IN 1974

25 years ago...

B.C. SOCRED DEAL
ROBBED 500 OF JOBS

“The Social Credit govern-
ment has agreed to divert
120,000 barrels of crude oil daily
from the Trans Mountain
pipeline to the United States
thus depriving B.C. workers of
jobs and robbing the province of
an estimated $2-million annual
payroll. LPP Provincial leader
Nigel Morgan charged at an
election nomination meeting
here.

Morgan, who is contesting
Vancouver East in the June 9
election, was the featured
speaker at a meeting which
nominated Irving Mortenson an
Island logger, bringing to 19 the
number of LPP candidates con-

testing seats. Morgan also spoke-

on CBC on the need for peace to
provide jobs. (The Labor Pro-
gressive Party was the name
used by the Communist Party of
Canada from 1943 to 1959 —
ed).

May 25, 1954

_ FLASHBACKS FROM
‘THE COMMUNIST PRESS

-The Tribune, -

50 years ago...

SCOTTISH MINERS
UNION FORMED

At a conference in Glasgow
recently, the “United Mine
Workers of Scotland” was
formed. One hundred and

“twenty-three delegates were

present from all counties in the
Scottish coal fields, including de-
legates from 25 braches of the

new union that have already
been formed.

A program of immediate de-
mands was agreed to by the con-
ference. This included the
seven-hour day, a national wage
agreement, a five-day week and
time and a half for overtime, a
minimum wage of 12 shillings a
shift for miners, 11 shillings for
other underground workers
and 10 shillings for surface
workers (the present minimum
is 8 shillings, 4 pence).

The Worker,
May 16, 1929

Profiteer of ‘kc week:

Why do food prices keep going up? Folks
who study the question find it’s the fault of the
consumer who insists on buying high-priced
food. Be that as it may, Canada Packers Ltd.,
your friendly provider, managed to pick up
$20,905,000 after-tax profit in the 53 weeks
ended March 31, 1979. That was despite the

“negative impact” of a ‘labor dispute”, the
company reports.

‘

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 1, 1979—Page 4

EDITORIAL
GCOMIMIEINT

Put workers’ demands no

With a new government and, for the ,

‘first time in 16 years, the. Conservative
Party in command, it is vital that the
working class and democratic forces lose
no time in placing their demands.

During the campaign the Clark Con-
servatives showed little inclination to
take up the issues which weight most
heavily upon workers. Prominent
among these are lingering mass
unemployment, runaway inflation and
cutbacks in vital areas of health protec-
tion, the dreadful slashing of hospital
efficiency, and cuts in child care and
education.

No, these problems are not new. They
grew worse every year under the big
business Liberals. And now we have in

wer the new favorites of the same big

usiness. Tory leader Joe Clark’s elec-
tion promises left much to vagueness,
except where benefits to the corporate
elite and the-~middle class were con-
cerned. Heavy pressure on the new
government will be needed to get action
on the myriad demands of workers,
around union rights, collective bargain-
ing, civil liberties, abolition of anti-labor
legislation, and action for détente and
disarmament.

The real plight of working people is

No military
Canada’s Export Development Corpora-
tion (EDC) has given the Chinese
Government a $2-billion line of credit to
buy goods and services in Canada.

On the face of it that should mean
increased exports for Canada, and pre-
sumably should create jobs for Cana-
dians.

The danger is that it will be used by the
Chinese rulers to build up China’s
aggressive military potential and, in ef-
fect create a $2-billion war machine for
the massacre of more of China’s
neighbors.

Under a Liberal government the
Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA), following Washington’s
recognition of the Peking clique, and
China’s aggression against Vietnam, re-
neged on its pledge of a matching grant
to help build a hospital in Vietnam. It
justified this by blaming Vietnam for the
overthrow of the genocidal Pol Pot-Ieng
Sary regime in Kampuchea.

Under the same Liberal government
EDC announced its $2-billion stamp of
approval of the Chinese expansionists.
The new Tory government in Ottawa
has yet to indicate any departure from
this policy.

There may be strong arguments for
increasing Canadian trade, of develop-
ing state relations despite disapproval of
another country’s domestic or foreign
policies. But the actions of a Canadian
agency such as CIDA in deserting the
victimized Vietnamese people in their
need for a hospital, while EDC rushes in
with its billions of dollars to strengthen a
China ruled by an aggressive clique, will
leave a bad taste with many Canadians.
This is not because of opposition to in-
creased trade and relations, but because
in the context this becomes aid to the

Chinese assertion of military, political, _

aid to China —

. plot whose horrors are too little recog-

. reflected in recent statistics. The annual
inflation rate is 9.8% over last year,
including essentials like housing, clo
thing, transportation, etc. (Food is up
16.5%.) a

The official unemployment rate of
7.9% of the labor force is a cruel
understatement, based on. an official
figure of 943,000 jobless in April. But
the whole labor movement knows that
well over a million are: involuntarily
without work. =

Money which could be used for job
creation is siphoned off in super-profits,
much of it transferred by the monopoly
corporations to low-wage countries, and
much more squandered ($4.4-billion
this year) on armaments, at the dictate

of NATO and the U.S. military. 2

It’s a whole new ball game now. If
anything is going to change for the
better with the rightward-moving To-
ries in command, grim experience
shows the way. The working class and
democratic forces must accept no delay-
ing tactics, but should flood the new
government’s offices with their de-
mands, and show the Tories that the

“outdoor” parliament will be in session
from now until workers win their just
demands. '

philosophical and economic control over
southeast and other parts of Asia.
Whatever turns there may be in Cana-
dian relations with China’s expansionist
rulers, Ottawa must be told emphatically
now: No sale of ‘military goods, or milit-
ary components or potential to the ag-
gressive Peking regime, which so re-
cently carried out its diabolical crimes in
Vietnam.
The Clark Tory government should
take warning not to embark on the
dangerous course of arming the Peking
Maoists. The threat to Asia is also a
threat of a world nuclear conflict, some-
thing China’s rulers openly advocate and
work toward. <
It should also be remembered that
EDC has dabbled in military matters be-
fore. Its export of aerospace products,
up 138% from 1976 to 1977, included
military planes to Thailand ($7.6-mil-
lion), Kenya ($21.4-million), Tanzania
($28-million). Totalitarian South Korea
got a loan of $230-million to sink into a
Candu nuclear reactor. Fascist Brazil is
lined up for a handout to buy 60 military —
training planes from Canada. =
The U.S.-Chinese plot to use evéry
means to re-entrench imperialism amid
the lush resources, cheap labor and
strategic military sites of southeast Asia,
and to make China’s rulers the local mas-
ters, is a daily threat to world peace. Itisa

nized.
Canada’s government, and the agen- |
cies so eager to cash in on China's —
“modernization” of its means of aggres-
sion and domination, will best serve the
interests of the Canadian people if it re- _
fuses to contribute to China’s military
build-up, and demands that China obey
the UN resolution that it get all its troops —
out of Vietnam, assgie