"i got to admit my inflation has ‘been cured.”

Food prices soar —
1.3 percent in month

Canadians — particularly in
B.C. — will be surprised to learn
that inflation has been licked.
Prime Minister Trudeau said so.

Nevertheless, Vancouver
headed a list of eight cities in
which the price index rose again
last month, from 123.3 in October
to 123.9 in November.

Food prices rose 1.3 percent in
Vancouver.

If, as the government claims,
prices levelled off anywhere in
Canada it must have been in
Toronto, where the food chain
monopolies have been carrying
on a price war. Of that battle
there is no sign in Vancouver.

Even the conservative dailies
are editorializing that Trudeau is
sticking his neck out in the face
of all facts. Says the Province

. “Industry may begin look-
ing around for some sources of
renewed profits. That is likely to
mean price increases.”

Naturally that will mean price
increases, and with unemploy-
ment rising and taxes rising
(Bennett is threatening a une
percent sales tax increase), and
living costs rising, 1971 bodes ill
for Canada and Canadians.

More than a year ago the CCL
made a study which concluded

that almost every Canadian
family lives beyond its income,
and that the average annual
gross income of a manufacturing
worker is $5,723.

They found the average family
of four spends $245 monthly for
housing, fuel, insurance and
maintenance. (Where does that
leave the man on unemployment
benefits of $52 a week, or the
family on a monthly welfare
benefit of $225?).

The average family spends
$160 a month on transportation
which includes payments on a
car that is probably not new, on
repairs, gas, oil, insurance, etc.

Add another $120 to $160 for
food and there is little left for
clothing, drugs, and recreation.

This then is Trudeau’s just
society where inflation has
allegedly been ‘‘licked,’’ and
Premier Bennett’s ‘‘good life’,
where families daily go deeper
into debt.

Recently Grace McInnis, M.P.
told unemployed woodworkers
they and other unemployed had
to get noisier to make Ottawa
listen. Obviously theyman who
has a job must also get noisier if
he and his family are to survive
in an economy where the price
index rises steadily

City should act now
to protect consumers

BY ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Consumers are being taken in
right and left these days by
deceptive packaging, false
claims and _ misleading
advertising. And despite all the
talk by federal consumer affairs
minister Ron Basford, no
effective action is being taken to
stop these practices.

Undoubtedly some of the worst
offenders are among the used
car dealers. They’re not
necessarily all that way. But
where most businesses are
required to meet certain
standards and to stand behind
their products, used car dealers
appear to be able to get away
with all sorts of dishonest
practices with impunity.

A case was recently brought to
my attention of a woman who
bought a $3000 car for her son
from one of the biggest used car
dealers in the city. It ran for a
week or two and then practically
disintegrated into a pile of junk,
worth a few hundred dollars at
the most. It had been ‘‘doctored
up” by the used car dealer with
the deliberate intention of
cheating his customer.

There are used car dealers
who have made an art out of
doctoring up cars to make them
seem what they are not. Turning
back speedometers is only one
of many illegal and dishonest
practices. Rusty spots and holes
in the body can be covered up
with paper and painted so as to
deceive the eye. The motor can
be doctored up so that for a few
days the compression appears to
be good. The tricks and devices
used to deceive the customer are
endless.

It’s not good enough to say that
people should know better than
to go to a used car dealer. Maybe
they should. But there should
also be laws to protect .people
against unscrupulous operators.

Many businesses stand behind
their products. If you buy an
appliance that doesn’t work they
will repair it for you or replace
it. The big department stores
provide guarantees even for the
used products they sell.

Why shouldn’t used car dealers
also stand behind their products?

The city of Vancouver issues
business licenses to used car
dealers. In my opinion, any used
car dealer who fails to provide a

reasonable guarantee on every
car he sells should have his
license revoked. The city can
and should require these dealers
to liveup to certain standards.

Dealers who already practice
a code of evhics won’t mind and
in fact should welcome such
regulations. It would eliminate
unfair competition. Those who
refuse to abide by regulations to
protect the customer should be
closed up. Vancouver doesn’t
need them.

City Council has a duty to take
this action to protect the
thousands of people who are
annually taken to the cleaners by
unscrupulous used car dealers.

GUEST COLUMN

leaving the Soviet Union.

anti-Semitism?

and the PFLP thugs.

Behind the charges
of Soviet anti-Semitism

BY TOM FOLEY

= Lenningrad trial of 12 Soviet citizens who
tried to hi-jack a Soviet airliner has led to charges
by Zionist organizations in the U.S. that the trial is an example
of so-called ‘‘Soviet anti-Semitism.”
Aerial hi-jacking is a serious crime. It endangers the lives
of the crew and all the passengers of an aircraft. The 76
different countries who signed the Hague Convention on air
piracy in December agreed that hi-jacking of civil aircraft was
a crime deserving severe penalties and said any hi-jacker
should be put on trial ‘‘without any exception whatsoever.”
The two Lithuanians who hi-jacked a Soviet airliner-
recently are trying to hide their crimes behind an alleged
“political’’ cover — they claim they were prevented from

Therefore, you see, they had to shoot an 18 year old
stewardess twice in the back and kill her; they had to burst into
the pilots’ compartment and open fire with their sawed-off
shotgun, wounding the pilot and navigator. Luckily, the pilot,
although covered with blood from his wounds, was able to get
the plane down safely at a Turkish airport.

So when a dozen men, armed with loaded revolvers, clubs
and other weapons, arrived at Lenningrad’s Smolny Airport
this June 15, all with tickets for the same Leningrad-Tallinn
flight, they were arrested and put on trial, and this is— Soviet

On September 11 in the Daily World a column of mine
appeared in which I branded as thugs, criminals and traitors to
the Arab cause the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine for their hi-jackings of civilian aircraft. Earlier, I
said the same thing about the PF LP over radio station WBAI in
New York. The 12 Leningrad defendants, who have pleaded
guilty, are just as much criminals as are the two Lithuanians

The charge of ‘‘Soviet anti-Semitism”
seriously. Those Zionist organizations in the U.S. who are
asserting it have complained that not a word about the trial
has appeared in the Soviet Union, which hardly suggests that
the USSR is trying to stir up any anti-Semitic feelings there.

These Zionist groups in the U.S. are the sole source of

cannot be taken

meg

information on the Leningrad trial for the capitalist news
media and everybody else. That ought to raise serious
questions in the mind of every concerned individual; why is it

Rankin proposes revisions

Commenting on the hearings
into the revision of Canada’s
constitution scheduled for
Vancouver this month, Alder-
man Harry Rankin said revision
was long overdue.

The special Joint Committee
on the Constitution has asked
city council to present its views
on the question, and Rankin said
one of the most compelling
reasons for the need to draft a
new constitution is the preserva-
tion of English and French unity,
and secondly, the crisis in our
urban centres.

He said taxation of property —
the cities main source of
revenue, has almost reached its
limit. It hits lower income
groups the hardest and can’t
provide necessary revenues for
the many services the cities
must provide.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE

> 2 LAS (<> € &as
w thle 4 e AU

TTHURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1970—PAGE 2

The situation can be rectified
in two ways: Cities must be
provided with a wider tax base,
or senior governments must
take over some of the services
now provided by the cities.

The labor alderman outlined

his ideas for changes. in the

constitution: Municipalities
should be given a special status
as a third level of government.

Two, such a move should be
accompanied by new sources of
revenue, one of which should be
a share of personal and
corporate income taxes.

Three, Senior governments
should assume a greater share of
crosts now borne by cities. For
example, total cost of welfare
should be paid by senior govern-
ments because unemployment
and poverty are the result of

2ASen 2 SQosg

their policies. Education and
transportation should also be
senior government responsi-
bilities.

Four, the only charges against
property should be to cover
services such as. street
maintenance, fire and police
protection, sewers and water.

Five, the undemocratic
system where rural munici-
palities have greater repre-
sentation in provincial legis-
latures than urban should be
ended. Representation by
population must be made a
reality.

All provincial constituencies

should have approximately the ~

same population. Large urban
centres should be required to
provide regional representation
through a ward system.

artiao toga vot wight ai br

Leningrad-Tallinn air flights?

on the case?

“oppressed Soviet Jews.”

Tom Foley.

that these U.S. Zionist groups knew when Mark Dymshits, the
leader of the hi-jack plot, began organizing it?
How did they know he took trial runs last spring in

How did they know the names and backgrounds of every
one of those on trial, if the USSR has released no information

There are many indications that Lithuanian emigre groups
in New York were very well-informed about the hi-jack to
Turkey and went into high gear grinding out their propaganda
about the ‘‘poor, oppressed Baltic nations”
occurred. The Zionists have done the same thing about

>

Tom McEwen is on the sick list and is waiting for a hospital bed.
He is shortly to undergo an operation on his hip. The PT staff and all
his friends and comrades throughout B.C. and Canada send their
_ warmest comradely greetings and best wishes for a speedy recovery.
We will continue to publish Tom’s column as it becomes available,
depending on his health. But in the weeks in which it doesn’t appear our
readers will understand that it is due to health problems.
This week we reprint a column by the U.S. Daily World staff writer

as soon as it

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