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Election payoff behind
Socred ICBC rate boost _

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iam Kashtan is shown visiting the
famous Upmann cigar plant in Cuba, one of the largest, following the
Cuban Party Congress recently. Armanda Hernandez, factory manager,
explains the fine difference in cigars.

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The public outburst of in-
dignation against the attempt of
the new Social Credit ad-
ministration to nearly triple auto
insurance rates has forced the
government to backtrack.

And well it should. There is

_absolutely no justification for such

an increase. The NDP government
had planned to meet ICBC’s
financial problems with a 10 cent a
gallon surtax on gasoline plus a 19
per cent increase. In my opinion
not even an increase of that kind
was justified.

As long as wages are being held
to an increase of 10 per cent, then
no government should increase
any of its charges more than 10 per
cent. Other ways can be found to
meet the ICBC deficit; there is
nothing wrong in subsidizing auto-
insurance rates so that they can be
kept down to levels that working
people can afford.

ICBC minister Pat McGeer

wasn’t speaking only for himself.

when he said: “If you can afford a

_ car, you can afford insurance. If

youcan’t affordinsurance, sell it.”’
That arrogant statement repre-
sents the view of Premier Ben-
nett’s Cadillac cabinet, loaded as it
is with millionaires. :

To have ICBC “‘pay its own way”’
was by no means the only or even
the main reason for the attempt to
raise insurance’ rates’ so
drastically. It was a pay off to the
insurance companies who so
heavily subsidized the campaign to
defeat the NDP government.

Next year these insurance
companies are to be invited back in
to the auto insurance field in B.C.
By then rates will be so high that in
one year they will be able to make
up for all the profits they lost
during the three years they were
out of the picture. What’s more,
they would not have to take the
blame for the high rates — it would
all -be blamed on NDP
“mismanagement.”’

It is clear that this new
provincial government intends to
follow the same course with other
services to people. Ferry rates are
‘to be increased. Bus fares will be

‘Socialism, liberation gaining’

TORONTO — “‘I think that ’75
shows conclusively ... that the
balance of forces is shifting more
and more to the camp of peace,
democracy, independence and
socialism.”

With these words, William
Kashtan, general secretary of the

Communist Party of Canada

summed up the advances made
during the last year by the forces of
the international working class
movement in the fight for peace
and social progress.

Speaking on the eve of the New
Year, Kashtan outlined gains

made during the year by the

world’s progressive forces. Citing
the history-making victories of the
peoples of Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia over U.S. imperialism,
the new phase of political struggle
based on the defeat of fascism both
in Greece and Portugal, he also
greeted the impressive advances
made by the Communist Party of

Italy in recent elections.

_ Of the situation in Angola,
Kashtan said the people are un-
dertaking an important struggle to
achieve their independence and by

virtue of this struggle opening up

Africa for a genuine independence
against imperialism and for
socialism.

Congratulations were due, he
said, to the Communist Party of
Israel for the victory it scored in
the municipal elections in
Nazareth having elected a Com-
munist mayor. :

The past year had seen the
successful European Conference
on Security and Cooperation in
Helsinki which opened up
prospects of detente and peaceful
coexistence on-a more durable
basis, he noted. It marked “a
significant turn around in Europe
and the defeat of the cold
warriors,’’ compelling
“recognition by imperialism of the
new frontiers . . .as a consequence
of the Second World War.”

In direct contrast to the good
fortunes of socialism and the
national liberation movements in
1975, stood the disastrous record of
setbacks and defeats dealt to world
imperialism and_ state-monopoly
capitalism. During 1975, said
Kashtan, capitalism had been
unable, despite all of its frenzied
efforts, to prevent crises, maintain

waving a

a stable economy, stable prices, or
to create the impression of rising
living standards for the people.

In Canada, the prime minister’s
change in slogan from the so-called
“just society”’ to the ‘‘new society”’
symbolized Canadian capitalism’s
inability to provide the people with
an ever-increasing standard of
living, or end the situation of
permanent crisis which grips the
country.

“What Trudeau and state-
monopoly capitalism are trying to
do,”’ Kashtan said, “‘is to find a
way out of the crisis by greater
measures of state intervention in
the economy and by greater
control and regulation of the trade
union movement.”

Pointing to the prime minister’s
statement that the government has
the power for further regulation
under the Canada Labor Relations
Act, Kashtan said: ‘‘This suggests
very strongly that labor legislation
will be used against the trade union
movement to regulate it in the
interests of monopoly capital and
to take away the right to strike,
particularly in the public service.
He pointed out that ‘in the

No. 10 shovel and warning all jobless un-

fortunates to “work or starve.”

government’s program of restraint
two of the main areas where the
government intends to save
money, unemployment insurance
and family allowances, were direct
attacks on the living standards of
the working people.

A dominant theme in the Com-
munist leader’s message was the
sharp contrast between crisis-
ridden capitalism and ‘‘the
vibrant, dynamic advance of
socialism.”

At the recent 1st Congress of the
Communist Party of Cuba,
Kashtan said, the way the Cuban
Party and Congress expressed
itself sparked within the Canadian
Communist Party delegation at-
tending it ‘‘a tremendous optimism
and excitement.”’ ’

Recalling words he used when he ©

spoke before workers at the
H’Upmann tobacco factory in
Havana, Kashtan said _ that
whereas the Congress report
analyzed the country’s past and
present and ‘planned where Cuba
was going, in capitalist society no
one could tell with any degree of
certainty what the future holds.
See KASHTAN, pg. 11

increased. Gas and electricity,
rates will go up. And at the same
time education minister McGeer
and finance minister Evan Wolfe,
have announced that any wage
increases in the province will be —
strictly kept to the maximum of 10 ©

per cent.

Price controls will not be im-
posed, only wage controls. Lifting ©
price controls on fresh fruit and
vegetables by the provincial
government has already caused —
some of these items to go up as”

much as 25 per cent.
Getting back to car insurance,

the provincial cabinet is now in ~
session trying to figure out ways to —
make the huge rate boost more
palatable. They are considering |
staggering the increase over a
longer period of time than one
year, arranging for people to get

loans from banks to pay their in-

surance at interest rates a little —
less than the 24 per cent and more

charged by finance companies,
and so on.

None of these ‘‘solutions’’ are
acceptable. They all end up to the ©
same result — a tripling of auto —
insurance rates for which there is _

no justification.

Petitions are now being cir-
culated by various labor and other —
demanding that the

groups
outrageous boost in rates be
dropped and that gasoline taxes
and license fees be transferred to

ICBC for which they had already

been earmarked.

This petition campaign deserves

the full support of every citizen.

The proposed inflationary in-
surance rate boost must. be —

defeated to protect living stan-

dards. And the private insurance —
field. We need them about as much ~

as a dog needs fleas.

Greet India CP _

The Canadian Communist Party |

has sent a message of greetings to

the Communist Party of India, now
marking their 50th anniversary. —
The message hails the consistent _
Marxist-Leninist position of the
extends ©

Indian Party and
congratulations.

“We are sure your Party will’
now, as in the past 50 years, live up
to its responsibilities and achieve —
new victories in the struggle for
peace, democracy and socialism,” —

it says.

—
Moreover, the size of the annual salary that Bigmouth ;

__ alcoholic stimulants, with its oral cavity open to capacity,

__ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 16, 1976—Page 2 :

TOM
McEWEN

yee province has its full share of legendary figures, old
and new, and some not so legendary at closer view.
There is “‘Bigfoot,”’ the Sasquatch, for instance; a huge
hairy sort of subhuman, towering an estimated eight to 10
feet and roaming the hinterlands of B.C. and northwest
Washington, secretive and coy like a June bridge on a

_ delayed honeymoon.

Then, not to be outdone by the enterprising Scots with
their Loch Ness monster, we have Ogopogo sporting
around in the crystalline depths of Lake Okanagan. In
passing, it might be added that both Bigfoot and Ogopogo

__ have contributed handsomely to the tourist industry.
__ Many sightings of these prehistoric curiosities have been

recorded, many thousands of dollars expended in
numerous quests and many quarts of LCB’s most potent

_ mixtures consumed to heighten the drama of it all.

And throughout its history, this province has never
failed to add to its list of legendary and non-legendary
monsters.

The latest one, popularly known as Bigmouth, may be
sighted almost any day, with or without the aid of

The repertoire of this Bigmouth is hardly new or

original since kindred breeds have been known to frequent -
_every parliamentary assembly for decades past.

Before a regression in history placed the latest
Bigmouth into a ministerial sinecure, he had gained a
considerable notoriety by bellowing his. threats of “work
or starve’ as mayor of a smaller community. Now, like

Bigfoot, Bigmouth has a province with the highest in-.

cidence of jobless and roofless workers to rant and rave
at, with the No. 10 shovel as the symbol of his authority —
and intellect. And for notoriety and publicity, both Bigfoot
and Ogopogo will have to take a back seat — temporarily
at least — to the latest throwback.

, Bigmouth has many predecessors in his B.C. habitat —
Tory, Liberal, Coalition, Socred and various other hybrids
to mask identity, but all endowed with a distinctive class
coloration and prehistoric attitude toward the joblessness
and economic destitution which their greed has created.
Thus for them, a jobless worker never was and is not now
a human being deprived of the inalienable right to a job or
the right to earn a livelihood for himself and his family; he
is “a lazy bum” who doesn’t want to work at the “jobs”
that Bigmouth and his kind have always failed to provide.

The role of Bigmouth, now as in times past, is to
harangue the unemployed, or the welfare recipient, wave
the shovel and issue the ultimatum of “work or starve,”

knowing all too well that while he and his class tribe:

cannot provide the jobs they talk about, they can sure as

hell produce the starvation and destitution they threaten.

and his kind vote themselves when opportunity is
provided, compared to that of the welfare recipient, is
based on the old ‘“rabbit-and-horse” pie recipe — one
horse, one rabbit, illustrating all too well the equality _
“concept of the Bigmouth. The closest they themselves _
ever come to using the primitive No. 10 shovel in this.

machine age is to wave it threateningly.

Thus in this latest rogue’s gallery of the province’s top —
belly-robbers, Bigmouth is scarcely new or original,
shovel or no. The Pattullos, McGeers, Bennetts et al, with
their 20-cents-a-day relief camps, their police clubs and_

forced starvation all tramped the earth before the Socreds

spawned the latest breed, proving that Bigmouth never

really evolved into anything but more of the same.

So keep your cool, Sasquatch and Ogopogo, you have :
nothing to worry about. You will outlast this latest con-

tender for your domain.

For identification purposes, consult the museum in

Victoria.

~ IRiBONE

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA
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