eS

y
&

Big problems face our yout

By RAE MURBHY
National Secretary, Yotmg,
Communist League

The problems of young
people are becoming some-
thing like the weather. Every-
body is talking about them,
yet nobody seems to be able
to do anything about them. I
am referring to what is be-
coming a major economic and,
social problem in North Am-
erica in particular and
throughout the capitalist
world in general.

In a nutshell the problem
lies in trying to cope with the
consequences that result when
an economy cannot expand
fast enough to absorb the
growing population. It bails
down to how can the well
over 100,000 young Canadians
who leave school each year
be given useful occupations.

During the period between
1946 and 1961 the Canadian
economy with all its ups and
downs developed rapidly. The
labor force during this period
rose by about 29.6 percent and
many thousands of new jobs
were created. Yet throughout
this whole period the ratio of
unemployed to employed has
grown steadily. Canada’s eco-
nomic development has not
been able to keep pace with
its growing population.

* * +

Today the children born
during the immediate _ post-
war years are beginning to
graduate from school and en-
ter the labor force. For ex-
ample, in the United States it
is estimated that between the
years 1960 and 1970, 26 mil-
lion young people will enter
the labor force and seek work
for the first time.

This compares with 19 mil-
lion who entered the labor
force during the years 1950 to
1960. Canadian statistics, al-

though smaller, would no
doubt reveal the same ratio
of growth.

If anyone in the federal

government reads their own
statistics they know that uni-
versity enrollment, or at least

Urging young people to stay
in school becomes meaning-
less unless conditions are
created to make this possibie.
In this regard some of the
steps taken by governmental
bodies, limited as they are,

Young people are showing growing interest in Canadian and world
problems. Picture shows young people listening to speeches at an all-
candidate meting in the recent Federal election.

demands on the universities,
will increase by 10-12 percent
each school year. There are
no plans which even begin to
cope with this influx, let alone
establish the conditions for
broadening the base for edu-
cation.

Canada still owns the rath-
er shameful statistic showing
that of all children who start
Grade 1, more than 70 percent
do not complete school, and
about 10 percent of those who
complete high school go on to
university.

Two problems are created:
(1) the expansion of educa-
tional and training facilities
for these young people while
they are in school, and (2)
work for them when_ they
leave.

* ee

should be welcomed, such as
trades training for unemploy-
ed and the promise made re-
cently by Northern Affairs
Minister Arthur Laing, that
the federal government will
establish 10,000 university
scholarships.

Education, however, must
be geared to the economy.
There is little point in teach-
ing a man skills or equipping
him for any kind of work
when there is none available.
And the cry that arises of
“stay in school, keep out of
the labor force.” cannot of it-
self be a solution. It has the

economic ‘‘soundness’”’ of the
slogan “Why wait for spring
— do it now.”

What is going to happen
one of these springs when
everything has already been

One of four Vancouverites
lives ‘on edge of poverty’

ne quarter of the people
O in the Vancouver metro-
politan area are living in or
on the very ragged edge of
poverty or economic distress.

In B.C., 7.5 percent of the
work force — or 44,000 per-
sons — are without a job, an-
other 132,000 are earning less
than $2,900 a year. 40,000 old-
er persons are receiving some
form of government assist-
ance and another 40,000 are
receiving some form of social
assistance.

These shocking figures
were given last month by
Deryk Thomson, executive di-
rector of the Family Service
Agency of Greater Vancou-.
ver.

In his report to the group’s
annual meeting, he said that
welfare is big business in our
country and added: “Too of-
ten, it seems to me, has pol-
itical expediency overshadow-
eq the implementation of a
soundly integrated, properly
financed, comprehensive and
effective health and welfare
network in this country.”

*& * *

Thomson illustrated the
problems of today’s “invisible
poor” by quoting from a re-
cent American publication
which declared: ‘‘America has
the best-dressed poverty the
world has ever known . -. It
is much easier in the United
States to be decently dressed
than it is to be decently hous-
ed or fed or doctored .. .”

Thomson criticized people
who continually needle the
unfortunate and attempt to
leave the impression that
many of those receiving wel-
fare and other help from com-
munity services are chisellers,
cheats, drifters and bums. -

“Those of us who inhabit
our comfortable affluent mid-
dle class suburbias, with their
comfortable middle class val-
ues, are far removed from
and seldom interested in the
plight of the poor,” he said.
“Tn fact, we have a strong
tendency to resent them and
their poverty.”

* * *

“We need to bring more un-
derstanding and visibility to

the plight in which tens of
thousands of families now find
themselves.”

But, he said, “we get rather
tired of being told to do some-
thing about these families
without being given the nec-
essary tools.

‘Tf the community, or its
distributing apparatus, is only
prepared to invest annually
less than 50 cents a head for
the prevention of family
breakdown through this agen-
cy’s resources, it needn’t com-
plain to us about rising statis-?
tics for divorce, crime and ill
health and all the other in-
dices of its social illness.”

He said a greater sense of
purpose and direction is re-
quired in Canada today in
welfare work and that too
often political expediency ov-
ershacows necessary health
and weliare measures.

The Soviet Union trades
with 80 countries. Its chief
ports are Murmansk and Igar-
ka in the Arctic, Leningrad
and Riga on the Baltic, Odes-
‘sa on the Black Sea and Vlad-
ivostok on the Pacific.

done? — and sooner or later
everybody must leave school.

There is no gimmick, no
way to gloss over the fact that
for the past period more and
more young people have been
leaving schoo] entering a glut-
ted labor market.

The number is getting larg-
er each year. Many can’t even
find their first job and don’t
officially become part of the
unemployed. But enough do
get registered to make the
ratio of unemployed in the
age group of 14-24 consider-
ably higher than the national
average.

The- problem is_ serious
enough to cause much concern
and study. The American Fed-
erationist (organ of the AFL-
CIO) in its April, 1963 issue
deals with this problem under
the title “The Coming Crisis:
Youth Without Work.” But
after presenting many pertin-
ent statistics and projections
it fails to propose a real plan
to overcome this crisis except
to support President Ken-
nedy’s program to establish
“Youth Conservation Corps.”

In Canada the question is
also discussed. In Ontario, for
example, a select committee
has recently tabled a report to
the government which along
with several other rather
sweeping recommendations
also raises proposals for work
camps for young unemployed.

The question of work camps
for the single unemployed,
which in essence is the pro-
posal of both the AFL-CIO
and the select government
committee in Ontario, harks
back to the 1930’s and the
great depression.

Today, however, the propo-
sal is more hair-raising, be-
cause it is raised not in con-
ditions of depression, but
those of apparent boom. This
government committee wrote

YCL banquet
to mark 40th

anniversary

This year the Young
Communist League of Can-
ada is celebrating its 40th
anniversary. Founded in
1923, the Young Commun-
ist League through the
years has played an impor-
tant role in the Canadian
youth movement.

In Vancouver this anni-
versary will be celebrated
with a banquet ang dance
on Saturday, June 1, in the
Fishermen’s Auditorium,
138 E. Cordova St.

The banquet, which will
honor former YCL mem-
bers, will start at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $1.50 and $1.25
for students and unemploy-
ed. They are available from
YCL members or Room
502, Ford Bldg.

this recommendation in the
period of the growth of our
Gross National Product by 8
percent in one single year.

If work camps are the only
place for young unemployed
in periods of a relative boom,
what is in store when the
cycle points down. Such a sol-
ution indicates that in the
minds of many economists
there is no -real solution to
problem of the young unem-
ployed within the framework
of our present economy.

That our economy cannot

grow fast enough to absorb
young Canadians as_ they
come from the schools is the
bleak future offered our
young people, and it doesn’t
sound any better dressed in
classy names like ‘““Youth Con-
servation Corps.”

See YOUTH, pg. 8

@ Out of 4,400,000 Can,
adian taxpayers, over a
‘million earn less than $2.-
500 annually.

@ In B.C. one-quarter of
the work force of 588.000
earn less than $2,900 a year
and two-thirds are support-
ing or helping to support
families with at least one
child in over half of the

families.
*«

@ In Vancouver, one-
third or 70,000 of the 211,-
000 persons who filed in-
come tax returns, filed for
comes of $3,000 or less.

“

@ There are 44,000 or
7.5 per cent of working
British Columbians who
would like to be in the la-
bor force but aren’t. They
ate drawing an average of
$23.82 a week from un-
employment insurance.

>
@ There are 87,000 B.C.
citizens receiving what is
known as unemployment
assistance because they
cannot find work and are-
not eligible for unemploy-

ment insurance.

Let facts speak:

@® Of 100,000 persons in
B.C. who are aged 65 or
more, a quarter are still
paying income tax but al-
most one-half of them are
either receiving supplemen-
tary allowances to their
basic federal pension of
$65 a month or receiving
a like amount from the
provincial government.

x

@ About 40,000 single
persons or families are re-
ceiving some form of social
assistance in the metropli-
tan _area _alone, _because
they are out of work or
can’t work for one reason
or another — and who oth-
erwise would be starving
or stealing or both.

*

From this welter of fig-
ures, the Family Service
Agency “reasonably  as-
sumes” that for almosi
one-third of the 394,000
families in B.C. — or of
the 196,000 in the metro
area — the financial situa-
tion is very, very tight.
The situation is not unique
to Vancouver when one
looks at the national pic-
ture.

May 24, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7