Club-wielding cops at Kent State university in Ohio charged into

demonstrator’s last week and dragged away 192 singing and chanting
protestors who objected to the construction of a university building on
the site where four students were killed by National Guard troops seven
years ago. First to be arrested was Martin Scheuer (above), father of
Sandy Scheuer who was killed at Kent State in 1970. His wife, Sarah,
was also arrested. Behind the protest is the deep-going discontent that

the case has never been fully investigated and the guilty brought to

justice.

live below poverty line

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Let’s talk for a moment about
Canada’s working poor, not those
on unemployment insurance, not
those over 65 and retired on pen-
sion, not those without jobs, not
those on welfare, but those who are
working but still, poor.

By poor we mean those people
whose income is below the poverty.
line as defined by Statistics

Canada. Two excellent reports on.

this subject have just been
published by the National Council

of Welfare, a citizens’ advisory:

board appointed by Ottawa. The

reports are titled The Working

Poor and Jobs and Poverty.

In 1973 there were 513,000
working poor families and single
persons. Together with their
families they number a million and
a half Canadians. They work but
they do not make enough to live on.
They make up 60 per cent of all
poor Canadians, the invisible and
silent majority of Canada’s poor
who have no one to speak or fight
for them.

Half of them live in the large
cities; one quarter in small towns

CP charges discrimination

Quebec language bill hit

MONTREAL — The Levesque
government’s substitution of Bill
101 for Bill 1, the charter of the
French language in Quebec, is
simply a parliamentary device to
avoid openly moving that some 200
briefs on the Bill not be heard,”
Samuel Walsh, president of the’
Communist Party of Quebec, said
in an interview July 11 with the
Tribune.

Only 62 of 264 briefs by
organizations, including the
Communist Party of Quebec, had
been heard by the Commission on
the French language, when the
switch was made.

“This subterfuge,” said Walsh,
“4s to make it possible for them to
put substantially the same Bill
before the National Assembly .of
Quebec on July 12, and adopt a new
law without using closure (the
ending of the debate) before the
end of thesummer recess. This will
have the effect of closing the door
to English language schooling to a

considerable portion of the
population.”
Walsh said the amendments

apparently result from promises
made to the Indian and Inuit
peoples of Quebec “who proved
that the Bill goes contrary to
guarantees about language made
to them during the James Bay
agreement. This would guarantee
them the right to the use of their
own language in schooling, but also
the use of English as a second
language instead of French when

Cuba celebration

marks anniversary

The Canada-Cuba Friendship
Association will mark the July 26
anniversary of the attack on the
Moncada garrison in Santiago de
Cuba — Cuba’s national holiday —
at a garden party on Sunday, July
24.

Proceeds of the event, being held
at 3882 Yale St., Burnaby, will go
toward the Santamaria School for
the Blind. Supper will be at 6:30
p.m. There will also be a sale of
Cuban books, records and handi-
crafts.

dealing with all levels of govern-
ment.”’

This was omitted in the original
text of Bill 1. The PQ government
also promised to make some
changes of a very minor nature in
concession to the Canadian Jewish
Congress, he said.

“The Communist Party of Que-
bec,’”’ Walsh pointed out, “supports
provisions of the Bill for ending
discrimination against French
Canadian workers with respect to
hiring and promotion; however,
this is the only part of the Bill that
the CPQ supports.”

He said that “two other im-
portant parts of the Bill do not have
the support or our party. The first

SAMUEL WALSH

is to do with the language of in-
struction, where the- Bill says
basically the same as the original,
that only those children whose one
parent had had elementary in-
struction in Quebec, or who have
an older brother or sister in the
English school system, will be able
to attend the English school
system.

“This we consider to be highly
discriminatory,’ the Communist
spokesman said, ‘“‘both to all other
English-speaking children here,
children of immigrants, etc., and
to the French Canadian population.
These will not be allowed to send
their children to English-speaking
schools unless they send them to

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 22, 1977—Page 2

private schools, as Premier
Levesque and at least 10 members
of his Cabinet are doing.

“The third aspect of the Bill,
which is called francisation, we
consider to be simply a facade
aimed at allowing more French
Canadians to sit on the boards of
directors of large companies, and
that the language of communica-
tion within the plant and between
the plant and government
organizations should be French.
They are making exceptions for
multinational companies and
companies which have their head
offices in Montreal but who have
branches across Canada and in the
United States.”

Boost rates,
says Alberni

Port Alberni municipal council
has endorsed the _ six-point
program to improve GAIN rates
advanced by the Downtown
Eastside Residents Association
and other recipient groups.

DERA vice-president Bruce .

Eriksen told the Tribune this week
that the Alberni council voted
unanimously to back up the
demand for an immediate increase
in GAINrates to $230 per month for
singles and $340 per month for
couples. The program also calls for
improved assistance rates for
handicapped people and asks for
100 per cent shelter and fuel
overages.

After winning the support of the
Greater Vancouver Regional
District for the six points, DERA
went after the support of 174
municipalities and regional
districts throughout B.C. Alberni is
the first to respond.

Earlier this year, Vancouver city
council endorsed the six points, as
did the Vancouver Resources
Board, the Vancouver Labor
Council, the B.C. Association of
Social Workers, B.C. Association of
the Disabled, the Communist
Party, COPE and a number of
other groups.

and rural areas. A large part of
them are single young persons
under the age of 25. The vast
majority are either not eligible for
welfare or do not apply for any.
They work in clerical jobs, sales
jobs, services, fishing, farming,
factories, restaurants, stores and
many other jobs. Their wages are
often at or below the minimum
wage which in B.C. is $3.00 an hour.
Many occupations are exempt
even from this miserly wage. Their
hours are often more than eight
hours a day or 40 hours a week.
Almost all of them have no
unions to protect their interests
and so they are without protection

against arbitrary actions by their

employers, fines, speed-up, unsafe
and unhealthy working conditions,
discrimination and dismissals.
Sick benefits, pensions, payment
for medical schemes are unknown
to most of them.

Many of them work in oc-
cupations which are seasonal or
subject to severe economic fluc-
tuations. Only *46 per cent work 50
or more weeks a year; 30 per cent
work less than 25 weeks a year.

They work at jobs where there is
little or no possibility for ad-
vancement, for better jobs or
higher wages. They-are trapped in
low-wage ghettos and without any
future.

What can be done for these
million and a half Canadians who
work but don’t make enough to live
on?

One obvious step, of course, is to
raise the minimum wage. The $5.00
an hour minimum proposed by the
B.C. Federation of Labor is not at
all exorbitant. No one should be
compelled to work for anything
less this day and age with the kind

of inflation and profiteering that
the big corporations. are engaging
in.

But even that isn’t enough to take
care of situations where there is 4
big family, or people working only
part of the year. What is required
is some kind of income supplement
guaranteed by the government.
Ottawa has been talking about it
for four years but talk is all the
federal government has done.

Then there is the. need to
significantly increase the Canada
Pension Plan benefits for those
with the lowest. earnings.

Finally there is the need for a job
creation program by government.
The most important step here is to
ensure that more of our natural
resources are processed at home
so that we have more secondary
industries. (steel mills, smelters,
etc.) and manufacturing industries
which provide five times as many
jobs for the money invested than do
extraction industries.

The right to a rewarding oC
cupation at decent wages ‘is 4
fundamental human right of all
Canadians. Yetit is being denied to
citizens by governments who have
it within their power to guarantee
this right.

———

Rush column

Because of the reduced size
of the Tribune during July and
August, and problems of staff
holidays, the regular weekly
column by editor Maurice |
Rush will not appear until wé
resume publication of ou!
regular 12-page-edition star |
ting the first week in Sep
tember.

|

eT

GAS GUZZLE

Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
» Business and Circulation Manager — FRED WILSON
Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Cornmercial Drive,
Vancouver,B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186
Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4.50 for six months,

All other countries, $10.00 one year
Second class mail registration number 1560

\