ae ener ers

wr: the Queen and her Royal entourage have been and

gone. B.C.’s first hundred years have been honored
by royalty, and now there’s only the bills to be footed, which
will ultimately be left to the taxpayer — who in his vast ma-
jority, didn’t even get a look-in on the royal safari.

I am reasonably sure however, (if Monarchs suffer from
boredom) that in 99-percent of the whole program covering
B.C. the Queen was bored stiff by the daily routine.

Just imagine, umpteen mayors, public officials, petty
brass of all sorts and sizes, lined up with their dowagers to
extend a civic welcome, shake the royal hand, and murmur
inane nothings. No wonder the press hawks found it difficult to
fill their usual column inches. There was nothing to write
about, certainly nothing of reader interest.

“Goodness,” mutters Mrs. Mayor Schnitzelburger of
Cashe Creek to her boiled-shirted spouse, ‘‘I wish she’d come,
this corset is strangling me.”’

“What do you say to a Queen?” nervously asked Mrs.
Mayor Elsie Kipper of Comox of her lord and master for the
umpteenth time that morning. ‘‘I am so nervous, and my feet
are killing me.’’ The Mayor, equally obviously uncomfortable,
was more brusque and snappish than usual. ‘“‘Keep yer trap
shut, unless y’er spoken to.”’

And so it went in a score or more communities, with the
petty brass showing up in droves, and the plebians well in the
background — presumably for “‘security’’ reasons. But the
Queen took it like a veteran, up and down the seemingly
endless lines of the great and near-great, uttering insipid
nothings, and perhaps wishing (inwardly) that Wacky Bennett
was in Hades along with his made-to-measure tourist-dollar
centennial. :

Before the Royal centennial tour was many hours old,
Princess Ann developed an “upset stomach.’’ Doubtless she
had the widest public sympathy. Subjected to that form of an
ordeal, most of us could have contracted an ‘“‘upset stomach’’
or worse.

Here is a young Princess (and all youth are young princes
and princesses, just because they are the youth) who is latched
on to some bald-headed member of Establishment brass,
dedicating parks or whatever ‘‘to posterity” — or until a Social
Credit government takes the property from .‘‘posterity-in-
perpetuity,’ and turns it over to some mining, timber, oil or
other mogul! .

True, the Princess saw. a lot of Girl Guides, Brownies,
Cubs, etc., and while the dear things smiled their welcome,
they weren’t in quite the same ‘‘generation’’ as the Princess,
and the “gap’’ couldn’t-be bridged in these Royal flag-stops.
But I am sure that it wasn’t the small fry that gave the Princ-
ess, her “stomach upset’’ nor was it her very brief contacts
with the common people, youth and adult.

Undoubtedly the correct diagnosis will be found in the
Establishment’s scrap-brass who manage to horn-in on all such
events to parade their finery, their ersatz status, their
“‘patriotism’’ and themselves.

They bask in the fading glory of the monarchy because they
hope that some of it will rub off on themselves— to enhance the
sheen of their authority— and ultimately add to their bankroll.

And the people — the great mass of the “‘hewers of wood
and drawers of water’—those whose sweat and toil produce:
all the wealth, but do not share equally in what they produce,
royalty is not for them. So they must keep (or be kept) at a
respectable distance. Whatever a ruling monarch may have to
say to them, must be by official protocol, and not by a Queen
gaily chatting to a lumberworker, a miner, a longshoreman, or
what have you? That the Establishment jealously guards as the
symbol of its ‘‘prerogative’’ of class power.

‘In all such events there is only one certainty, ‘‘sure as
death and taxes”’; the proletarians will foot the bill, while the
Establishment and its hangers-on hog the show.

“Viva Centennial’ — we’re one hundred years older in
1971, but very little— if any, wiser.

Wonder why your food bills are high?

Shed a tear for Kelly Douglas, _ basic necessity of life.”’

part of the Super-Valu-George
Weston grocery empire. Their
after-taxes profit only increased
9_percent in 1970 to a total of
$1,738,000. -
President Victor MacLean of
Kelly-Douglas said the food
industry was not affected by the
general business slowdown in
1970 to the same degree as other
industries. because .‘‘food -is a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-

Yet he complained that the
federal government interferes
in the conduct of Canadian
business to an ‘‘extraordinary
degree’’. In view of the fact
there has been a one-third cut in
what the dollar will buy in the.
last 10 years, the government
hasn’t interfered with business
in the interests of the consumer,
and-that’s for sure!

AY, MAY 28, 1971—PAGE 2°

lessee oe ee

- \DISGRACEFUL TREATMENT’

Gov't should run hom
for sick elderly citizen

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Welfare patients in privately
owned rest homes. are
threatened with eviction. The
owners of these homes, who
operate them strictly for profit,
want $225 a month from the
government for each patient.
Rehabilitation minister Phil
Gaglardi is willing to pay only
$150 to $174.

In the meantime, these sick
old people who haven’t a penny
to their names nor anyone to
come to their defence, are talked
about as if they were so many
unwanted bags of potatoes,
grudgingly being stored (at a
price) until nature takes its
inevitable toll.

What a way to treat human
beings! These elderly folks
worked hard all their lives. They
made their contribution to the
wealth of B.C. and Canada by
honest hard work not by land
speculation or government
contracts. They raised families.
Now sick, old and unwanted,
they have to worry about being
thrown out on the street. Is this
how they are to celebrate our
centennial year?

Renters are urged

to honor boycott. ..|

The fssue of a collective
agreement between the elected
tenants committee, as well as a
justification for rent increases
is still the focal point of the
struggle of tenants against Wall
and Redekop apartment owners.

The point is made in a bulletin
put out by the Vancouver
Tenants Council this week which
stressed the fight is continuing,
and urged support from renters
at large. ie es

The council has initiated a
boycott of all Wall and Redekop-
owned or managed buildings.
So, says the Tenants Council, if
you are moving, find out who
owns the block you are looking
at, and if W. and R’. owns it, don’t
move in!

Of interest to another group of
tenants who are putting up a
fight against eviction from their
homes is a recent item in the
Sun. At Woodfibre, where ten-
ants of Rayonier (subsidiary of
International Telephone and
Telegraph Corp.) won a year’s
stay on eviction, the I.T.T. profit
figure of $1.54 billion the first
quarter of 1971, will not be
ignored. That kind of money
could keep a townsite going
forever.

Soviet books
at Trade Fair

The People’s Co-op Book-
store, 341 W. Pender St., will be
displaying a‘varied selection of
books and periodicals from the
‘USSR at the 5th international
surpass trade fair June 2

Their booth, No. 5 in the
Pavilion of Industry—formerly
the ‘‘Forum”’ will also feature a
large selection of hand-
embroidered, hand-painted and
hand-printed greeting cards
from Hanoi, Vietnam.

The whole system of farming
out these poor old people by
placing them in penny-pinching
privately owned institutions is
wrong in principle. No trained or
adequate staff is or can be
provided by private operators
who run their rest homes for
profit.

Nor can these old people be
supplied with the diet they need
when the whole object of the rest
home is to cut expenses to the
bone so as to increase profits.
There is no guarantee that even
if monthly grants were increased
to $225, the patients would
benefit — it could all go into the
operators’ pockets.

Rest homes for welfare

.patients and chronically ill

elderly citizens should all be
government owned = and
operated. They should be
properly equipped and staffed .to
provide a high level of care and

service to those who have?
means to
themselves. ;
responsibility of sociely
government and we a
allow heartless politi¢
shirk their duty. me)
And how much longet
people of B.C. toler
spectacle of a cabinet a
(who incidentally has oe
well for himself) prea® f
unto others as you wot?
others do unto you ~ :
pulpit on Sundays 4 |
spending the rest of oat
devising ways an r
cutting aid to the va
the sick and the poor:
There is no reason!
world for not having
chronic care people
by a comprehens! @
under. the British’
Hospital Insurance bs
other approach is 4
deal with this problem:

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