—
H Rentini

AG, ‘No. 47

Authorised as second class mail by
the Post Office Department; Ottawa
VANCOUVER, B.C.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1958

Phone MUtual 5-5288

10c

Briggs
hom

a alee

{

“tnment.
" C Secretary E. A. Jamie-
yj, c2d a letter from Marine
hg ts and Boilermakers
R} Sesting that Briggs be ask-
fn, > SPeak, and announced
ae executive had already
lips sed the matter and in-
A Briggs.
Ag the executive’s sugges-
fy, “OUncil voted $100 dona-
in” aid Mine-Mill strikers
hy? Plants in Sudbury and
olborne.
bien gates endorsed a _ re-
™ from Retail, Wholesale
ty Partment Store Union
byiasee® Kingston Suppliers
bigs of’ Macdonalds Con-
m 'ed Ltd., where 15 wom-
tp Epo package dried fruit
heen C, Safeway stores have
lg, ,R strike since Novem-
tron? On labor’s “we* do not
Rize" list.
ly tbers named to VLC's
hit, bed unemployment com-
Will immediately dis-
if; lding of a mass rally
ly, SS) Marine Workers of-
Nyg Council the facilities of
®t Auditorium, free of
he for the meeting.
Mit, Sims, chairman of the
education coordinat-

jo)

gets invite
Labor Council

Vancouver Labor Council has invited H. Lee Briggs, fired
( Week as general manager of the government's B.C. Power
Mission, to speak at the next meeting of council and
Srate on his public ‘accusations against the Social Credit

@
ing committee, reported that
the New Westminster commit-
Continued on page 6
See COUNCIL

A life-long trade unionist
whose family record in\ the
labor movement of this prov-
ince goes back to the last cen-
tury, Donald “Dusty” Green-
well (above) is an independ-
ent candidate for parks board
in the coming Vancouver
civic elections. An active com-
munity worker, he is a direc-
tor of Hastings East Com-
munity Association.

10 F

EXPOSE SPURS
pu

Demand for a full, free legislative inquiry into charges made by H. Lee Briggs, and
for immediate dismissal of the Public Utilities Commission, was made by the LPP provincial

executive this week.

“Appointment of a royal commission by the government to investigate the government,
is no answer to allegations of the gravity of those levelled by Briggs,” Nigel Morgan, LPP

Social Credit, BCE
unmasked by Briggs

provincial leader, declared in
explaining his party’s stand.
“This is the same device by
which this government has in
the past attempted to stifle
criticism with respect to the
Mulligan and Sommers scan-
dals. The public is entitled to
have the charges freely de-
bated in the legislature in
January when it meets, and it
will not be satisfied with con-
cealing the issue behind a
royal commission inquiry
while the deal involved is
secretly consumated.

“Briggs has done the people
a great service by lending the
authority of his name to the
shécking facts of the public
utilities situation, which have
lain buried for years despite
the efforts of less influential
persong to draw attention to
them,” Morgan said.

“Chief among these is the
domination of the provincial
government by the B.C. Elec-
tric — a fact which has per-
mitted that company to charge
exorbitant rates and earn
super-profits behind a clever
facade of ‘regulation’.

“Tt clearly emerges both
from Briggs’ statement and
from Dr. Grauer’s reply, that
men of high academic repute,
such as Henry F. Angus, are
being used, in the guise of
‘government regulation,’ to
clothe the B.C. Electric’s depre-
dations with an aura of res-
pectability,’ he claimed.

“Briggs’ statements also
focus attention on the the
three-way partnership be-
tween Premier Bennett, the
BCE and the notorious inter-
national tycoon, Wenner-Gren,
in seizing the vast resources
of the Rocky Mountain trench.

“The Bennett government
has seen fit to fire the man
who brought these issues to
light,” Morgan concluded, “It
should have fired the ineffect-
ive Public Utilities Commis-
sion, behind whose professor-
ial facade and with whose con-
nivance, the evils exposed by
Briggs were carried out. The
LPP. demands that this be
done without any further de-
lay.”

(Pacific Tribune
Research Department)

H. Lee Briggs is right. The
BCE for years has. been
linked with Wall Street in-
terests in putting the snatch
on and depriving the people
of the benefit of our natural
gas resources. It’s now broad-
ening its scope, bringing in
international financial adven-
turers to help engineer an
even greater steal.

The indispensible partner in
this grandiose plan is of
course the Social Credit gov-
ernment, which, having had
its auction sale of our forests
stopped by the Sommers trial,
is evidently searching for
larger fields to conquer.

Every point in Briggs’ story
implicates the Socred govern-
ment. First there is the at-
tempt by Premier Bennett to
saddle the Power Commission
with additional debt ° and
heavier expenses in order to
fulfill the boast of paying off
the direct debt of the prov-
ince.

Related to this is a charge
that the Power Commission

was forced to pay brokerage
houses commissions for fic-
ticious services in selling com-
mission bonds to government
departments.

Next is the exposure of the
close cooperation ‘between the
BCE and the _ government.
through its stooges, the PUC,
in granting ever higher fares
and: rates’ to swell the com-
pany’s excessive profits..

Finally, the granting of the
Rocky Mountain Trench re-
sources to Wenner-Gren, B.C.
Electric and company is the
last step in the process of ex-
panding the private power
empire — at the expense of
public power and the people’s
interests.

By comparison, Robert Duns-
muir, who engineered the
Vancouver Island coal grab in
1883, was a piker. -

A..E, (Dal)- Grauer, Ph. D.,
LLD., Rhodes Scholar, ex-
professor, chancellor of the
University of British Colum-
bia and president of the B.C.
Power Corporation, has just

Continued on page 7
See BENNETT

Quite obviously the chief
objective of the bond rear-
rangement is to implement a
political promise by the pres-
ent government, namely to
“wipe out all the province’s
direct debt by 1960.” All other
possible reasons for such at-
tion have been analyzed, but
without result.

x xt xt

No camouflage explanations
can conceal the fact that
through higher interest rates,
the B.C. Power Commission

What Briggs said
On debt reduction

was to be required to accept
an additional yearly cost of
about $215,000.
And the battle is still in
progress.
xt xt xt

Yet ... the power commis-
sion had nevertheless to pay
more than $60,000 to the out-
side syndicate for the pur-
chase of our bonds by provin-
cial agencies.

Continued on page 2
See WHAT BRIGGS