-Slonal politician was competent to

he

Wisp

a

ee

—RAFE IS RIGHT...
NOBODY’'IS THINKING OF
AXING THE GUY...

Behe:
: 7
che

: aN

i
a
Meifie Tribune.

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The firing of Bryce Mackasey,
Ormer Liberal cabinet minister by
€ Clark Conservative government
Tom his $90,000 a year job as chair-
man of Air Canada is-one more
Proof that in our. society morality

4nd politics are strangers.

Mackasey was fired because he
Was a Liberal. Whether this profes-

handle the job is really irrelevant.

Re got the appointment in the first

Place, not for being an expert in air
‘avel, but for services rendered to
Party — the Liberal party. Now
Will be replaced by someone who
48 rendered service to the Conserv-
ative Party. eo

And so it goes. Political
mtronage is not something that just
ig ats Our political past in Canada. It
on ee growing. It’s not a plea-
tion : ing. It’s a form of corrup-
ino wre S a case of politicians stick-
roa snouts into the political

+ But what they are gobbling
Ot garbage, it’s the taxpayers

d
Ollars. The parties in office are

handing out plums and we're pay-
ing for it.

But patronage, bad as it is, isn’t
the worst feature of this unsavory
practice. é

The waste of money runs into
millions and millions of dollars.
Mackaséy, for example, has a seyen
year appointment. How much will
the Tories pay to buy a settlement

with him? Half a million dollars?

And Mackasey is only one exam-
ple. The same thing is going to hap-
pen to dozens of appointments
made by successive Liberal govern-
ments including deputy ministers
who are also scheduled to be fired.
The cost will undoubtedly run into
tens of millions of dollars. And
what will we get for it? We’ll see

‘Tory snouts at the trough instead of
Liberal snouts. Some change!

But the question that’s most dis-
turbing about this game of musical
chairs is the cost. This, according to
Prime Minister Clark, is the time
for restraints. We have to cut back,
he says, and he is cutting back with
a vengeance — on unemployment

a a

Ore it the Conservative govern-
oem in Ottawa has justified the
a ay hike in interest rates led by
to as of Canada on the need
ce €ep Canadian interest rates

Petitive with rising rates in the
re We are again reminded that
Only is the private sector of the
tha wan economy dominated by
= Of the U.S., but our govern-
: a S monetary policies are ef-
Wely determined in Washing-

a D.C. Liberal and Conserva-

themselves to the sinking ship
erica,

J prime excuise for tying Ca-

oe interest rate policy to that

Pate -S. has been that if Cana-

terest rates are not close to

lon, Jats foreign investment and

ada ou will flow out of Can-

© the U.S., the value of the

ther Markets will decline fur-
cepa td Canada will have to go
ee “Per into debt to pay for an in-

1 utflow of money from
Canada Since 1974 to pay for our

the hidden long run

© 8overnments alike have chain-’

mowdian dollar in international

: asin d ns cae . .
trade. & deficit -in international
meee has been an increasing

ECONOMIC FACTS

_, Like the Liberal government be- gy Emil Bjarnasor’ and David Fairey

insurance, health services, reducing
public services by cutting the civil
service and on ‘a thousand other
fronts, all.of them services to peo-
ple. : f

At the same time he can afford to
waste half a million dollars because
he has to buy out a Liberal hack to
replace him with a Tory hack.
Multiply this by 50 or 100 and you

Political patronage costing ae
taxpayers millions of dollars

begin to see the money that is being .

wasted.

_» It shows again that all this talk
about restraint by our politicians is

-so much hypocrisy. The only cuts

being made are in services to peo-

ple. Fhe savings are being passed on
to big corporations in the form of

more tax cuts.

We see the same thing at City
Hall. The NPA council cuts the
hours of the Carnegie Community
Centre from 84 to 48 a week to save

$50,000 a year, in the next breath,.

Mayor Volrich and his NPA
vultures want to vote $10 million of
taxpayers’ money to the profes-
sional sports promoters at the PNE
to build a new stadium for them at
public expénse.  -

Socreds, Tories
mapping sellout
of B.C. resources

By MAURICE RUSH
B.C. leader, Communist Party

~The Socred government is work-
ing hand in glove with the federal
Tories to facilitate the sellout of Ca-
nadian and B.C. energy resources
to the U.S. multinational corpora-
tions. :

The recent meeting between
premier Bill Bennett and prime min-
ister Joe Clark in Vancouver, com-
ing at it did only a few weeks before
Clark is due to meet U.S. president
Carter, covered more than offshore
resources. At the top of the discus-
sion was undoubtedly the future of
PetroCan and stepped up exports of
natural gas.to the U.S.

The Socred government fully
supports the Tory policy to sell
Petrocan. Coming soon after its

own disposal of B.C. crown corpor- .

ations through the BCRIC share
plan, the sale of Petrocan in what-
ever form it takes place is com-
pletely in line with Socred policy.
Undoubtedly Bennett and Clark
discussed what share of Petrocan
the corporations in B.C. will be able
to grab when the crown-owned oil
company is put up for sale. The
B.C. government makes no secret
about the fact that the B.C. Re-

_ sources Investment Corporation is

seriously considering buying up the
30 per cent of Westcoast Trans-
mission shares now held by
Petrocan. Like beasts of prey, they
are waiting for the kill to carve up
Petrocan’s carcass.

The announcement by Clark, fol-

lowing the meeting with Bennett, ~

that the province will be given con-
trol over offshore resources, is part
of the pattern of selling out energy
resources to U.S. multinational cor-
porations. While this is being pre-
sented as a victory for the province,
in actual fact it is a victory for the

giant U.S. multinationals who have ~

already staked out and have been
granted leases for more than 90 per

‘cent of B.C.’s offshore regions.

Shell Oil holds the biggest chunk,
some 12 million acres spread from
the south end of Vancouver Island
to the end of Hecate Strait. Gulf Oil
holds another large chunk with
leases covering over one million

acres. They have held these leases
for years and have not paid a cent
for the leases since 1970 when the
Socred government passed an
order-in-council suspending
Payments or requirements to work
their claims.

“It’s not the people of B.C. who~
_will reap the main benefit from any
future development; but the U.S.
mulfinationals who have already
thrown their net over our offshore
resources.

These same U.S. corporations are
extending their control of B.C.’s
vast coal resources., Gulf Oil, Shell
and Esso have already staked out
hundreds of coal leases. Between
them and Kaiser they have seized
the Jion’s share of the province’s
coal resources for export to the
U.S. and Japan. Gulf Oil alone
have over 400 leases and has applied
for another 100. Here again, these
U.S. multinationals do not have to
pay a single cent to hold these
leases. All they are required to do is
spend $5.00 in work per hectare for
the first year they hold the leases.

Now on top of this, there is re-
newed interest in the U.S. to revive
the NAWAPA plan which will see a
massive export of water from the
Rocky Mountain Trench to the
US: .

The Socred sellout of B.C. energy
resources should be strongly oppos-
ed. The public should demand that
B.C. oppose the sale of Petrocan
and that it be retained as a crown
corporation; and that offshore
leases to the multinationals be can-
celled and that these resources. be
developed under public ownership.

They should demand cancellation
of coal leases held by the multina-
tionals and adoption of a coal
policy to ensure maximum use of
coal in B.C. arid Canada for eco-
nomic development under public
ownership instead of massive ex-
ports at fire sale prices. The public
should demand a rollback in
natural gas exports to the U.S. and
a statement from premier Bennett
that under no circumstances will he
permit the export of water to the
U.S. .

f

Soaring interest rate no answer
to falling dollar—or inflation

“benefits”? of foreign control of
our economy. For 1979 this inter-

national payments deficit is esti-.

mated to reach $7 billion. It is
made up primarily of interest pay-

capital and dividend payments to
foreign owners of investment
ital. :
The US: government has like-
wise been raising interest rates 1n
an attempt to stop the flow of
money out of the U.S., and to

bolster the confidence in the dol- -

lar as a stable international cur-
rency. What the U.S. and Cana-
dian governments have failed to
recognize Or admit is that U.S.
(and consequently Canadian)
interest rate policy has failed to
halt the devaluation of the dollar.
Money markets and currencies in
the Western world are in a state i
general crisis reflecting the genera
condition of deepening economic

ments to foreign owners of loan.

crisis and instability.

Meanwhile Canadians are sup-
posed to accept the lie that higher
interest rates are anti-inflationary
if they help bolster the value of the
dollar. But they do not, and the
result is that the real cost of living
will increase, not decrease.

The prime lending rate, the in-
terest rate which banks charge
their best, customers in the busi-
ness community, is now at about
14 per cent. This is a cost factor to
business that is eventually incor-
porated into the consumer price of
goods and services.

The major portion of consumer
spending on large items of neces-
sity such as housing, furnishings,
appliances, cars and clothes is fi-
nanced through some form of-
credit or borrowing. .

The new housing mortgage in-
terest rates, for example, are 12%
per cent for NHA loans and 13 per

cent for no penalty short-term
loans. If you qualified for a Credit
Union mortgage two years ago at
9% per cent you will now have to
renew that mortgage at 124% per
cent and incur increased mortgage ©
costs of 32 per cent. On a $40,000
mortgage this represents an in-
crease of approximately $720 per
year. And the proposed tax credit
for mortgage interest and proper-
ty taxes will be of little help. The
maximum joint credit for mort-
gage interest and property taxes
will be of little help. The max-
imum joint credit for mortgage in-
terest and property taxes will be
only $375 for 1979.
Conservative economists have.
béen trying to sell the ridiculous
idea that we will all be better off in
the long run with higher interest
rates now. They claim that a tight ©
money policy under present condi-
tions is anti-inflationary. Michael

- 100 per cent are-easier to live with

The fact is that the interest rate
_ — the cost of borrowing money —

_ hands of government to further

Walker of the Fraser Institute, a
example, is quoted in the press
recently as saying that there is
nothing inflationary about higher
interest rates, and in any event the
cost of borrowing money is now
cheaper in real terms than it was
several years ago because the dif-
ference between the inflation rate
and interest rates is now smaller
than it was. If you carried this
convoluted logic to its ultimate
conclusion he would have us
believing that interest rates of 100
per cent with an inflation rate of

than interest rates of 13 per cent
and inflation at nine per cent.

is a component in the real cost of -
living. Higher interest rates reflect’
the increased cost of borrowing
money to purchase goods and ser-
vices and consequently cause a de-
crease in the purchasing power of
dollars earned. This is what infla- -
tion means to wage earners. Con-
sequently interest rate policies
designed to assist foreign borrow-
ing and to attract or retain foreign
investment are instruments in the

reduce the living standards of
Canadians.
: is

Ne ‘
for *8ing indebtedness to
Teigners

'
’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 5, 1979—Page 3