INGUHE
REG SHATURE

By NIGEL MORGAN

The Columbia River Treaty
continues to be a focal point of
debate in the B.C. Legislature
despite the announcement of
resources minister Bob Williams
that an enquiry will be conducted
into the Special Committee

established by former B.C. Hydro :
chairman Hugh Keenlyside to.

study cost reallocation of Columbia
dam facilities.

Dalhousie University professor
Ian McDougal (nephew of General
MacNaughton — a strong opponent
of the Columbia River Treaty with
the U.S.) who exposed the secret
committee’ minutes, has created a
major stir which should result in
the whole question of the Treaty’s
provisions and the estimated $800
million deficit B.C. taxpayers are
now expected to pay coming under
review, and hopefully early
revision.

Williams announcement that he

intended to invite ‘“Treaty expert’, |

John Krutilla of Washington to
testify, blew back in his face this
week when the U.S. resources
economist informed the press that
he believed the Canadian
negotiators ‘‘did a superb job” in
negotiating the Columbia see
Treaty.

Krutilla said he could see no
point in coming to Victoria
“Because what I would say is laid
out clearly in the book I wrote on
the treaty. If the minister would
like to know my thoughts” he said,
“He can find them out very
cheaply by buying a copy of the
book. While the minister is free to
infer whatever he chooses from my
statements, what I observed left
me with the impression they did a
superb job and drove a’ very hard
bargain.’’ U.S. “experts” are not
going to pull our coals out of the
fire!

Widespread opposition to the
Treaty was expressed throughout
the negotiations. Charges that the
cost of providing dams for U.S.
power generation, flood prevention
and the surrender of U.S. control
over the Columbia glacier flow

would exceed U.S. payments by
more than $200 million have been
exceeded four times over.

The Communist Party fought the
giveaway for sixteen years,
initiating a series of newspaper
advertisements in Kootenay
papers, issuing many thousands of
leaflets, broadcasts, meetings and
demonstrations including a large
car cavalcade which travelled all
the way from Vancouver through
the area to be flooded for U.S.
benefit.

Nothing short of a full public
hearing in which representation by
concerned organizations and in-
dividuals can be heard, will satisfy
the situation that has now come to
light. Exposure of the attempt to
secretly hide by cost reallocation
the stupendous price British
Columbians are paying is but the
tip of the iceberg. And while the

report resources minister Williams :

now has should be made public, the
enquiry must be carried much
urther.

The Communist Party demands:

(1) the opening of a full public
enquiry into the provisions and
costs to the people of British
Columbia of the Columbia River

giveaway;
(2) The supoening of Canadian
authorities responsible for

negotiation of the Treaty to give
evidence under oath;

(3) Intensification of efforts
commenced by the Provincial
government to compel the Federal
government to have the Treaty
reopened to protect British
Columbia’s and Canada’s future
hydro power need§, and obtain
compensation for higher costs now
being assessed against B.C. tax-
payers and increased-downstream
benefits which the United States is
receiving.

British Columbia is being bled
white under the present. terms.
Strong public pressure needs to be
mobilized to bring the real facts.

‘out into the light of day and obtain

redress.

Sorry for the inconvenience

The Tribune wishes to extend its
apologies to our readers for the
inconvenience- of irregular
deliveries. 3

As you know the strike of the
PSAC temporarily closed the
Vancouver post office to incoming
mail last week. We did our best to
have the paper delivered by

alternative methods. However, for
some readers this was'not possible.
If you find yourself missing an
issue, give us a call at 685-8108 and
we will see that it gets to you.

We stand by -our public em-
ployees in their fight for a decent
living. We know you do as well. In
the meantime please be patient
with our delivery problems.

Pretexts used to block

low-cost public housing

‘By ALD. HARRY RANKIN
The opponents of public housing
(that is, housing built by any form
of government at costs the or-

dinary person can afford), take on’

many disguises. Some of the latest
are to pose as environmentalists,
as nature lovers, as exponents of
more parks. '

The controversy over what to do
with the University Endowment
Lands is a good illustration. —

Here we have 1,760 acres (almost.

three square miles) of undeveloped
lands, much of it wooded. What
should be done with it?

Two main viewpoints have
emerged.

One group wants the whole area
developed into .a forest park.
Among the supporters of this
viewpoint are the NPA, some
TEAM aldermen and, of. course,
some of the better off people who
now live in the UEL or nearby and
don’t want to see an influx of
outsiders that may even include
some people who are not in the
middle or upper income brackets.

The other group wants to see

- part of the 1,760 acres kept as a

park and the remainder developed
for housing. This is my viewpoint
to, and I believe that it has some
support within the NDP provincial
government, although no decision
has yet been made by Victoria as
far as I know.

I would like to see about 1,200

acres kept for a.park and the
remaining. one third used to
provide housing. But I have some
definite views on what kind of
housing. It should, I believe,
primarily serve the needs of the
people who work, teach and study
at UBC. Of necessity this would
mean that a good portion of such
housing should be low cost housing,
that students and workers at UBC
can afford.

Some of the more obvious
benefits of this type of develop-
ment would be:

e Providing housing on the UEL
would enlarge the housing supply
in the Greater Vancouver area,
and so would help relieve the

desperate shortage that now

exists.
e It would greatly reduce traffic
congestion because thousands of

Morgan to speak
on North Shore

Nigel Morgan, provincial leader
of the Communist Party, will speak
on ‘‘The Political Situation in B.C.”
at a meeting in North Vancouver’s
Capilano College, Rm. A-112,
Sunday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Capilano College is at 2055

“Purcell Way, which is reached by

going up Lilloet Way, past the
Coach House, about half a mile.
The public is invited to attend.,

people who now commute to UBC
‘every morning would live where
they work and study.

e We would still have a good

sized park, two square miles in
size.
- Opponents of any housing on the
UEL trot out the argument that the
housing shortage can’t be solved
by providing accommodation for
several thousand at UBC. Of
course it can’t. The housing
shortage will not ever be solved by
one project. But ‘if all public
housing projects are opposed (and
that is what is happening today),
we will never solve it because no
housing will be built.

It’s more than a coincidence that
the most vocal supporters of the
“all parks — no housing”’ concept
are those who are most closely tied
in with real estate and developer
interests. They do not want to see
any public housing because they
know it would mean lower rents,
and they don’t want to see any —
housing projects go ahead that are

-under government and not under

their own control.

I’m convinced that the proposal —
to have two thirds of the UEL |
developed as a park and one third | ©
for housing would best serve both
the short term and long term in-
terests of Vancouver and the
Lower Mainland. I am hopeful that”
the provincial government will see
it that, way too.

Crew members, both men and women, from Soviet shins in Vancouver baton: are cawi here at
International Women’s Day rally last Sunday. Eric Waugh of the Canada-USSR Society is shown seated with

them, frent row right.

—Carey Robson photo

aA

register than a Beryl Plumptre treatise on how to boil

capitalism far behind;

the sons and daughters of

TOM
McEWEN

ut out all the sensational or other. ‘‘news’’ items

touching upon drugs, sex, crime, etc. which fill up the
pages of your Daily Blah, and what have you got left?

With the exception of a few tattered sheets of ©
newsprint containing bank reports, stock market
quotations, big business profits hauls and so forth, very
little, if anything, remains.

Thus all the juicy or bone-dry items'covering a growing
drug traffic, the mounting totals of murder and killings,
items on sex relations smutty-or sadist, or the neat little
bon mot on someone having “invaded the nation’s
bedroom’’, have become standard top priority in our
Daily Blah, as it exercises its monopolized birth right to
publish ‘“‘all the news that’s fit to print.’’

The point in all this paper-clipping illustration is that
since a monopoly media in all of its ramifications must of
necessity be orientated upon.the society which gave it
birth, it naturally follows that a nice gruesome murder
will the gory details, plus an emotion-provoking headline,

shows up much better on the monopoly corporation cash +

water.

The Communist press in the countries of capitalism, as
in the countries of the socialist world, do not feature these
multiple ‘‘news” items, implicit in a built-in capitalist
violence, as being of any value to anyone. If and when they
do happen, as they sometimes do in the countries of
socialism, responsible socialist governments seek to
remedy the defect, not by giving crime top priority on the
front pages of their million-fold press, but by assuring
greater security for the citizen so molested, plus a greater
measure of aid and assistance to the offending citizen.

Thus one will rarely ever see a item on,the,criminal,acts
of any Soviet citizen cluttering up the pages of Pravda or
Izvestia or any of the other thousands of daily or weekly
newspapers serving the interests of the people. Even the
treasonable political rantings of an Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, protege of Pierre Berton, Judy La Marsh
and company, seldom make the front pages, or indeed any
page in a socialist newspaper, mainly because such
papers do not see treason and crime against the people as
having any relation whatsover with their service to the
people, the government and the nation.

For the millions of people living and working under.
socialism there are things and events of infinitely greater
importance than news of murders, gangsterism, rapes,
dope and the like. The logarithms of a planned economy,
housing projects that stagger the imagination, and leave

yesterday’s illiterate peasants, today “reaching for the
stars,’ and beyond: The unceasing goal of universal
peace, detente, mutual trade and friendship with all
nations and peoples. The emphasis of their socialist press
is the emphasis of their unequalled achievements.

We on the other hand, long accustomed to double
crossing politicians and swindling monopolists, continue
to swallow our daily diet of murder, sex, and dope addicts,

-all for the glory and profits of the few — and the continued

enslavement and exploitation of the many. And when —
capitalism promises us ‘“‘more of the same but worse” we ~
cheer it to the echo, or sit back and lap up our latest crime ;

special from the Daily Blah. -

*

Soon we’ll be Caan once again to to something |
about it. The months of April and May will again see the —

Pacific Tribune 1975 financial drive in full swing. How —

well this column has done in past years is not the all
important factor. It is what it can, will and must do in 1975
that counts.

We will be celebrating 40-years of continuous ~
publication of the Tribune, no small achievement, con-
sidering the numerous ups and downs of a crisis-ridden
society. We will be banking on the fact, the best security
ever, that in all those 40-years the workers-of B.C. have
never let us down. And the challenge of today is the best —
assurance of another big victory on the way for the Pacific
Tribune ... and for the working people of B.C.