THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

ist Issue
Dec. 1964

A Merry
bristmas

THE Officers and members of the Regional Council,

and the members of the Editorial Board take pleas-
ure once again in extending to all IWA members and
their families sincere best wishes for a very Merry
Christmas,

It is the earnest wish that all may enjoy the festive
season and find a larger measure of happiness and pros-
perity in the New Year.

As an organization we have earned the right to
speak of the Christmas spirit, because throughout the
year we have devoted ourselves to the deeds which give
reality to the sentiment of the season’s greetings.

The Union has recorded a year of notable progress.
It may be said with pride, that all of the workers repre-
sented have gained important and beneficial results from
the Union’s championship.

With a good year behind us and an organization
that is solid and sound, we may face the New Year with
confidence. Its problems are a challenge, and at the
same time an opportunity. Our organization will be
come bigger and better only as we together reach for
bigger and better goals.

MEDICARE THEME
BACKED BY CLC

THe Canadian Labour Congress will make Medicare

the theme of its Citizenship Month program in Feb-
ruary, 1965, Claude Jodoin, president of the CLC an-
nounced. The labor organization’s Executive Council,
meeting in Ottawa, also decided that the Citizenship
Month program should mark the start of a drive toward
inauguration of health services in line with the recomen-
dations of the Hall Commission by Canada’s centennial
year.

“Canada could give no better centennial birthday
present to her people than assurance of full health
services,” Mr. Jodoin said. “The Canadian labor move-
ment has always been in the forefront of efforts to
obtain better social provisions for all people. Seldom
has there been an objective which is as deserving and
necessary as Medicare.

“The recent intensive study made by the Royal Com-
mission under Mr. Justice Hall has proven beyond alll
doubt that such a program is within our reach. At the
same time the Commisison has emphasized that short-
ages of personnel should not be used as an excuse to

delay initiating programs and plans.

“We propose rallying the entire support of the
labour movement toward this objective. All sections of
our movement will be asked to direct their attention to
medicare next February and from that point on we
propose continuing a program so that with the ob-
servance of our country’s centenary these long-delayed
services will be within the reach of every Canadian.”

Published twice ge as the official publication of the .27>,

ATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA
Western ianiaien Regional! Council No. 1. Affiliated with AFL-C1O-CLC

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_ sion.

LABOUR
IN
POLITICS

HELP TURN CANADA
RIGHT SIDE UP

Poverty in the midst of plenty |

By JACK MacKENZIE

Regional Ist Vice-President

We. live in an age of rapid change. The
wonders of science and technology
together with bountiful natural resources
have created a way of life our forebears
never knew. Comforts once though of as
luxuries are now commonplace and have be-
come necessities. Mechanical mysteries and
labour-saving devices are now found in the
homes of workers, as well as in those of
their employers.

Many people drive to work in late model
cars in the- expanding suburbs. Good roads
and super-highways criss- Rs ee |
cross the province. Billboards, |
TV, radio and magazines ad- |
vertise the good things of life. |
“We’ve never had it so good” |
has become a common expres-

Yet, within the last few
years certain people have
come to the disturbing con-
clusion that our expanding
economy has not brought improvements in
living standards to all in equal measure.
Poverty today exists side by side with af-
fluence. The organized workers have been
able to win increases in wages, improvements
in fringe benefits and some measure of legis-
lative protection. So, in a very small way,
the organized workers participate in the cur-
rent affluence; but a growing section of the
population is getting less and less of its share
in the expanding economy.

The rise, over the years, of the gross na-
tional product has lulled many people into a
sense of complacency about the poor. A myth
has been created which assumes that the
unemployment problem is licked and that,
through some built-in magic in our economy,
poverty has been eliminated and income is
being more equitably distributed.

The grim fact is that while automation,

technological changes and new methods of

production have raised the standard of living
for the majority, these same changes have
created major social changes and economic
problems for a constantly growing minority.

The Trade Union movement has had a
long history of fighting poverty that was one
of the reasons why workers first organized
into Unions. Ever since its inception the
labour movement has dedicated its efforts to
the elimination of poverty, along with all the
other injustices which beset working people.
The apologists for the status quo, namely,

And so this year. .
to allow you married boys Christmas Eve at home!

the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Social
Credit Party concentrate on highlighting the
rise in living standards of the middle and
upper income groups. By ignoring the lowest
income groups they hope to will it out of
existence.

The Dominion Bureau of Statistics—1961—
Census of Canada showed there are almost
6% million persons, or over 35% of the total
population of Canada living either in depriva-
tion, poverty or destitution. According to the
Census of Canada General Review 71% of
Canadian farm families, or over 144 million
farm persons can be said to be living in de-
privation, poverty or destitution.

Page after page is documented With facts
and figures in a powerful indictment of a
society that has the resources and techno-
logical know-how to send men into space but
has not the will to keep a fifth of the nation
properly fed, clothed and in good health. It
was Robert Louis Stevenson who said “The
saddest object in civilization and to his mind
the greatest confession of its failure is the
man who can work and wants to work but
is not allowed to work.”

It was Tommy Douglas, the National
Leader of the New Democratic Party who
said “give me 70 NDP MPs in the House of
Commons in Ottawa and I will turn that
House of Commons upside down. Give me
170 NDP MPs in the House of Commons in
Ottawa and I will turn Canada right side up.”

Don’t you think it is time we took the
film from our eyes and admit that the extent
of poverty in Canada is greater than most
people can imagine and greater than most
people are willing to believe. What is most
strange is that such poverty exists. in the
second wealthiest nation on earth.

There are grave inequities of income, so-
cial services, housing, education and oppor-
tunities among the people of this country,
yet for the first time in history we have the -
resources and the need at our command to
eliminate poverty. We can provide a better
future for all our people, a life free from
want, full of purpose and adorned with hap-
piness. All we need is the will to do it.

If only the workers of Canada would show
that they have that will by giving Tommy
Douglas, the National Leader of the New
Democratic Party, 170 NDP Members of
Parliament and thereby help him to put
Canada right side up!

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