Tl ’ Workmen at Portage Mountain Dam project By NIGEL MORGAN British Columbians go to the polls on August 27th. Will the electors oust Premier Bennett’s Social Credit govern- ment? That’s the question that’s on everyone’s lips today. Labor and pro- gressive forces are hopeful. Big busi- ness is obviously worried. The Bennett government (after 17 years in office) is in trouble with a con- siderable body of voters. While they hold 31 seats in the 55-member Legisla- tive Assembly (17 N.D.P., 6 Liberals and 1 vacancy) they know time is run- ning out for them. That’s why Premier Bennett has called a snap, summer elec- tion, allowing the bare minimum notice permitted by law—38 days. With little more than half the legal term of office of the Legislature expired, he has delib- erately called the election in the middle of the vacation period to restrict debate of his unpopular school, labor, resource and taxation policies, knowing only too well that large numbers of B.C; voters away from their homes in August will be disenfranchised. The Socreds are in serious trouble. Education, hospitals, housing and muni- cipal governments are being starved. School and municipal taxes have reach- ed unbearable heights, yet educational requirements of our children are being neglected, hospital beds are often “not available,” and the housing crisis worsens. The use of injunctions in labor dis- putes, and subsequent adoption of what was considered to be the most vicious anti-labor legislation on the continent (Bill 33) providing compulsory arbitra- tion and heavy fines and jail sentences for union members, has angered British Columbia’s powerful trade union move- ment, as has, the fact that govern- ment employees (ferry workers, civil servants and teachers) are still denied full collective bargaining rights—long Since granted to those of the Federal and most other provincial governments. The Bennett government is also un- der heavy fire for having allowed the ; ravaging of B.C. resources, the pollution of streams and lakes, and even the air we breathe and food we eat. Industrial waste and raw sewage has made a cess- pool of one of Canada’s major salmon fisheries in the lower reaches of the Fraser River. : Okanagan Lake and other water sys- tems have been polluted to what the government’s own health authorities describe as “the point of no return.” No effective measures have been taken to halt pollution of water and air, and notable is the fact that in the forty page, slick, ‘“Madison-Avenue-type” election message mailed by the Socreds to ‘every householder in B.C., the word “pollution” doesn’t even appear once. The Bennett government’s record of “give-aways” to the big monopoly con- cerns (mostly U.S. and Japanese) of rich timber, mineral, petroleum and water resources is well known. It is un- matched in Canadian history. Thou- sands of job opportunities are thus exported. And, millions of dollars of potential government revenues (that could provide for needed expansion of social expenditures and help reduce the excessive tax burden on homes and eliminate the hated sales tax are lost. Halting the plunder of B.C.’s rich re- sources by foreign and Canadian mono- polies, and adoption of new economic policies to bring them back under pub- lic control so that they can be processed and manufactured in Canada for the. benefit of our people—is the central issue in this election. Having given away for a pittance most of B.C.’s for- est, gas and oil, mineral and hydro re- sources, Premier Bennett has contrived to catch the people unaware, get the election over with in order to have another five clear years ahead as “‘brok- er” for the big foreign trusts, and pur- sue the policy of taxing the poor to ~make the rich richer. B.C.’s timber resources are such that only two or three countries (and those include the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.) _Tival the output of this province. Our mineral resources include most of the industrially important metals as well as vast deposits of coal and other non- metallics. Our developed _ electrical energy is several times the per capita average of even the most highly-devel- oped nations and we have oil and gas reserves and fish in great abundance. Seventeen years of Socred adminis- tration has resulted in nearly all the crown forest lands being handed over to a half dozen big monopolies (and all but one foreign owned) in: perpetuity for a cent and a half per acre per year— about 40 percent of it going to MacMil- lan-Bloedel. Is it any wonder multi-mil- lionaire MacMillan and J. V. Clyne want us to reelect the Bennett govern- ment? The Kaiser-Japanese ‘“strip-mining” consortium has been given the “green light” to plunder the Kootenay coal PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 8, 1969—PAGE 4 eemeeeee Peneees O | 8 , = a monopoly ruk B.C. elections Foreign contro issues for B.C: The worst of it is, that of the te! billions of kilowatt-hours of yy and downstream benefits derived H, Al U.S. monopoly interests, we 40 Bay: ceive so much as one kilowath’ ilk The entire deficit is a pure an gift from the people of B.C. Oe ‘ U.S.A. It is any wonder that vane ( Victoria hydro rates are the hight be found among the twelve ‘ cities across the country? Little ; too that the Bennett administra? ddition to being .the. most OUMF additi g novi te fields and take out more coal in the next 15 years than was mined in all the history of this province, Worst of all the giveaways of course was the Col- umbia River. In return for slightly over $500 million (which includes accumulat- ed interest to the end of the construc- tion period) the Bennett government undertook construction of three dams. Final cost will not be known until 1971, but expenditures to date make it clear that it will be between $600 and $700 millions. We will thus be out of pocket at least $200 million—as the Commun- Bi = ist Party warned before the treaty was government among Canadian P™ gevll Ar signed. for “continentalism” in resourc® ~ x it e t h y \ nominate four _—_ | lig a Thy jh Th \, {qe \ ; [1 NIGEL MORGAN ERNIE CRIST By Vancouver East Vancouver East xe (multiple riding) (multiple riding) w at ROD DORAN New Westmnster BILL TURNER Tt Burnaby Edmonds ;