FULL MEDICARE BY 1971

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-PACIFIC TRIBUNE

CALLS FOR SPEEDY ACTION

Medicare for all by ’71
Proposed in Hall Report

Speedy implementation of a
National medicare plan so that it
Will be in full operation for all
Canadians by 1971 wasurged last
week by the Hall Commission
When it tabled its second volume
™ the House of Commons, It said
that 1971 should be the target
date when Canadians will have
all the health services which
Scientific genius and human skill
Can provide,

a 135,000-word second vol-
e _ Outlines in detail the
Beery under which a univer-
ae oe could operate. It rounds
ee he details and fills in gaps
histor the first volume of the
aie mS report of the Hall com-
E Sion, headed by Mr, Justice
™mot Hall of the Supreme Court
of Canada,

: The first volume tabled last
eee Tecommended a prepaid
@dical care program which

———

de,

HEAR
WM. KASHTAN
ational ~Leader
Communist Party
SUNDAY, MARCH 7

8 p.m.

Hastings Auditorium

(Subject to be announced)
Ancouver Committee, C.P.C.

would include all doctors’ serv-
ices, prescribed drugs, dental
services for children under 18,
expectant mothers and welfare
cases and eye care for children
under 18, It called for early
adoption of the plan and a crash
program to train more health
personnel in all fields,

Top medical men immediately
attacked the second volume and
the entire concept of an all-
embracing medicare plan by
1971, Dr. Peter Banks, president
of the B,C, Medical Association,
said the plan for 1971 is “pretty
unrealistic.”

Dr. J, F, McCreary, dean of
medicine at the U,B.C., said re-
cently that implementation of the
medicare recommendations
could not be implemented until
Canadian medical schools have
been strengthened,

These were the opening shots
in a campaign which medical and
big business circlesare expected
to mount to block the Hall pro-
posal for a 1971 target date for
a full operational plan in Canada.

The ‘second volume of the Hall
report is expected to give a
strong stimulus to the national
campaign launched by the Cana-
dian Labor Congress for adoption
of a national medicare scheme
by Parliament. The B,C, Feder-

ation of Labor postcard campaign
is reported to be gaining mo-
mentum,

Vancouver Labor Council sec-

.retary Paddy Neale reports that

“church, parent-teacher and pen-
sioner groups are besieging us
with offers of help,” Postcards
are available at the B.C, Feder-
ation of Labor office at 517 E,
Broadway, Vancouver,

Charge Gov't
blacklisting

Local 168 of the Tunnel and
Rock Workers Union, critical of
the manner in which labor is
being treated on the Peace River
Project, forwarded the following
press release to the Pacific Trib-
une this week:

“To Whom it May Concern:
The Tunnel and Rock Workers
Local 168 has called upon the
Provincial Minister of Labor to
conduct a thorough investigation
into the hiring practices on the
Peace River Project.

*The Union charges that a
Provincial Government agency,
the Peace Power Constructors
Ltd, is blacklisting many union-
ists on the project.” It is signed
W. Milner, Business Represen-
tative,

New CP national leader
to speak in province

William Kashtan, recently elected General Secretary and National
Leader of the Communist Party, will speakin B,C, early next month,
This will be Kashtan’s first appearance on the Pacific coast since
his elevation to the position of National Leader, although he is well
known in Communist circles as a leading member for more than

three decades.

Joining the movement at 18 years of age he served first as
national secretary of the Young Communist League, and for the past

several years as labor

secretary and national executive secretary,

The Provinical office of the Communist Party announced the follow-

ing itin

erary for the B,C, portion ofhiscross-country speaking tour:

FRI, MARCH 5—Kennedy Hall, North Surrey, 8 p.m.

SAT, MARCH 6—Victoria.

SUN, MARCH 7—Hastings Auditorium, Vancouver, 8 p.m,
MON, MARCH 8—Campus Meeting, U.B.C., noon.
TUE, MARCH 9—Student Meeting, Victoria University, noon.

MORGAN URGES GOV'T.

‘GET DOWN TO BUSINESS

ON PEOPLE'S

A strong plea for public action
to demand that Premier Bennett
stop playing narrow party poli-
tics and get down to business on
people’s urgent needs came Sun-
day from B,C, Communist Party
leader Nigel Morgan in his week-
ly radio broadcast,

Pointing out that nearly half
of the Legislature’s time is gone
yet very little legislation has been
introduced, Morgan said there is
pressing need for action on a
whole number of urgent prob-
lems, Among these, he said, were
aid to the municipalities, transit
fares, health and educational
needs, improved social and labor
legislation,

Morgan hit at the failure ofthe
government to “call to account
the phoney ‘influence peddlers’
who, by the Cabinet’s admission,
have confessed to forging the
Premier’s signature.” “What a
travesty of justice,” he said,

Drawing attention to the need
for the province to get a larger
return from its forestry re-
sources to help lift the burden
off taxpayers, Morgan drew at-
tention to the debate in the House
last week,

It was disclosed in the debate
that had not Prince George -con-
tractor Ben Ginter made a sur-
prise bid on timber sought by the
Cattermole Timber Co.,, the com-
pany would have bought Crown
timber for only $340,000 but was
finally forced to pay an additional
$12 million,

North Vancouver MLA Gordon
Gibson also charged in the House
last week that the government was
being misled by the big forest

PROBLEMS’

monopolies as to the amount of
timber available, He said the
government could get an addition-
al $200 million a year if it tooka
tax of 10 per cent of the Selling
price, “We don’t need govern-
ment banks, we need brains in
government,” he said,

Vancouver East NDP member
Alex Macdonald told the House
there was something wrong when
a private company like MacMil-
lan Bloedel and Powell River can
have a bigger annual profit than
the total government take from
timber that belongs to the people.
of this province,

Arguing for a re-allocation of
revenues Macdonald pointed out
that last year Vancouverites paid
$18 million in road taxes and got
back only $355,000. Socred back-
bencher Bert Price also told the
House the people of Vancouver
contributed $25 million in sales
tax to the province’s treasury but
got back only $2.6 million in per
capita grants,

WILLIAM RIGBY, veteran Communist
and for many years a leading figure
in the B.C. trade union movement is
critically ill in hospital.

Fishermen to oppose
straight-jacket plan

“The Report of the Joint Fed-
eral- Provincial Committee on
Wage and Price Disputes in the
B.C, Fishing Industry contains
recommendations which, if

adopted by either the Federal or

Provincial Government, would
put fishermen in a straight-jack-
et,” stated Homer Stevens, Sec-
retary-Treasurer of the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union (UFAWU),

That is precisely what the big
canning monopolies and govern-
ment heads have been hoping to
do for the last decade or more,
on every occasion when the
UFAWU has been compelled to
take strike action to secure de-
cent fish prices. To clamp some
form of compulsory arbitration
on the UFAWU, in order that
fish prices to fishermen will be
kept well down—and profits tothe
organized packers well up, The
report of the Joint Committee
says as much,

The UFAWU leader states fur-
ther that, “Compulsory super-
vised voting on any proposal ad-
vanced by a mediator, followed
by compulsory arbitration in
event the fishermen rejected the
mediator’s proposals, would
completely destroy the funda-
mental rights of fishermen toa
system of free collective bar-
gaining.”

The Joint Committee report
also makes a pretense of re-

moving UFAWU negotiations for
better fish prices “from the pur-
view of the Combines Act” (which
has been used againstthe UFAWU
on previous occasions); but the
organized fishermen of B,C, are
not inclined to “take this bait”
either,

The UFAWU general executive
board is meeting this week to re-
view the Joint Committee’s rec-
ommendations,

the
LEGISLATURE
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T ANS

1130 K.C.

C K WX 6:55 P.M.

SUNDAYS
COMMUNIST PARTY’S
WEEKLY RADIO
COMMENTARY

by NIGEL MORGAN