HOW WILL HISTORY JUDGE HIM?

No time
for hypocrites

t is no secret that powerful

business and financial int-
erests will murder the Canada
Pension Plan — if they can get
away with it. One of the most
influential pressure groups is
the Canadian Life Insurance Of-
ficers Association, representing
companies doing 99 per cent of
the life insurance business in
Canada and covering one-quarter
of all Canadians in private pen-
sion plans, This is Big Business,
with a double capital B,

Their recent brief to the joint
parliamentary committee study-
ing the C.P.P, is a classical
example of big business hyproc-
risy.

The Association expressed
serious concern for the welfare of
our older citizens. Their sub-
mission brands the C.P.P. as
“a poorly designed welfare meas-
ure” and proposes changes inthe
present Old Age Security pro-
gram to meet the needs of older
Canadians,

In short, the Association is
against the C.P,P, but proposes
that the Old Age Security Allow-
ance, now payable at 70, be pay-
able at 65, They also propose
slightly higher allowances atages
70, 75, 80 and 85. This sudden
concern for our senior citizens
is rank hyprocrisy, because the
Association was never known as
an advocate of higher allowances
for senior citizens before the
C.P.P. became a distinct poss-
bility.

The Association objects to the
C.P.P, because it isan earnings-
related scheme. They say it will
do nothing for those workers who
earn less than $600 in a year or
$800 in the case of self-employ-
ed persons and for those whoare
unemployed, This concern for the
underdog in our society is most
touching. The answer, of course,

is full employment for all who
are capable and willing to work,
not scuttling the C.P.P.

These financial pirates have
more brass than a brass band,
They complain that because the
maximum pension is 25 per cent
of earnings, subject to a $5,000
ceiling, the C.P.P. is unfair to the
low wage earners, This from a
big business complex which, in
its own right and through its many
corporate connections does
everything possible to prevent
union organization and to keep
wages as low as possible!

If they were sincere they would
propose that the actual pension
from all sources (CPP and OAS)
should be 75 per cent of average
earnings, Further, the $5,000
ceiling should be raised.

But for sheer hypocris y no-
thing can match their crocodile
tears for those senior citizens
who will be 65 or over before the
effective date of the C.P.P, and
will therefore derive no bene-
fits. The answer to this problem
is very simple, Let the federal
government pass special legisla-
tion to give these senior citizens
a supplementary allowance, while
proceeding with the Canada Pen-
sion Plan,

I am certain that no reader
of this article can remember
a single occasion, prior to the
first announcement that there was
to be a Canada Pension Plan,
when the Insurance Association
went to any government in Can-
ada and proposed higher allow-
ances for senior citizens, Of
course not! They were more int-
erested in keeping their taxes
down,

There is NO TIME FOR
HYPOCRITES! Let’s get on with
the Canada Pension Plan!

JACK PHILLIPS
Civic Worker’s Newsbulletin

Sa aT

ALL I NEED

A CRYSTAL BALL AND
AN OUITI BOARD!

Now [Ss

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— L ~|

BR. DAILY WORKER

ith the death of Churchill,

the capitalist system has lost
one of its most tenacious and ablei
defenders,

He will be mourned especially
by those who recognise his serv-
ices to that system, and to its
political representative in Brit-
ain, the Tory Party,

But he himself would not expect
those against whom he fought so

bitterly to forget past battles.

and join unreservedly inthe trib-
utes now being paid to him,

In the days before his death
all the resources of modern pub-
licity were mobilised to give
the impression that this was the
most important event in the

world,

The cult of personality may
have suffered some heavy blows
in the Socialist countries: when
it suits the capitalist class it is
carried to fantastic lengths in
the West.

It reached its peak — or depth
— last Tuesday, when the Evening
News published a suggested

Bus service
cut opposed

A- charge that B,C, Hydro has,
or will in the next short while,
ask for a substantial cut in
transit service in Vancouver was
made last week by Harry Rankin,
president of the Central Council
of Ratepayers, in aletter to
Mayor Rathie and city officials,

. The letter points out that every
fare increase in public transpor-
tation has been followed by a
decline in passengers carried,
followed by a cut in service,

It charges that “this vicious

’ circle has resulted in a declin-

ing standard in public transpor-
tation, having the net result of
a stifling of the growth and de-
velopment of the city of Van-
couver,”

The ratepayers request City
Council to make every effort tc
prevent a further cut in transit
services, It urges that a strong
protest be lodged and asks for
the opportunity to appear before
City Council to discuss this im-
portant subject,

Diesels hit
Replacement. of old buses in
Vancouver by diesels announced
recently by B,C, Hydro cameun-
der fire this week from Vancou-

ver Communist Party secretary
William Stewart,

“It is commendable that BaCe
Hydro is acting to replace the
old buses now in operation but it
is reprehensible that in the in-
terests of saving a few cents on
operation costs they are pre-

The Churchill myth

“private prayer” drawn up by
the Archbishop of Canterbury
which began “Churchill is the
gift of God’s providence,”

It is for Christians to say
whether they regard such a
phrase as appropriate or blas-
phemous,

Certainly those workers,
Christian or non-Christian,
against whom Churchill struggled
during his lifetime will find it
difficult to agree with the Arch-
bishop,

So will the hundreds of mil-
lions in. India and the colonial
empire whom he tried to keep
in slavery,

So will the people of the Soviet
Union against whom he organized
the armies of intervention,

The Establishrient has tried
to create an atmosphere in which
all Churchill’s anti-working
class and reactionary record will

CANADA |

be overlooked because of his war- ;
time role.

It is true that when the interests
of the ruling class made it neC-
essary, they turned to him fol
leadership in the struggle against
Hitler fascism, after driving him
into the wilderness for his pre-
war (if belated) opposition t
appeasement,

For what he contributed to that
fight he deserves credit, But if
must also be remembered that but
for his basic anti-Socialist and
anti-Soviet outlook the wal
against fascism could have bee!”
won far more quickly and with
fewer ascrifices, :

Nor should his postwar role
as the prophet and evangelist of
the cold war be forgotten.

Due respect to the dead is one
thing. Humbug and hypocrisy, eX-
cessive adulation and the build-
ing up of a cult are another)

Those who are trying to create
a Churchill myth should: be @
little more sober,

Despite all his efforts, all his
abilities and all the power which
he attained, he was a failure a5
far as his mainaim was concern-
ed.

He could not hold back the
advance of Socialism and the.
national liberation movement.

He prophesied the downfall of
the Soviet system times without
number, His vaunted foresight
failed him, because he could not
comprehend that .the working
people could run a country better —
than his own class could, :

In his 90 years of life the
world changed beyond recogni- —
tion, His tragedy was that he was
always on the side of those fight- —
ing against changes for thebetter.

But he could not stem the on-
ward march of progress, And
so, as he is mourned by those
he served, the people of the
world go forward to new triumphs —
in the battle for liberation and
Socialism,

Hear
TIM BUCK
PENDER
AUDITORIUM
Vancouver
SUNDAY
FEBRUARY 14
at 8 p.m.

IN THE AGE
OF AUTOMATION

QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD

Auspices Vancouver City Committee, Communist Party

MEMBERS OF LOCAL 676 HAVE
To BE WELL PREPARED

What with archaic Liquor Control Board liquor laws and their often puzzling ‘‘en-
forcement”, the gement of li d premises and beverage dispensers
; (particularly the latter) are often the ready victims of heavy fines under these

/ outmoded laws. Local 676 Beverage Dispenser’s Union in circulating the above
a cartoon to illustrate the standard equipment required by its members to avoid
running afoul of the antiquated LCB regulations.

pared to subject the people of
. Vancouver to the smell and health
hazards of diesel fumes,” said
Stewart, :

ecsmeiet—

He called on Hydro to take a.
second look at this “completely
unacceptable proposal,”

February 5, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2 —