Vietnam aid rally
to hear Levesque

The views of one of French-
Canada’s leading political figures
on the Vietnam war and Canada’s
relationship to the war, will be
aired this coming Sunday,
November 5th, when Rene
jLevesque speaks at the Queen
‘Elizabeth Theatre rally at 8 p.m.

RENE LEVESQUE
... speaks Sunday

Levesque, who has strong views
on the Vietnam war and the danger
it poses to world peace, recently
became a sponsorer of the
Canadian Aid For Vietnam
Civilians Committee in Vancouver.
He is speaking under the
sponsorship of the Committee
which is aiming to raise $50,000 for
Vietnam medical aid by the end of
the year.

The Levesque rally is one of the
major events planned by the
Committee to raise funds. It has
already collected over $42,000
which has been used to send
medical aid to various parts of
Vietnam to meet the critical need
in that country.

The Committee has also
launched a special ‘‘Christmas

Appeal” collection list for fund -

raising. Aim of the appeal is to
solicit funds to buy urgently needed
medical supplies.

Appearing with Levesque at the
Queen Elizabeth Theatre will be

popular radio and TV entertainer '

Eleanor Collins.

Vietnam report

Cont'd from pg. 1

sacrifice of the Vietnamese
workers. Yet one can see at every
corner workers huddled around oil
lamps repairing bicycles and
trucks, and through open store
fronts one can also see young
women havihg their hair done. It i_
war, but it is also Vietnam. The
permanent wave is replacing the
beautiful long black braids.

My hosts inquired about the
health of Tim Buck. I said he
appeared to be in better health
each day. “It is the same with
President Ho,”’ one answered, ‘‘but
he is very busy now. Just last week
a battalion of veteran guerrilla
fighters, the youngest of whom is
sixty-five, shot down an American
aircraft with rifle and machine-gun

SOVIET EXPO
OBJECTS ON
VIEW HERE

The People’s Co-op Bookstore
announced this week that its 341
Gallery will have a showing of
commemorative art editions, art
work and other art objects direct
from the Soviet Pavilion at Expo.
The show opened October 30 and will
run until November 25.

341 Gallery is also offering for sale
many of the exhibits and art objects.

Two particular anniversaries are
marked by the art books on display.
These are books commemorating the
50th Anniversary of the Soviet Union,
and publications marking the 200th
Anniversary of the world famous
Hermitage museum.

There will also be art publications
covering a wide range of other
subjects including ballet, sculpture,
religious art, folkcraft, etc. Hours of
the Gallery are from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
daily, and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., on
Thursdays and Fridays.

GREETINGS

From The
FRASER VALLEY CLUB, CPC.
on the
ANNIVERSARY of the 50 YEARS

of a SOCIALIST STATE.
rd

‘fire. Comrade Ho visited them to

offer his congratulations. It is
wonderful these days, the older one
gets, the more determined he
becomes.”’

To my right a group of young
men and women painfully lift a
railway track into place and our
car lurches forward over the
bridge to Hanoi.

They say in Canada that Hanoi
itself has not been bombed, only
the suburbs. This would be quite
true if one were to consider
Toronto proper to be Queen and
Yonge and that Toronto’s City Hall
were to be considered part of the
suburbs. I have seen much
destruction in Hanoi, including the

‘wreckage of the eye and ear

hospital which adjoins the Catholic
cathedral.

By daylight the city looks almost
at peace. Hanoi has not been
bombed since late August. The
movies and theatres operate as
usual. In spite of all, there have
been bumper harvests for the last
two years, and the lights in the city
are on — the voltage is somewhat
irregular but they are on and the
city lives.

Haiphong is the target now. I was
told the workers face air raids day
and night. They must sleep, work
and defend themselves. The
constant bombings, are causing
serious problems.

But in Haiphong, as in the rest of
North Vietnam, the Americans
have not suceeded in either
destroying communications,
halting production, or in
terrorizing the people. After
twenty-four hours in Vietnam I
believe this, but I will not write
about things I have not yet seen. I
have been promised a trip to
Haiphong although the travelling
conditions are difficult.

Across the street from my hotel
there are a few weaving machines.
All the existing factories in North
Vietnam have been dispersed —
and these machines work around
the clock. At the same time a large
bomb shelter is being dug around
the machines, so they can be
moved again, underground.

But that is another story in itself.

Close vote at B.C. Fed
parley shakes leadershi

The 12th Annual Convention of
the B.C. Federation of Labor
wound up its sessions last Friday.
‘Its six executive officers, under
heavy fire fram many BCFL
affiliate unions throughout the
summer of 1967, were re-elected in
their former positions with
comfortable majorities. The one
new addition on the executive body
is Steelworkers Union director,
Pen Baskin, replacing retiring
Steelworker Monty Alton.

Only in the case of BCFL
secretary-treasurer Ray Haynes
was the majority in his favor cut to
a bare 33-vote margin over his
opponent, president Ed. Sims of the
Vancouver and District Labor
Council. The vote was Haynes 276,
Sims 243. It was a close shave for
Haynes who is described by many
trade unionists in B.C. as “‘the
most unpopular man in the BCFL
leadership body.’’ Last year
Haynes only won the secretary-
treasurer position by a mere 50-
vote majoity. Thus his 1967 vote
shows a steady decline in
popularity.

Prime cause of widespread
dissatisfaction with BCFL
executive administration in 1967
was it’s arbitrary suspension: of
four IWA local unions for their
public criticism of CLC executive
member Joe Morris, and its
obvious reluctance to dissociate
‘itself from the Pat O’Neale-RCMP'
union ‘‘bugging’’ case, and to
promptly condemn its former
executive member for such anti-
labor activities.

In the 10-member BCFL
Executive Council election three
new members won election; Del

Pratt (IWA), Jim Kinnaird, .

(IBEW) and J. Torrance
(Papermakers). With those minor
‘changes the Centennial-year
convention of the BCFL returned
its leadership to their ‘“‘as you
were’’ position, with all major
criticism of its previous
stewardship swept under the rug;
this on the oft expresssed need to
preserve a maximum of ‘labor
unity’’.

While many excellent policy
resolutions were debated and
approved by convention delegates,
any realistic assessment of its
deliberations and direction could
only arrive at the conclusion that it
was a ‘‘stand pat’”’ convention; its
leadership unprepared as yet to
face up to what is involyed in the
many fine resolutions it adopted.
Particularly in respect to those
unions outside the Canadian Labor
Congress, who find on application
for entry, the CLC door still barred
tight with all the old anti-
communist prejudices and pretexts
of the McCarthy era.

Thus it was an interesting
exercise in semantics to hear CLC
Executive Vice-President William
Dodge stress the new attacks being
mounted by employer-government

‘agencies against the wages, living
standards, and democratic
processes of collective bargaining
all under the pretext of heading-off
an ‘“‘inflational spiral” of wages
and prices, and on the urgent need
of maximum unity in the ranks of
labor to meet this and other

_ attacks.

Then to hear Brother Dodge hum
and haw, ‘‘explain’’, and verbally
_waltz around the most simple
‘question in the mind of a rank-and-
file worker; just what kind of
“unity” is it that talks about every

trade union moving into one great
united House of Labor — then finds
the door barred against entry?

A composite resolution on labor
unity states; “‘ . . . that this
‘convention of the BCFL go on
record as urging the CLC
Executive Board to proceed to
bring about labor unity, by having
the unions outside the CLC
‘admitted to the CLC, provided that
they are willing to abide by the
-principles and policies of the CLC”’.

This resolution was adopted
unanimously, but it was painfully
evident in CLC Vice-President
Dodge’s address, and in the BCFL
Executive’s ignoring of the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union request that its spokesmen
have the opportunity to address the
convention, that neither the CLC
jnor the BCFL are yet ready to
afford any opportunity to the
‘UFAWU to ‘‘abide by the
principles and policies of the CLC.”

In the coldwar mentality of the
CLC Executive it seems to be,
already assumed in advance — that

" they won’t,hence the necessity of

keeping the door barred — to the
accompaniment of a lot of fine
words about unity. And this in a
period when the millionfold
membership of the CLC and the
BCFL know full well that the so-
called anti-inflation strategy of
federal and provincial government,
together ‘with the representatives
of big monopoly, is primarily
directed against organized labor.
Dodge himself _ strongly
‘emphasized that point — then
proceeded to dodge the only
effective answer to this latest big
business-government attack — that
of realizing the fastest way to all —
in labor unity within the CLC to
throw back these consistent
attacks on the House of Labor.

Towards this end a resolution
“was adopted which “‘reiterates its
-full support of the NDP, and urges
all of its affiliated membership to
do likewise’. This resolution also
proposes “‘. . . that we increase our
efforts in getting more local unions

to affiliate to the NDP inordé™
the labor movement Play
rightful role in the affairs
own political party.”

While these provision
increased trade union P?
action (if implemented)
for a big advance tow
realization of an efl€
alternative to the old-line
and political yesmen %
Business and especially 07
labor Socred government ©
Columbia, no delegate 5
advance the need of %
safeguards against 4
repetition in Canada of whal’
happening in Britain under
Wilson Labor governme=

from the Quebec and
Federations of Labor oe
plus the large num” sf
progressive resolutions from
affiliated unions, i
Convention registere? ~
forward. :

But measured by the?” :
the old (and new) exec! 7
“sweep its shortcomings
errors of its 1967 stem
“under the rug’’, as 20
preservation of labor vail
permitting the BCFL lea
emerge unscathed from ih
its own making and yet Be”
to office: all this © :
opinion of those who @"
12th BCFL Convention
pat” gathering with 2¥
for remaining ‘‘aS ¥®
rather than “forward,

It is sincerely h®
interests of all labor
struggles immediat
which organized labor
that the ‘‘stand pat” ©
wrong; that the 134
membership not present é
Convention will apply
correctives to achi€
labor unity in action —
words.

Rally hails Soviet
Fiftieth Anniversary

A glowing tribute to the people of
the Soviet Union on the
achievement of the first successful
socialist revolution fifty years ago
was made at a rally in the Hastings
Auditorium, last Sunday,
sponsored by the Vancouver
Committee of the Communist
Party- :

Speaking at the well-attended
rally, despite bad weather, Lionel
Edwards said the taking of the
Winter Palace in 1917 heralded a
leap for humanity greater than any
before in history. He said the young
republic prevailed despite civil war
and intervention.

He reviewed the tremendous
impact the Russian Revolution had
on the Canadian working class and
the great contribution the Soviet
Union made to the defeat of
fascism. ‘‘In the whole annals of
science nothing has surpassed the
achievements of the Soviet Union

.. in fifty short years,”’ he said.
~_**

This coming Sunday, November
5th, PT editor Tom McEwen will
speak at an anniversary banquet

November 4, 1967 — |! *'

being held in the Dream
New Westminster ®
McEwen, and B.C:
leader Nigel Morea?
speak at a banquet
OOF Hall, saturday:
18th, at 6:30 p.m.

WINS ART
COMPETITIS

Donalda Greenwell;
daughter of Dona
Greenwell, has beef ©
winner in the painting
competition spons? 4
by the Federation»

Artists. to
She won both the s

the Greater Vanco? eft
which she was awal”
of paints, brusher
equipment valued @
Vancouver city a <0
she received the Vey
Board trophy.
Donalda’s fa
president of the ci
Community Coum a
candidate for Parte a
last civic election. © -¢
known in tradeunlon

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