NDP CHALLENGES BENNETT:

TELL PEOPLE THE TRUTH

ABOUT COLUMBIA SCANDAL

Premier Bennett was challenged this week by the New Democratic Party
to tell the people of B.C. the truth about Columbia River costs. Speaking in
Salmon Arm Tuesday night, Robert Strachan, NDP provincial leader, charged
that Bennett is misleading the public and that B.C.’s taxpayers will hav2 to
foot a $150 million bill to build dams on the Columbia to store water for the

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 1966
VOL. 27, NO. 34

U.S.

Demanding that Premier Ben-
nett give the people the facts now,
Strachan pointed out that on July
15. 1963, Bennett said: “The
Peace and Columbia are not going
to cost the taxpayer a single
cent,’’ Since then, saidStrachan,
Bennett has maintained all along
that the money obtained from the
U.S. plus interest would pay the

AT THE PNE PARADE. Hundreds of thousands of people Glena the parade route and on TV last
Saturday saw this B.C. Peace Council float urging: ‘‘Let them live and play! Stop: Vietnam

She es =

—Edward photo

Unions unite to defeat
Socred labor minister

Expressing its strong dissatis-
faction with the anti-labor record
of the Socred government, the
B.C, Federation of Labor last
Week decided to call on all unions
to concentrate their efforts inthe
Vancouver-Little Mountain riding

to defeat Labor Minister Peter-
son,

Following this action by the .

trade unions, Harold Pritchett,
Communist candidate in the
Tiding, announced last Thursday
that he would withdraw his nomi-
Nation and throw his full support
behind labor’s effort to roll up
a united vote against the Socred
Minister of Labor,

In a statement released to the
Press, Pritchett made the follow-
ing points:

“Earlier this week I had the
honor to be nominated by the
Communist Party to. contest the
newly created constituency of
Little Mountain for the Septem-
ber 12th Provincial election,

“In accepting the nomination I
stated to the nominating conven-
tion that “I would challenge Labor
Minister Peterson, who is acan-
didate in that riding, on the
labor record of his government,”

BOB CLAIR
NDP candidate opposing
Socred labor minister

I called for a new labor act
which would deny big corpora-
tions from the indiscriminate use
of injunctions and ensure labor
the right to a say in the planning
of automation,

“The Communist Party con-
siders this issue along with the
subservience of the Bennett gov-
ernment to the big monopolies and
its sellout of our resources to
the U.S. to be the real issues in
the election campaign,

“We consider the Communist
Party alone of the political
parties in B.C, has hammered
consistently on these issues and
tried to unite all labor and demo-
cratic forces in the province

to win new alternate policies in

the true interests of our people,

“It is to this end that wenomi-
nated in the Little Mountain rid-
ing, along with six other constitu-
encies, to take our program tothe
people and to win Communist
representation at Victoria which

See LABOR, pg. 8

entire cost of three dams plus
50 percent of the cost of gener-
ators at Mica Dam,

“J said at that time that he
was misleading the people and I
challenge him now to tell the
public the unpleasant truth before
they go to the polls on Septem-
ber 12,” said Strachan.

Branding the saleof B.C. cheap
hydro power to the U.S. as a
“fire sale,” Strachan said that the
Annual Report of B.C. Hydro
shows that only $198 million was
left of the money received from
the U.S. and that “this money
plus interest will definitely not
complete the three dams, let
alone pay half the cost of gen-
erators in Mica Dam,

The NDP leader said that this
money will be used up by the
end of 1967 and there will still
be over five years of construc-
tion to- complete. He charged that
“approximately $150 million will
have to be taken from the tax-
payer to complete the project.”

Strachan drew attention to a

recent statement by U.S. Pres-

ident Johnson that thanks to the
Columbia Treaty signed by the
Socreds and Federal Liberal gov-
ernment, the American Grand
Coulee Dam “will be the biggest
power development in the world,”

“This news,’’ said Strachan,
“confirms the real Socred power
policy: Sell your cheap Columbia
power to the U.S. and force the
sale of high-priced power. from
the Peace River onto the lower
mainland.’’

The Pacific Tribune was one
of the first newspapers in B.C,
to break the story surrounding
the Columbia River scandal, A
feature article in the June 10th
edition gave facts and figures to
show the extent of Premier Ben-
nett’s sellout of the Columbia,

Last week PT associate editor
Maurice Rush; whois Communist
candidate in North Vancouver-
Seymour, charged that Bennett
wants to get the election out of
the way before the full impact of
the Columbia River scandal
breaks.

Railway workers fight
for overdue wage gain

Canada’s 120,000 railway
workers on both major rail lines,
the CPR and CNR are scheduled
to go on strike Friday this week
in support of long overdue wage
increases. The two railway sys-
tems declare they “cannot afford”
to meet such wage hikes.

Prime Minister Pearson and
his cabinet members have held
meetings during the past week
in search of a “formula’’ to head
off the threatened rail tieup,
Labor Minister Jack Nicholson
calls for a “last ditch mediation”
of the dispute in an effort to
avoid a strike,

Railway and union officials
have been in Ottawa for a num-
ber of “talks” with government
officials, but so far no change in
the situation has materialized,
According to union representa-
tives there is actually nothing to
“mediate” since the parties in-
volved in the dispute have never
actually been in collective bar-
gaining negotiations,

In preparation for the rail
strike crisis Prime Minister
Pearson has called a special
emergency session of Parliament
to open Monday, August 29 for
the purpose of passing legislation
designed to end the strike,

While Pearson and other gov-

ernment spokesmen have stated
that a ‘*modest” wage increase
for railway workers is in order,
(conveniently forgetting their own
“modest” salary hike of $8,00C
more or less they voted them-
selves), anything above what they
term “modest® is declared to
be “highly inflationary’? and
therefore ‘‘disastrous to the Can-
adian economy.”

From Prime Minister Pear-
son’s nation-wide TV address the
government’s “formula” with the
railway unions for settlement will
be “return-to-work” legislation
with a “modest” wage increase
(unstated but well below union
demands), Tacked on to this
“formula” also the hint of com-
pulsory arbitration procedures
for all railway workers as “qa
measure for safeguarding the
national economy and security.”

The railway companies, the
“free enterprise” CPR and the
government-owned CNR want the.
implementation of certain
recommendations of the Mac-
Pherson Royal Commission re-
port on Canada’s railways. These
could include statutory author-
ization for the railway companies
to close down “unprofitable”
branch lines and cut staff.

Most important, however,
See RAILWAYS, pg. 8