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BRITISH COLUMBIA

Continued from page 1
take part and hundreds of others
are expected to join them. (For
More information phone
734-2715, 734-9182 or 738-4217.)

Just prior to the rally, at 10:30
a.m., there will be an ecumenical
Service at White Rock United
Church and participants will later
Join the crowd at the Peace Arch.

At the rally itself, Carmela Al-
levato, president of the B.C.

“Peace Council and co-chair of
- End the Arms Race, will chair
Proceedings.

Speakers from this province
are Jim Kinnaird, president of the
B.C. Federation of Labor and
Dr. William Klausen, a Mennon-
ite author and theologian noted
for his pioneering advocacy of a
Tole for Christians in the peace
movement.

Speakers from. the United
States are Dr. Christine Cassell, a

—

representative of the 20,000-
member Physicians for Social Re-
sponsibility. She will be joined on
the platform by Bishop Talbot.

More than 100 trade union,
peace, church, ethnic and com-
munity organizations have en-
dorsed the rally and scores of
them are involved in arranging
transportation,

Some 37 buses have been made
available by the committee itself.
They will be leaving from the stu-
dent parking lot, on the west side
of Vancouver City College at
Langara, 100 E. 49th Ave. from
10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Tickets are $4 in advance or $5
on site if spaces are still available.
Ticket sale outlets include Banyen
Books at 2685 W. Broadway, Co-
op Books at 353 W. Pender, and
Octopus Books, 2250 W. 4th
Ave., and 1146 Commercial.

’ Buses are also leaving from

\Hundreds to walk to rally

Burnaby municipal hall on Can--
ada Way from North Vancou-
ver’s Centennial Theatre at 23rd
and Lonsdale at 10 a.m. Tickets
from Burnaby are $4 and can be
reserved by phoning 521-7966 or
299-5447. North Vancouver tick-
ets are $7; reserve by phoning
988-2501.

A B.C. Peace Council bus will
leave from the Victory Square
cenotaph at 10 a.m. Tickets, at
$7, are available by phoning
685-9958, 11 a.m. to2 p.m. week-
days.

Extensive park and ride facili-
ties in White Rock, to be linked
with the Peace Arch by shuttle
bus, were also being set up at
Tribune press time. Information
on all transportation can be ob-
tained at End the Arms Race,
1708 W. 16th Ave. (Fairview
Baptist Church). Phone
736-2366.

Public blackmailed by Hydro rate increase

By MAURICE RUSH

Recently B.C. Hydro announc-
€d the highest-ever profits of $210
Million for the year ending Mar.

31. At the same time it also an-

hounced that it will go before the
B.C. Utilities Commission early in
June seeking to raise rates by anad-
ditional 58.6 percent by April,
1984. Taken: together with recent

-Mcreases, that. would boost hydro

Behind B.C. Hydro’s rate ap-
Plication lies a long-range strategy
y the crown corporation and its
Ss, the Socred government, to
lackmail the public into accepting
large scale hydro development for

: £xPort to the U.S. The objective is

{0 pressure the public into accep-
tng the idea that the only way to
avoid exorbitant power rate boosts
'S to approve the massive sale of
Power to the U.S.
R For years B.C. Hydro and the
“Octed government have been try-
Ng to win public approval for a
Program of damming all the major
w €ts and developing coal-burning
Dlants such as Hat Creek to provide
8e blocks of cheap power for
C Industry, and to export
oS sive amounts of hydro power
the U.S, Early in 1980 it won ap-
Proval from the National Energy
ard to double the export of
PoWer from five billion kilowatt

_ Ours to 10 billion for each of the

TEXt few years, and three billion
Owatts of firm power, which,
Nee contracted for, could not be
has in Canada. But this program
ee into strong public opposi-

ae Hat Creek thermal project
to be postponed indefinitely
Hause of public opposition. Now
Ydro is in difficulty with its Site C
;,.. Ol the Peace River. The hear-
14 fh have gone on for months
Out a decision.
€ cry to subsidize domestic
by exporting more power to
€nergy-hungry California
: aot already been taken up
Media and spokesmen for
aS Hydro, Editorials in both dai-
Dorie «Papers have urged tying ex-
Ue ,0 Subsidies from sales in the
down’ keep domestic rates in B.C.
Of the Hugh Goldie, vice-president
©B.C. Hydro’s electrical divi-

Tates
the

Mark

sion has already indicated that
Hydro is seeking a vast expansion
of the market in California.

Last year B.C. Hydro exported
huge amounts of power to Califor-
nia and sold it for amounts far
below what it would have cost
California companies to produce
their own power. According to a
story on the financial pages of the
Province, B.C. subsidized the
Americans to the tune of $240
million last year or about $92 per
person in B.C. The story further
revealed that California energy
companies have been so sure of get-
ting B.C. power, that in 1975 the
California Energy Commission
adopted a policy of progressively
shutting down its oil-fired capacity
over the next 10 years in favor of
expected supply from B.C. Ob-
viously a secret arrangement exists
between B.C. Hydro and Califor-
nia energy companies. The public
opposition in B.C. to export of
power to B.C. Hydro’s 10-year

- dam construction program is

jeopardizing this secret deal.

The idea that by selling power to
California B.C. can use the profit
to assure lower rates for B.C. users
is false from beginning to end. It is
no more true than the lie that if

workers took wage cuts they
wouldn’t lose their jobs.

The fact is that while profits
from the sale of power to Califor-
nia could on the surface help keep
B.C. rates down, in actual fact in
the long run, the B.C. public will
have to foot a bill far in excess of
what the immediate savings would
be. To begin with, it should be
realized that the taxpayers would
be expected to go in to debt to the
tune of tens of billions of dollars to
build the dams and thermal sta-
tions to produce the energy.

Already B.C. Hydro has debts
amounting to some seven billion
dollars. According to the New
York investment house of
Salomon Brothers, Hydro was the
fourth largest single borrower in in-
ternational bond markets last year.
Only the World Bank, the Euro-
pean Investment Bank and Hydro
Quebec borrowed more than B.C.
Hydro. It’s significant that the
Socred government recently in-
troduced a bill in the legislature
(Bill 40) which would enable B.C.
Hydro to increase its borrowing
power by $1 billion to over $8
billion. Bill 40 further provides a
guarantee that payment on the debt
would be paid out of the con-

solidated revenue of the province.
In addition to the vast burden of
debt the public would carry, and
which they would have to pay for
out of taxes to subsidize the export
of power to the U.S., there is the
vast damage which would be done
to B.C.’s environment, to Native
Indians, to agricultural land, to
fisheries.
+ Nor would the public only
assume a huge burden of debt to
subsidize the export of power to
California. It would also subsidize
extremely low rates for B.C. forest
and mining companies. A recent
study showed that Hydro charges
its major industrial users only 1.6
cents a kilowatt hour which is far
below that charged by nearly all
countries in the world. Venezuela,
for instance, charges 2.0 cents and
Brazil 2.3 cents. ;

The answer to lower hydro rates
does not lie in the vast expansion of
hydro development for exports to
California. That is no cure-all for
B.C.’s energy problems. The
answer lies in a complete overhaul
of B.C. Hydro policy and a more
rational development and use of
the province’s energy resources.

The public should oppose the in-
crease in hydro rates. Instead it

shoud demand a complete revamp-
ing of the rate structure of B.C.
Hydro which would raise the rates
charged to the forest, mining and
other large enterprises. This would
compel these companies to adopt
less wasteful practices and to utilize
other energy sources such as wood
waste for energy to power their
plants. Further, the 10 year $26
billion program should be aban-
doned for a more realistic program
of energy development which
would be possible if B.C. Hydro
abandoned its long-range strategy
of massive exports to the U.S.
This is a vital issue for all British
Columbians, including the labor
movement, and it is regrettable that
a local of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
has intervened in the current hear-
ings to support B.C. Hydro’s rate
application. That is a narrow view
which should be rejected by work-
ing people who should press in their
unions for a complete revision of
B.C. Hydro policy in favor of the
people of B.C. rather than the big
forest and mining monopolies and
the California energy companies.

Maurice Rush is provincial lead-
er of the Communist Party.

. PORT ALBERNI — A deci-
sion is expected this month in an

appeal of a herbicide spraying -

rogram that has sparked conten-
Ephtove! jobs and worker safety
in this Vancouver Island com-
munity.

The Environmental Appeal
Board opened hearings here May
18 on two permits issued to the
provincial ministry of forests
which would allow ‘hack and
squirt’’ spraying of the contro-
versial herbicide 2,4-D over some
257 hectares of forest to control
unwanted alder trees. Although
officially licensed by the federal
government some years ago, the
chemical has since been shown to
cause cancer and genetic damage.

The three-man EAB panel was .

met at the opening of hearings by
demonstrators, mainly from the
labor council’s Organization of

Unemployed Workers, with plac-
ards reading ‘‘Use chemicals, not
people” and ‘‘Alberni Valley
needs jobs.”’ e

Those presenting appeals to the
panel included the Alberni Envir-
onmental Coalition, Local 1-85
of the International Woodwork-
ers, the OUW, the Arrowsmith
Ecological Alliance and the Nuu-
‘chah-nulth Tribal Council.

The IWA local underscored
the importance the issue has as-
sumed, presenting documented
evidence to suggest that the
chemical is unsafe and arguing
that manual control of the alder
would employ many more work-
ers and would not expose them to
potentially hazardous materials.

The union had commissioned
Simon Fraser University profes-
sor Dr. Ted Sterling to prepare a
submission which noted that

| Jobs, safety focus of EAB

2,4-D had been licensed for use
before the advent of what are now
required test procedures.

If the chemical were to be test-
ed according to those procedures
now, he contended, it would not
be approved for licensing.

‘“‘Workers shouldn’t have to
bear such a burden,”’ said Larry
Stoffman, occupational health
consultant who appeared for the
union together with local safety
director Henry Nedergard.
“They should be put to work
without fundamentally compro-
mising their health and the health
of their offspring.”’

OUW spokesman Sam Somers
also noted the danger to workers
using the chemical and emphasiz-
ed that manual control would be
more effective and would provide
jobs for unemployed woodwork-

hearing

ers. The OUW has urged the de-
velopment of labor intensive silvi-
culture programs as one means of
alleviating the jobless crisis in the
forest industry.

_His contention was backed up
by Alberni Environmental Coali- -
tion spokesman Gary Swann who
cited evidence from his own ex-
perience to demonstrate that
alders cut down manually during
the months of August and Sep-
tember did not regenerate. His
evidence was corroborated by
Garry Gallinger, a forest district
field co-ordinator.

The Coalition brief noted com-
ments by California health serv-
ices representative Dr. Marc
Lappe who warned in 1980 that
people using 2,4-D “‘are risking
permanent nerve damage, cancer
and birth defects.”’ =

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 4, 1982—Page 3