“Don’t stand there doing nothing, Perkins. Go around and
mark up a few price increases.”

COPE to run full slate,
leaves unity door open |

The Committee of Progressive
Electors will be running a full slate
“including a_ strong mayoralty

‘candidate”’ in the November civic

elections, COPE president Bruce
Yorke announced this week.

Yorke said that COPE decided to
go ahead and field a full slate of 27
candidates following a meeting of
its executive last week which
reviewed the efforts the civic
group had made towards forming
an alliance of reform minded
groups to contest the elections.

“It’s become fairly clear in the
last few months that there has been
a distinct rightward drift in TEAM,
until now it is virtually nothing
more than the’ NPA. This has ob-
viously left a void from the centre
to the left in the civic scene and
we've been actively promoting an
alliance which would field a
common group of candidates under
a common name, with a common
program and financial pool to fill
that void.

“But, at the same time we’ve
always said that adopting a “wait
and see’’ attitude towards
developments in the other civic

Why are beef

The regular monthly food price
survey released last week by the
federal Anti-Inflation Board
reports that in July and August a
“significant’’ drop in the price of
beef in major Canadian cities —
except Vancouver — accounted for
anine-tenths of one percent drop in
Canada’s food price index.

The AIB couples that an-
nouncement with a warning that
beef prices are due for a sharp rise
in the next few months which may
spark another rise in the food in-
dex. Thus Vancouver consumers
can look forward to sharply
escalating food prices, especially
beef, before they even had a
chance to enjoy any of the benefits
of lower beef prices because of the
surplus of beef cattle this summer.

According to the AIB, retail beef
prices across Canada are about 3.2
percent below levels of last month
and 12.9 percent below
corresponsing prices last year.
But, it adds that not all regions
have benefitted equally from lower
beef prices, and names Vancouver
as the region which benefitted
least.

Thereport states that Vancouver
consumers do not seem to have
benefitted to the same extent and
that average retail prices for the
more popular beef cuts in Van-
couver are “significantly” higher
than prices for corresponding cuts
in major centres in central and
eastern Canada.

This observation is all the more
revealing because most Canadian
beef comes from Alberta, and
since B.C. is much closer to this
major beef producing area than
Toronto or Montreal, one would
assume that the lower cost of
transportation would mean lower
prices in B.C, But that is obviously
not so. :

The AIB does give B.C. con-
sumers a clue as to why this state
of affairs exists when it points out
that the lower prices of beef in
Toronto and Montreal coincided
with a price war between the
major supermarkets.

The major reason for the higher
beef prices — as well as the higher
cost of all food in B.C. — is
monopoly control by the two major

prices so high?

food chains, Safeway and Super-
valu, and the lack of any com-
petition between them. This is
particularly noticeable in beef
prices. :

The AIB does not concern itself
with rising prices — only with
freezing or rolling back workers’
incomes, All it does is monitor
prices, but that doesn’t help con-
sumers. They already know they
are being robbed.

groups would prove to be fatal.

“At this time we feel that with
time running out we have to make
a move, and to that end we have
decided to run the full slate, and
have scheduled a policy session for
September 7 in the Sheraton Plaza
500 Hotel. We will be nominating
candidates on September 12.”

Yorke said that all of the various
groups which COPE has carried on
discussions with in the past few
months towards a unity slate would
be invited to the September 7
policy meeting.

‘We're still fully prepared to join
in on a unity slate under another
name, but the time for waiting is
past. Right now we’ve got the ball,
and we’re running with it. Any
other reform group who wishes to
join with us is more than welcome.
We're still looking for maximum
unity,’’ Yorke said.

The COPE president said that

BRUCE YORKE

Surrey housing stand hit

The Surrey Club of the Com-
munist Party of Canada has
condemned the decision of the
Surrey municipal council to freeze
the construction of all houses with
Jess than 1,200 square feet, and
non-basement houses of under
1,400 square feet.

The Surrey communists said that
such a move was “‘directly aimed
at preventing much needed, low
cost, federally assisted housing
projects” and will have the net

effect of turning Surrey into a
“‘preserve for the rich.”’

The CP club said that the ban-
ning of small house construction
would. not solve any of the
municipality’s taxation problems,
as has been claimed by mayor Ed
McKitka, and called on the council
to press for changes in the taxation
structure which will force “‘major
industries, large chain stores, and
land developers to pay their fair
share of taxes.’

although the final decision
candidates will not be made unl
September 12, already col)
mitments have been exacted fro
anumber of civic leaders includifit|
himself, Alderman Harry Rankily
DERA president Bruce Erikseli)
Grandview Tenants Associatio® :
president Doug Laalo, Libby)
Davies, Connie Kehoe and othel)
that they will seek nomination |
the COPE slate. As well, Yor
said that there are a number
other people who are not at pres
members of COPE who will
approached to run under the CO
banner. |
Alderman Harry Rankin, W™
was present at the press Col)
ference, said that all candidate)
who have agreed to stand are very
active in the community and are
all very able to put COPE*)
position to the public. §
Yorke said that COPE’s mel
bership currently stands at aboll|
450, up from last year’s figure
300. He said that most of the neW
members have come to COPE #|
the last few months as a result df
the establishment of COPE’s are?)
committees which now function
ten of the city’s former Communil)
Resource Board areas. *
“The people who are joiniig
COPE are working members;
Yorke said. ‘‘We’ve been activ?
year round on community issues —
the proposed truck route fo!)
Boundary Road, the new runway
for the airport, tenants’ issues, th?
Standard of Maintenance and Fifé
Bylaw enforcement questions:|

Each one of these campaigns ha)

drawn more people to COPE.”
Yorke said that the COPE

executive had met with the)

executive of the Vancouver am
District Labor Council and that the}

VLC executive “had indicated tha! |

they will endorse COPE and
participate in the campaign.
Yorke said that this was 4
significant addition to the COPE
campaign.

Upon questioning, Yorke said |

that COPE was not interested
endorsing candidates, as had bee?
speculated by members of thé
media. ‘‘We’re running a slate:
We're not leaving a slot open fo!
any particular candidates, al!

we’re not going to be endorsiné
people not on our slate,”
declared.

—

he |

AR ancient continent which measured the dynasties of its
teeming millions by centuries, was girding again for
battle. Names scarcely known were again beginning to
assert themselves: Sun Yat-sen, Chou En-lia, Chu Teh,
Mao Tze-tung. The names are legion.

It was twenty minutes after five, November 13, 1939,
close to 40 years since Doctor Norman Bethune bade a

final farewell to his Chinese compatriots, and to millions

~ in Spain and Canada. His kind do not often inhabit this

teeming earth. When they do it is as if a flaming meteor
_ had flashed across the heavens to restore Mankind’s faith
in himself and his fellow men.

This is not and cannot be a “‘history”’ of the man known
as Norman Bethune, neither a chronicle of his work in
Canada, in’ war-torn Spain during the brief days of
Republican Spain, or for that matter the great epic of the
Bethune Medical Mission in China: But it centers on China
because it was there that the last days of his life were
spent bringing succor to the wounded and dying, and by
which — often with sorely inadequate supplies and human
aid — Norman Bethune spent the last days of his young
life fulfilling with woefully inadequate supplies, that last
duty which welds all men of sterling purpose into a
deathless Brotherhood. Norman Bethune was such a man.

This week I received an invitation which made me at

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 3, 1976—Page 2

once deeply proud and infinitely sad. Proud that the
government of Canada had at long last confirmed its

recognition of the memory of Norman Bethune, and sad

because the neglect which had hastened the passing of an
eminent surgeon and doctor was accentuated by small
men.

“The Department of External Affairs and the Depart-
ment of Indian and Northern Affairs cordially invite you
to attend the ceremonial opening of the Dr. Henry Nor-
man Bethune House, 2:00 p.m., Monday, August 30, 1976,
Gravenhurst, Ontario. R.S.V.P.’’.

Verily, the ‘‘Mills of the Gods grind slow and they grind
exceeding fine’’ but after all the fact that they do “grind”
is the all-important factor in a long-delayed recognition.

I shared the honor of chairing many meetings for Dr.
Norman Bethune in British Columbia, of many personal
meetings and interviews with this unique medical
practitioner and man; of our last goodbyes as the Em-
press of Asia cast off those flimsy ribbon tapes that bind

loved ones twix shore and ocean. Even as the ship’s band

played its farewell, Bethune was planing all he could do to
ease. the suffering of a New Peoples China.

It was and is symbolic that as the fredom of a New Spain
dawns upon the horizons of today, the memory and pride
in his achievements for a New China are no less pressing,
and will yet triumph over all obstacles, over all the storms
and stresses of a new age. That was the dream of the
countless millions of China who mourned his untimely
passing.

One night shortly before he died Norman Bethune
wrote: “I am tired, but I don’t think I have been so happy
for along time. I am content. I am doing what I want to do.
And see what my riches consist of! I have vital work that

than that — to satisfy my bourgeois vanity — the need fot
me is expressed.

“T have no money or the need for it. I have thé
inestimable good fortune to be among and to work among
people to whom Communism is a way of life, not merely 4
way of talking and thinking. Their Communism is simplé
and profound, reflex as a knee jerk, unconscious as thé
movements of their lungs, automatic as the beating of thé
heart. They are implacable in their hate; world:
embracing in their love...” a

In October of 1956, seventeen years after the passing of
Norman Bethune, I visited the vast . and beautiful 4
cemetery of Shih Chua-Chuan where he rests from his
labors. The inscription on the headstone is the simplicilY
of a name, but in the minds and hearts of millions wh?
came to know him — and yet to know him, the memory hé
left grows ever richer with time. The ‘Pai Chu En” of
yesterday lives in the hearts and minds of all Humanity
who honor him today. |

 IRBUNE

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

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