i fores

This is Canada’s atomic plant at Chalk River.

Atomic energy Plants

seen within five years

ay The work of Canadian scientists in developing atomic ¢
W stage and within possibly five years atomic electric pow

eee
°nsiderable energy potential.

to the

€ work at Chalk ' River has
r
yee the stage where we now
Wi €ve that it should be possible
th Produce atomic power within

Mi © Tange of cost which will be
Conomic.”” e

soe gave the comparable cost
Benen as equivalent to a steam
a ne plant using coal at $8

ahs revealed also that for the

~ time Canada will begin to

all are Uranium at home. It is
'ng done in the U.S. now.

tign Porting that uranium produc-

“Soe Canada is now three times

a €r than at the end of the
» Howe said:

ie While the immediate objective
Pro du Taw materials program is to
it is ce uranium for military use,
strivin sonable to expect that in
obtain for this objective we will
as a knowledge of our uranium
je “hee which would not other-
€ available.”

powertaps with the increasingly
on a ‘ul world demand for a ban
Omic weapons in mind, Howe
aw the possibility of a de-
‘ bes military use of uranium.
86 fan ained that all the reactors
duce built “were designed to pro-
Progr Plutonium for the military
conti son If there were to be a
it,, Ulng market for plutonium
Culd be possible to treat the

Cline

In reporting on advances in a
House of Commons on June 2:

tomic energy development, Trad

“OTTAWA

energy for peaceful uses has advanced to a
er stations will be a new addition to Canada’s

e Minister C. D. Howe reported

|

IWA voting on
‘package deal’

Negotiations between Forest Industrial Relations, organization of
the logging operators, and International Woodworkers of America
(CCL-CIO) B.C. district ended last weekend with agreement on a
closely guarded ‘1954 contract “package deal,’ carrying with it a

recommendation for acceptance by

For a period of nearly three
months negotiations have been con-
ducted with the utmost secrecy.
Aside from informing the IWA
membership that its 1954 wage in-
crease demands, decided upon in
a “district convention, had been
scrapped, the negotiation commit-
tee has followed a studied policy
of keeping the IWA membership
in the dark on the progress or
otherwise of negotiations with
FIR.

District convention demand in
February of this year was for a
“substantial wage increase,” all
resolutions which attempted to
relegate wages to a “secondary
consideration” being voted down.

The 8-point “package” includes
“fringe” gains covering three ad-
ditional statutory holidays with
pay, provisions for compulsory
checkoff of union dues, and MSA
coverage in all camp and mill op-
erations.

Aside from “substantial” wage
increases as demanded by the dis-
trict convention, the “package
deal” includes a boost in board
rates of 25 cents a day, and a pro-
vision for introduction of wage dif-
ferentials on grade shingles, opera-
tive on a plant basis. This, in the
opinion of many millworkers, can
only serve as a splitting and divi-
sive weapon in the hands of the
operators.

Ballotting gn the WA “package”
deal with FIR is now in progress.
The executive of the. big New
Westminster IWA local has sub-
mitted the “package” to its mem-
bership with the recommendation
that it be “turned down.”

the IWA district policy committee.

In making its recommendation
for acceptance the District Policy
Committee “warns” the WA mem-
bership in a leaflet on what rejec-
tion might mean. After express-
ing doubts that conciliation
board could do any better, the
committee raises the new Labor
Relations Act as a “bogey” to be
reckoned with, should a strike vote
and strike action become necessary

to win a more acceptable ‘“pack-
age.”

A leaflet issued by loggers and
millworkers who are members of
the Labor-Progressive party urg-
ed IWA members to “reverse the
district officers’ surrender, sup-
port all struggles for wages and
fringe benefits.”

Get out and vote
urges Effie Jones

Charging that Vancouver’s Non-
Partisan city council is holding an
unprecedented midsummer vote on
four major civie issues because it
is relying on a low vote to put over
big business policies, Effie Jones,
Civic Reform president, has issued
an appeal for a strong “get out the
vote” campaign.

“Unless working men and wo-
men turn out to vote down the six-
day shopping week, the five-day
week for all labor is endangered,”
she declared.

heat as a byproduct and thus pro-
duce low-cost power.”

“There are two objections to
this approach,” he continued
“First, a reactor designed primar-
ily for the production of pluton-
ium would not have the most de-
sirable characteristics as a produc-
er of heat for the generation of

power.

“Second, it would be unwise
to assume that the military de-
mand for plutonium will con-
tinue at the present level for an
indefinite period.

«A eut-back- in demand, or a
cessation of demand, would throw
the full cost of the reactor and its

operation . - - with a resulting cost

per kilowatt hour which would be
prohibitive.”

The task before Canadian scien-
tists, therefore, is to produce a
self-sustaining reactor. — It is a job,
said the minister, “which requires
great genius and great skill in
design and engineering.

Reflecting a strong public de-
mand that Canadian uranium be
processed at home, Howe inform-
ed the House that Eldorado Min-
ing and Refining Ltd., the crown-
owned corporation set UP to han-
dle all uranium mined in the
country, will establish a $2,000,-
000 processing plant at Port

GRAND FORKS, B.C.
Oe Freedom Doukhobors
Sueq eae ignoring court orders is-
chil, arlier this week to send their
taken 7,t0 school or see them
e into “protective custody.”
Coy © Doukhobors appeared in
Onday this week on School
tt harges,
You Ni are making no trouble, but
our “te making trouble by taking
children away,” said Peter

Sons of

“You have taken away our
children’ cry Doukhobors

Fe Nani Ws RSA ie Leper ae

* through an interpreter.
a a ae S.gchools will only
lead to more trouble.”

(On May 26 at Gilpin RCMP. of-
ficers arrested four women and
used tear gas on others who had
resisted sending their children to
ST oat 96 children of Sons of
Freedom Doukhobors are still be-
ing held at New Denver.

This model atomic energy machine has been widely exhibited in this country.

Hope for the production or uran-
jum metal.

“qt is evident,” he declared,
“that if atomic energy is to make
a major contribution to our power
resources WE must be self-suffi-
cient at each stage in the process.”

(Eldorado’s board of directors
continues to show a direct tie-up
with International Nickel and the
biggest U.S. centres of finance

capital.)

Howe announced that the Chalk
River operation would henceforth
be known as Nuclear Research
Ltd. .A new holding company will
be set up which will hold the
stock of both Eldorado and Nu-
clear. This company will be call-
ed Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Thus the entire atomic program

from mining to production of pow-
er is now coniroiled by a single

government - controlled agency —
which, however, will continue to
include the interlocking director-
ate with U.S.-owned corporations.

Howe estimated Canada’s power
needs, at the normal expansion of
six percent annually, at 40,000,000
kilowatts in 1979. Present hydro
potential is 50,000,000 kws. of
which 20 percent is now being
used. Since much of the water-
power potential is in remote areas,
steam generated power would have
to be used and to reach the power
required. would mean an eightfold
increase in present steam plant
capacity.

There are, however, complica-
tion which Howe cited, in the’ use
of atomic energy for power.

“The Canadian power picture is

complicated by the fact that in

some regions coal or oil, or natural
gas, or all three, are available in
substantial quantities and at low
costs; whereas in other regions
there are no indigenous thermal
fuels. In the latter area thermal
fuels must be imported or brought
from great distances within Can-
ada. It is in these areas that
atomic power should fill the gap.”

(Soviet scientists have recently
declared that hydro and coal
would continue for a long period
alongside nuclear fuel in the pro-
duction of power.)

According to David A. Keys,
head of the Chalk River plant,
atomic-generated power is still five
to ten years away.

But Robert Saunders, Ontario
Hydro chairman, believes it to be

within three years.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 11, 1954 — PAGE 7

a