wil Roll back prices lobby — demands Ottawa act Tribun FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1973 R Sopa of prices and a halt to monopoly profiteering was demanded by members of the Vancouver Co- nating Committee of Concerned Citizens in a demonstration outside Woodwards Store last Saturday. ie —Laction backed up the mass lobby in Ottawa when Parliament opened Monday. By NIGEL MORGAN An expected te shortage of natural gas, thous ; Shortly to idle several OPeratig Workers in COMINCO BS Mae In the Kootenays and s ft Ustries dependent on this Provincial oS? has compelled the into thes government to move fielg, Natural gas and petroleum woscBisation was introduced last of Providing for establishment develo W Crown corporation to P, produce and market natural gas and petroleum. Even- tually, the government indicated, the new Crown corporation will act as marketing agent for all natural gas handled in B.C. Introducing the bill in the Legislature, Attorney General Alex Macdonald, claimed the new cor- poration ‘‘seeks to capture for the people of B.C. true value for the natural gas”’. The Communist Party in B.C. has consistently advocated the public takeover of Westcoast Comply with UN resolution way to end Mid-East crisis’ : . . ‘S a Peace Council wrote External Affairs Minister Mitchell Medi Uesday demanding that the Canadian government act im- UN ed in the United Nations to demand Israel comply with the Shay aiution on the Middle East. aad attention was drawn to the fact that Canada, in ti t, 1967. voted with the other nations in favor of Resolu- n No. 24 torj “ae The lett ‘0 end th : * which called on Israel to withdraw from occupied and recognize the right of existence of all Middle East T said implimentation of this resolution is the only way € present conflict and stop the bloodshed. Transmission (the major marketing agency), and its sub- sidiaries, and a sharp increase in returns to the Provincial govern- See ENERGY, pg. 12 Vol. 34, No. 42 SEE PG. 5 VISA DENIAL PROTESTED The external affairs department and the department of immigration in Ottawa reversed an earlier deci- sion Tuesday and agreed under mounting labor pressure to grant entry visas to two Soviet trade un- ionists who were to visit Canada last week at the invitation of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union. The two unionists, Belyaev and Tokarev — both top officers in the Soviet Food Workers Union — were denied entry last week by the immigration department. When- the UFAWU enlisted the help of Conservative MP John Fraser and NDP MLA Tom Barnett to protest. the denial, it was discovered that a secret cabinet directive had been invoked to prevent the delegates from entering Canada. The cabinet directive was ap- parently issued in 1966 by the Pear- son government and barred entry to anyone invited by the UFAWU. Even before word of the: visa denial reached the U.S.S.R., one of the visitors, Tokarev, chairman of his union’s Sakhalin regional com- mittee, had travelled some 7000 miles to Moscow to await a plane to Montreal. Labour councils across the coun- try, federations of labor and the Canadian Labor Congress protested the discriminatory direc- tive and Tuesday, the UFAW received a wire from Robert An- dras, minister of immigration in forming the union that “after reviewing the information and tak- ing into consideration your representation, visas are authorized.” ~ Interviewed by the Tribune, UFAWU business agent George Hewison called the cabinet direc- tive ‘‘one of the worst examples of _McCarthyite cabinet orders.” He said that it was clearly as.a result of the pressure exerted by the trade union movement in Canada that the government™ reversed its decision. Referring to the labor protest he said that ‘‘the ' cabinet was finally brought into the reality of the 1970's, and added, that the statement by Andras represents a significant change. Commenting on the initial hostile position taken by the government departments, Hewison said that “the outrage of denying the Canadian people the right to see their Soviet counterparts was only exceeded by the fact that the see DELEGATION pg. 12 In response to a lobby organized by the Canadians for Democracy in Chile, Premier Barrett last week told the Legislature that the junta in Chile ‘is tyrannical and anti- democratic and should not have been recognized’’ and that the seizure of power was a “‘violent overthrow with murder accom- panying it.” Although the position outlined by Barrett was conveyed to the federal government October 5, no mention was made of.it until the lobby met with various MLAs to urge action by the provincial government on the federal recogni- tion. Barrett made no commitments on the lobby’s request that the province ask the federal govern- ment to open debate on the rescin- ding of the recognition of the fascist regime, but he said that the NDP caucus had registered its “strongest opposition’ to the recognition and had called on the federal government to grant asylum to political refugees from Chile. The 25 people on the lobby had also asked for provincial government pressure to urge the federal government to grant political asylum. On further action on behalf of the Chilean people, the Chile com- mittee has sought an audience before City Council to urge council action in requesting federal debate on rescinding the junta recogni- tion. In addition, an invitation has been extended to Mrs. Hortense Allende, widow of the late Dr. ’ Salvador Allende, to speak in Van- couver on the campaign to restore democracy in Chile. The committee also condemned the advertisements that appeared in the Vancouver Sun, signed by Chilean consulate Joaquin Gruber and: appealing for funds to be sent to the junta. The ads have appeared in Spanish aimed at the’ Chilean community and the appeal appears under the guise of providing medical aid. Spokesman for the committee John Nebot charged that the appeal was cleverly contrived as a call for medical aid but was aimed at providing greater financial sup- port for the fascist military in Chile.