5K 1Z8. Phone:

Doran: Box 2655, New West-

ith this Oct. 1 issue,
we kick off our

readership drive for
1986.

And this one,

following our successful financial
_ drive last spring, takes place in
- active times. Throughout B.C. the
anti-Socred forces, many of them

_ Tribune readers, will be engaged in
_ the provincial election. As if that

__ isn’t enough, there are fall civic
elections, including the crucial fight
by the Committee of Progressive
Electors against right-wing
developers and budget-cutters in
Vancouver.

Our task will be to expose the
truth behind the Socred hype and
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for British Columbians. And to give
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As with the highly-successful
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raised $95,000 to keep the Tribune
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readers in 1986.

If you are a subscriber, you know
how important the Pacific Tribune

. employers’ drive to de-unionize

’ wood industries — or the drive by

is when it comes to clarifying and
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those press clubs achieving the
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In the upcoming weeks, we will
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B.C. — as in the construction and

Canada’s big business sector to sell
out sovereignty and cultural identity
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The Pacific Tribune has
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— Michael Proniuk
Tribune Business Manager

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 1, 1986 e 3