cc a& ~ YOU AGAIN? Pie eS a feces MBPAMMD At Fighting over the spoils from U.S. oil co. profits The real fight between Canada’s prime minister Trudeau and Al- berta’s premier Lougheed isn’t over provincial rights. It’s over who is going to get the fabulous profits pouring out of the oil and natural gas industry. Premier Lougheed speaks for the U.S.-owned multinational oil corporations. They want all the profits from increased prices, to send across the line to their head of- fices in the U.S. or to be used to buy up still more companies in Canada and so still further expand their control over the Canadian econ- omy. Lougheed and his U.S. multi- nationals don’t want to share any of these profits with the rest of Canada — they want all the profits for themselves. That’s why they so strongly oppose federal taxes on oil and natural gas; that’s why they so angrily oppose Canadian owner- ship of the oil and gas industry. Joe Clark (who reminds me of a puffy-cheeked squirrel trying to imitate a jowl-shaking indignant Diefenbaker) in his opposition to the Liberal government speaks for the same U.S. multinationals. — Prime minister Trudeau is after two things. : The first is that his government insists that some of the huge profits now being made in oil and natural gas be shared with the government of Canada. The second is that he wants to see Canadian corporations get a bigger share of these profits. That’s why he set the objective of 50 percent Canadian ownership of the indust- _Ty by 1990; that’s why he said that Petro-Canada would be expanded to take over one or more of the for- eign-owned multinationals; that’s why his government has decreed that in future oil and gas on crown- owned land will be developed only by companies with at least 50 per- cent Canadian ownership and that - Ottawa will take a 25 percent cut of the proceeds. Premier Lougheed’s stand amounts to a sellout of our re- sources to foreign interests. That’s economic subversion, just as the talk of separatism by the followers of premier Lougheed, premier Bennett and Joe Clark is political subversion. As for Lougheed’s cut- back in oil production, that’s clear- ly economic sabotage of Canada’s vital interests. As for prime minister Trudeau’s actions, they’re unsatisfactory and unacceptable on at least two counts. The first is that greater owner- ship of the oil and gas industry by private Canadian corporations (some of them are multinationals too) isn’t going to help Canada or Canadians. Jt won’t result in these resources being developed for the benefit of the Canadian people; it will just result in Canadian private corporations being able to muscle in on the profits of the oil industry. ‘About the only positive aspect of this step is that if the Canadian oil industry were controlled by Cana- dian corporations it would be easier for the Canadian government to direct them in the national interest, if it were so inclined. The second thing that is wrong with Trudeau’s actions is that all these huge profits are coming about because of his decisions to increase the price of oil and natural gas. Practically all that money is coming out of the pockets of Cana- dians. There just is no justification whatsoever for increasing the price of oil and natural gas. The profits of the oil and gas industry are al- ready the highest in Canada. They are already getting $16.75 a barrel for oil when, according to. labor’ economists, the actual cost of pro- duction in Canada is only $3.00 a barrel. Think of the profits that the oil industry will make when the price of oil is increased by $4.50 a year for each of the next three years! the pockets of the Canadian peo- ple. The figures are staggering. Ac- cording to the minister of finance the percentage of new revenues from oil and gas will be divided as follows: : The province will get 43 percent, “down from the 45 percent they have been getting until now. The federal government’s share - will be increased from 10 percent to 24 percent. The oil industry’s share will be reduced from 45 percent to 33 per- cent. What will this come to in dollars _and cents? It won’t be dollars and cents, it will be billions of dollars. Ottawa estimates that its share (24 percent) will bring it an addi- tional $24 billion in the next three years. If we use this same method of reckoning, then the provinces will be getting $43 billion and the oil in- dustry $33 billion. That brings the total to $100 billion. There’s another aspect of this whole business that is being ignor- ed. Thatis the inflationary effect of the huge increases in the price of oil and natural gas that will come into effect in the next three years. Our current inflation rate of over 10 percent could easily be doubled. The solution to the energy crisis in Canada is not the path that Lougheed wants or that Trudeau is taking. The solution lies in the fol- lowing: @ public ownership of the en-- tire oil and natural gas industry; @ joint federal-provincial com- panies to develop our energy re- sources for.the benefit of all Cana- dians, with east-west oil and gas pipelines to carry our Canadian oil and natural gas to every part of Canada; @ the price of oil-and natural gas in Canada should be kept at or “ near the Canadian cost of produc- tion. Whatever is exported (after Canada’s needs are assured) can be Andalmostall ofit willcomeoutof — sold at world prices. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 9, 1981—Page 2 ee Harcourt shifts to centre ground The new Vancouver city council has but three meetings under its belt, but already the shift'to the left effected by the Nov. 17 €lection is evident. However thatis in spite of mayor _ Michael Harcourt’s shift away from the left-centre alliance with COPE that spearheaded the Nov- ember Victory. As expected, Harcourt has put considerable distance between himself and the three COPE aldermen and has played down any possibility of a working alliance. Instead he gave the two TEAM aldermen, May Brown and Marguerite Ford, the chairs of the two key council committees and in the relatively few issues determined over the first three council meetings has voted most consistently with the TEAM aldermen. While the COPE aldermen have retained their principled opposition to Transpo ’86 and to further city expenditure on the Trade and Con- vention Centre, Harcourt has changed his position on both crucial issues. Harcourt’s shift to the right has blunted the reform edge of council, but it is clear that this city council is markedly different from any PEOPLE AND ISSUES T he attention focussed this week on the nuclear arms danger by the Toronto meeting of the American Association for the Ad- previous. — ‘ Two examples of the change at last Tuesday’s regular meeting were an almost unanimous vote to remove restrictions on civic grants for the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, and a six to five vote to remove the police officer-chauffeur hired two years ago by then mayor Jack Volrich. The six to five vote of COPE, Harcourt, and the two TEAM aldermen against the NPA can be expected to resurface at the next meeting of council when the COPE initiative to implement a ward system in Vancouver will be debated. The meeting will also deal with two tough resolutions on housing submitted by COPE alderman Bruce Eriksen. One resolution would amend city zoning regula- tions to require all new developments to include a percen- tage of non-profit housing accor- ding to the size of the development, while the other would beef up the standards of maintenance bylaws by declaring that the loss of any residential unit for health or safety reasons would be a violation of the bylaw and subject to a fine against the property. vancement of Science has dramatized the active role that more and more doctors and scientists are now taking in alerting the people to the threat of nuclear annihilation — a threat that grows greater with every escalation of the arms. As a result of the AAAS meeting, the warning by former U.S. SALT negotiator Paul Warnke that ° ‘there must be coexistence or there will be no existence’’ has probably been heard all over the continent. But a meeting that was not heard everywhere — and one that of- fers a profound hope for international scientific cooperation in the efforts to avert nuclear war — was one that took place last month in . Geneva. The participants were leading physicians of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The organization that they founded, Interna- tional Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, was the cul- mination of a new movement in the medical and scientific com- munities which has spurred the establishment of such groups as the British Medical Campaign against Nuclear Weapons and the Phy- sicians for Social Responsibility , a branch of which was recently set up in Vancouver. : Rox That there was nothing of the historic Geneva meeting in the mediain this provinceis, unfortunately, typical — reports here have been preoccupied with the actions of the Reagan cabinet or in find- ing new significance in events in Afghanistan. According to the Boston Globe, a copy of which we were sent this week, the new international physicians’ group is co-chaired by Dr. Bernard Lown, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Dr. Eugene Chazov, a Soviet deputy minister of health and amember of the 13-member presidium of the Soviet Academy of Medical Sci- ences. Both are leading cardiac specialists in their respective coun- tries. Hay The bilateral agreement they signed declared that nuclear war would be ‘‘an unparalleled disaster”’ and any civil defence measures were ‘“‘an illusion.”’ It also stated that even if nuclear weapons are never used, the arms race is diverting scarce resources “‘desperately ‘needed for medical and human needs.”’ “Physicians can and should make important contributions to the prevention of such a disaster,”’ the agreement said. Following agreement on the principles for the group, the Soviet delegation asked to add a plea ‘‘to all physicians of the world to raise their voices against nuclear war and for nuclear disarmament.” * * * * *. A fascinating glimpse of Alberta politics in the 1930s, and particu- larly therole of the Communist Party in the 1935 provincial elec- tion which swept Social Credit leader William Aberhart to power, is _ in the autumn, 1980 issue of Alberta History put out by the Historical Society of Alberta. The article, Reflections of a Com- munist, is by well-known labor journalist Ben Swankey and is the second such article based on his experiences as a leader in the Young Communist League and the Labor-Progressive Party in Alberta. _ Copies of the issue are available for $2 by writing Historical | ~ Society of Alberta, Box 4035, Station C, Calgary, Alta. T2T 5M9. * * * * * B argain musical director Steve Gidora tells us that Bargain’s first } concert for 1981 is scheduled for Jan. 17, 8 p.m. in the Carnegie Community Centre. The centre, newly refurbished last year, is at } Main and Hastings in Vancouver.