Friday, January 28, 1977 20° VOL. 39, No. 4 PACIFIC | The first test of the Trident 1 missiles was fired Jan. 19 at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The missile is being prepared by the U.S. Navy for the Trident subs which will be based at Bangor, Washington. The missile shown here costs $8 million, and Trident program will cost the U.S. arms build-up to give the U.S. milita has a range of 4,500 miles. The billions of dollars and is part of the ry a “first strike’’ capability. By NIGEL MORGAN “Working people . . . must come to expect less, demand less, and produce more”’ was the main line that emerged from finance minister Evan Wolfe’s Social Credit budget in Victoria Monday. Big concessions to the multi- national corporations; and for working people ‘‘restraint,’’ growing unemployment, and in- flation, and increasing costs and taxes — that’s the real meaning of the new budget. Essentially Wolfe’s new budget is an attempt to maintain monopoly profits of a bankrupt market economy, and perpetuate the present social and economic system at the expense of working people. At a time when unemploy- ment is mounting (with Statistics Canada showing B.C. to have an 8.8 per cent jobless rate — up 1.5 per Local budgets threatened Municipal councils in Port Moody and Port Coquitlam and the Coquitlam school board have all voted to oppose the proposed rate increase for B.C. Telephone that is to go before the federal govern- ment’s CRTC hearings this week. If the CRTC allows B.C. Telephone the increase it will mean an average increase of 15 per cent for residential phones with higher increases for service and installation fees. The Port Coquitlam council protested that the increased rates would be too high a price for the services provided in Port Coquitlam, particularly with regard to the limited toll free area available to them. The problem for all municipal councils and school boards is that Ottawa covering up high arsenic levels _ TORONTO — ‘The years-old Mcestuous relationship between the mines and the government” as One leader of the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada put. it recently, has produced a shocking tale of an entire northern com- Munity being poisoned with ar- Senic. A study released Jan. 16 Prepared jointly by the United Steelworkers, the National Indian Brotherhood and the University of Toronto, shows that 50 percent of air samples from Yellowknife children and workers have more than five parts per million of ar- Senic in their hair, and 30 percent ave more than 10 parts per Million, ' A joint statement issued by the Union, a University of Toronto Professor involved in the study, and the National Indian Brotherhood, said, ‘‘for many years scientists have known that the exposure to arsenic can cause serious illnesses: cancers, skin disorders, nervous diseases, and heart problems.”’ George Erasmus, president of the Northwest Indian Brotherhood Jan. 16 charged “the federal government has systematically and deliberately covered up its own frightening findings up here. They have lied about their results — for years.” Arsenic, which occurs naturally in ore containing gold, is released as a by-product of the smelting process in the form of emissions from the smoke stacks and mine tailings (mine wastes). Yellowknife is one of the several gold mining areas in Canada in- cluding Timmins and Red Lake in Ontario, and Val D’Or in Quebec. More than 3,500 mine workers and their families in gold mining communities are exposed to ar- senic. the increases in telephone rates — and the simultaneous increase in B.C. Hydro rates — were in- troduced after the adoption of 1977 budgets. In Coquitlam, the school board, which also went on record to op- pose the B.C: Hydro increases this week, will find itself $70,000 short in its budget due to telephone and hydro increases. Coquitlam board member Eunice Parker told the Tribune this week that the provincial government must bear respon- sibility for the problems created by the hydro increases. ‘‘They raise our costs but they won’t raise our revenue,’ she said. The school board resolved to protest the in- crease to the provincial govern- ment and to ask for a rollback of the increases to that allowed worker’s wages. As the Coquitlam board protested the hydro increases, an AIB decision to roll back the wages of Coquitlam’s CUPE .outside workers came: before the meeting to be approved. The motion, which would roll back the $6.08 per hour wage by more than two per cent, passed with Parker and Port Moody board member Tom Beardsley voting against. “T stood on principle,’’ Parker said. ‘‘All of the areas that the provincial government controls, from Hydro to ICBC have _in- creased by amounts way above the guidelines. Why should worker’s wages be held to eight per cent?”’ cent for November for the fastest increase of any province across the country), massive giveaways and concessions to the big foreign multinational corporations are planned. In contrast to the massive giveaways to the coal, natural gas and oil, mining, forestry, hydro and telephone utility companies, the Socreds’ budget has demon- strated the government’s intention to extend wage controls, calling for wages to be held below even the Federal 6 per cent permissible under the AIB. With over 300,000 workers covering 65 per cent of the entire work force and 472 union contracts coming up the Social Credit governments labor and economic policy is of considerable concern and importance. Predictably, Socred taxation on consumers for sales, fuel taxes, and personal income tax will jump from $1,764 million to $2,096 million, while the government collections from natural resource industries — licenses, special privileges from resources, royalties, and corporate income and capital — will be cut by $57 million. And in face of the worst. unem- ployment since 1960, rapidly rising living costs (hydro, natural gas prices, bus fares, phone charges, and a 10.6 per cent rent increase for most tenants); a sharp cutback in human resource expenditures ($25 million) for income assistance to senior assistance to senior citizens, the han‘‘capped, and special services for children, in- cluding day care facilities. With a slight increase in the budget from $3.6 billion last year to $3.8 billion, few substantial changes have been made except to increase the hardships on people. B.C.’s personal income tax has been jumped by $300,000,000 to over $1,115,000,000, while the sales and fuel tax will be boosted 3.4 per cent to $980.5 million. In contrast taxes against the highly profitable oil and gas, coal, mining and forest industries will be cut from $538 to $451 million (15 per cent) leaving only a 12 per cent contribution to total budget income. Resource taxes. are- also estimated to be cut to: forest stumpage, $50 million (down 37%); new mineral tax, $11 million (down $4 million; with mineral royalties down $7.2 million and the mineral land tax. down $6 million); petroleum and natural gas, as well as leases and fees, are to be cut by $30 million (from $275 to $245 million.). While massive giveaways and tax concessions are being made to the big corporations (mostly foreign-owned), and with gasoline prices expected to pass the dollar mark this year, the Social Credit RiBUNE budget has hoisted the fuel tax by half a cent a gallon. Last year it was called a “recovery” budget — one of the most unpopular onrecord. The new “restraint” budget has extended last year’s wide range of tax and user charges, and cutbacks in services to people, adding over $1,000 million to the costs people are having to pay and cutting deeply into our standard of life. Among the wide ranges of tax see SOCRED, pg. 12 B.C. Fed hits Wolfe budget The B.C. Federation of Labor reacted to the new provincial budget declaring it ‘‘a complete disappointment to all those con- cerned about the critical rate of unem ployment in British Columbia.” The Federation pointed out that the budget contains no programs to provide jobs or to get the B.C. economy moving again. ‘‘Instead, the government has chosen to give a tax break to the rich, through ending succession duties, while doing nothing for the 8.8 per cent unemployed,”’ secretary Len Guy said. - Guy went on to say that the reduction in the budget for the see B.C. FED pg. 12 Rankin honored Kamloops Indian Band last Fri- day made Ald. Harry Rankin their first honorary member bestowing the name Mountain Thunder Cloud on him. “We had a real defender in Harry,” said tndian Band Chief Mary Leonard in a tribute to Rankin.