Party moved to the right at Victoria

BY DAVE WERLIN

Tommy Douglas, longtime CCF
Premier of Saskatchewan and
federal leader of the New
Democratic Party, once said, ‘My
dread has never been that the
Party will be too radical. My dread
has been that the party will settle
into a rut and become complacent.
People who act as gadflies are

Useful in keeping you from

becoming So over-cautious in order
to get the support of the middle
Class that you dilute the party and
tone it down until it becomes in-
distinguishable from, say, a
Liberal Party.” (Quoted in Tommy
Douglas, a Biography, by Doris
Shackleton).

’ AS a visitor to the B.C. provincial
Convention of the New Democratic
Party held in Victoria May 19 to
May 22, I cannot but. share

Douglas’ dread for the future of the

P. For in an obvious attempt to
Polish up the party’s image for the
Next provincial election, the key
Issues facing the people of B.C.
Were kept off the floor of the NDP’s
Convention.

Instead the party leadership bent
Over backwards, and sometimes in
4 most overt manner, to prevent
anything of a controversial
Manner from coming before the
delegates, lest it scare off even the
Most uncertain of the NDP’s
Prospective votes. It was as if

Ving once savored electoral
Success and government power,
the NDP leadership would allow
nothing, including philosophy,
Principle, or the needs of the
People, to come between it and its
electoral objectives.

A case in point was a resolution
dealing with the status of Quebec
within" confederation. The
resolution, submitted by the
Kamloops constituency, (number
G-78-5 in the Judicial Affairs and
Corrections section of the
Tesolutions book) was critical of
Prime minister Trudeau’s vow to
Use force to keep Quebec within
Confederation. It indicated that the
BC. NDP has not adopted or
Publicly stated a policy on the issue
Of Quebec and called for
recognition of the right of the
People of Quebec to determine
their own future, without the threat
O force of any kind from the
€deral government.

The resolution was ac tually quite
Mild and in line with many similar
"esolutions adopted by the trade

union movement in B.C. and
throughout Canada. But it was
obviously too hot for the leadership
of the NDP too handle. The result
was that the resolution was kept off
the floor with an excuse advanced
by chairman Gerry Stoney that the
time allotted to the panel on
Judicial Affairs and Corrections
had expired.

A number of attempts by
delegates to extend the panel’s
time by five minutes to allow the
resolution to come to the floor were
then either ruled out of order or
were voted down by the majority of
delegates who felt compelled to
support the chairman in his bid to
keep the convention from “‘falling

behind schedule.’’ Not long after ~

the squabble on the floor over the
resolution, however, the newly
elected president was allowed an
unscheduled speech, as it was then
acknowledged that the convention
was running ahead of schedule.

It is significant that only a few
days after the conclusion of the
convention, NDP leader Dave
Barrett, in a speech to the Mac-
Donald - Cartier club said that he is
an unreconstructed monarchist
and said that he viewed the issue of
constitutional reform as
“fraudulent.”

Rights and wishes of the
membership aside, the NDP
leader made that declaration only
a few days after the rank and file
are denied the right to debate the
issue in convention!

On other policy matters, the
convention was presented with a
draft economic policy paper. It
proposed: full employment and
price stability; a high standard of
living and efficient resource
utilization; environmental health
and occupational safety; economic
growth. However, the very general
resolution was referred to the
economic development committee
with directions to present a
comprehensive economic
development plan to the 1979
convention.

Towards the end of the con-
vention, nine emergency
resolutions were presented, each of
which was adopted. Included were
resolutions:

e Calling upon NDP members
and elected officials to raise their
voices against bank loans and
other financial support to the
repressive regimes in Chile and
South Africa.

oS

‘

IWA Local 357 president Gerry Stoney was elected president of the

New Democratic Party in B.C., at its provincial convention in Vic-
toria but his election alone will not remove the deep going policy
differences that the party has with the labor movement.

e Appealing to the special
United Nations session on disar-
mament to agree on definite steps
to halt the arms race, and calling
on all nuclear powers to stop all
tests and discontinue research,
development and deployment of
nuclear weapons.

e Opposing any alteration of
Canada’s boundary with the United
Statses at Dixon Entrance.

e Opposing further in-
dustrialization of the Cowichan-
Koksilah estuary.

The adoption of these resolutions
are to the convention’s credit, but
it must be said,that, in general, the
convention failed to address itself
to the key issues facing the
province.

In particular, Bill 14, the new
Forestry Act, which will constitute
the most scandalous sell out of our
forest industry ever, was not even
mentioned by the MLA’s who will
face the leislation in the
legislature.

Rising prices, unemployment,
housing, and other major issues
also received scant attention.

The debate on labor issues
received significant attention only
in regard to ‘‘right-to-work’’
legislation. The convention took an
excellent position in opposition to
“right-to-work’’ laws, but it
ignored other important labor

problems such as the accreditation
of employers’ organizations,
organizing the unorganized and
the Combines attack on the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers’
Union.

The elections for a new
provincial leadership for the NDP
saw former president John Brewin
step down to seek nomination as a
candidate in the n e x t provincial
election. Gerry Stoney of Port
Coquitlam, president of Local 1-357
of the International Woodworkers

of America, won the position by,

acclamation.

The. election .of Stoney to..the
presidency, the first union leader
to-occupy the post in recent years,
raises an important question. Has
the well known and much
publicized rift between organized
labor and the NDP finally been
healed?

Many convention delegates were
hopeful; others were skeptical.
Still others, whose view I share,
said ‘‘no way.” Stoney, after all, is
an advocate of the “my party,
right or wrong” theory in the labor

movement. He was an adversary

of the Johnston - Guy leadership of
the B.C. Federation of Labor in the
bitter dispute which was centered
on the issue of the trade union
movement’s independent defense
of labor’s rights. In contrast to

NDP convention evades key issues

Stoney, the Federation leadership
maintained that while supporting
the NDP, they would reserve the
right to criticize it when it acted
against the interests of the trade
union movement and working
people.

It may be said that the difference
between the NDP leadership and
organized labor has been shunted
aside, at least pending the outcome
of the next provincial election.
While Stoney’s election may in-
dicate that, it in no way resolves
the fundamental differences over
policy which are at the root of the
rift with labor.

In Stoney’s acceptance speech he
made no reference to the need for
the NDP to be more responsive to
the demands of the labor
movement. Instead, he advocated
that MLA’s spend more time
wooing labor by attending union
meetings to remind the rank and
file about the good legislation
adopted by the former NDP
government.

Dave Barrett was also re-elected
by acclamation as provincial
leader. With both a federal and
provincial election in the offing, a
challenge to his leadership was out
of the question. But whenever
groups of delegates met, his
stewardship of the party was the
basis for a lively discussion.

In the election of the provincial
executive and other officers, the
official slate carried in each case.
Terri Ash from Kamloops,
previously an executive member-
at-large, and considered by many
to be representative of the left wing
of the NDP, was defeated in her bid
for re-election. She, along with Ron
Fournier of Vancouver, were sub-
sequently ‘ elected as alternate
members of the provincial execu-
tive. Two other members of the
party’s women’s rights committee,
also considered on the left, were
likewise defeated in the election for
the executive.

Among the thousands who have
joined the NDP in recent years
there are many who saw in the
party a “‘socialist alternative” to
the right wing old line parties.
Those militants, the kind of which
Tommy Douglas spoke, were
either absent or silent at the NDP
convention. If they were present,
they must have returned home
disappointed and disillusioned, for
the NDP moved to the right that
weekend in Victoria.

Companies push NEB for increased exports

The National Energy Board’s
©xtraordinary hearings on oil
Supply and demand came to
ancouver Wednesday to hear
nefs from about 13 interested
Parties, and among them the bulk
of the public interest groups that
an be expected to counter the
arguments. of the multinational oil

_ Corporations.

Jack Nichol, president of the
Nited Fishermen and Allied
Be ners Union presented his
Nion’s detailed case for
nationalization of the oil industry
Beste basis for an all-Canadian
nergy policy, Thursday as the
Tribune went to press. Of more
p80 submissions to the NEB
*arings, the UFAWU brief is the
only one from the labor movement,
hd it is the only brief calling for a

W energy policy based on public
Wnership.

Also presenting arguments to the
hearing at the Vancouver

Hotel will be SPEC, Save Our

Shores, Sierra Clubs, Smithers
Conservation Centre, the Union of
B.C. Indian Chiefs and the
Coalition Against Supertankers.
The Vancouver Board of Trade,
Chevron, Trans Mountain Pipeline
Co. and West Coast Transmission
are also scheduled to appear.

The hearings opened last week in
Calgary with the announced in-
tention of reviewing oil supplies in
Canada and estimating needs to
update government policy and
regulations. As expected, however,
the giant oil companies have made
use of their monopoly on vital
information to manipulate the
hearings to their own advantage.

At the last NEB hearings on oil
supply in 1976, the oil companies
insisted that Canada would run out
of oil by the mid 1980’s unless
prices were allowed to rise to
encourage exploration. This time
the companies are claiming sur-
pluses of oil and gas in order to
justify increased exports, which at

current high world prices will
bring quick cash profits.

“The term being used is ‘un-
fettered access to export
markets’,’”’ Arnie Thomlinson,
UFAWU participant at the Calgary
hearings explained, ‘‘They want
complete freedom to export as
much gas and oil as they can pump
out of the ground right now.”

Claims of surpluses and the
demand for the right to export
immediately was the common
theme of the about 15 companies
that presented briefs in Calgary.
Led by the Canadian Petroleum
Association, umbrella groups for
the oil industry, oil companies such
as AMOCO, Ashland, Dome, Mobil,
Home and Hudsons Bay all joined
in the chorus for unrestricted
exports.

The same refrain will be echoed
by the main multinationals, Im-
perial, Gulf, Shell and Texaco,
when they present their briefs next
week in Ottawa. The giant com-

panies are contending that the
quick profits from exports are
needed to develop the capital in-
tensive Alberta tar sands and to
build plants to process the heavy
oil deposits recently discovered in
Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The UFAWU, in its submission,
has called for the conservation of
Canadian oil and gas and the
development of the tar sands and
heavy oil deposits under public
ownership.

Even if the multinationals get
their way, it is doubtful that
progress on the tar sands will be
speeded, Thomlinson said, because
the companies are likely to invest
the profits around the world to
garner the highest return. Under
his cross examination at Calgary,
oil company spokesmen admitted
that they could offer ‘no
guarantees’’ that profits from
exports would be reinvested in
Canada.

Thomlinson said he was
“pleasantly surprised’ with the

procedures of the NEB hearings
which allowed participants to

cross-examine witnesses. Besides’

the NEB’s own counsel, however,
only he and an Calgary based
Committee for Responsible Nor-
thern Development, bothered to
cross examine any witnesses. ‘‘The
oil companies apparantly chose not
to ask each other embarrasing
questions in public,’’ he said.

While most companies opted not
to compromise their argument for
exports with statements indicating
a need for a west coast oil port,
other companies, Kitimat
Pipeline Company in particular,
did argue for a west coast oil port.
It is also likely to be pushed in
Vancouver by Trans Mountain
Pipeline co.

Foothills Oil Company, the main
company in the Alcan gas pipeline,
also proposed a west coast oil port,
at Skagway Alaska with a pipeline
northeast linking into the Alcan
gas line route to Alberta.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 2, 1978—Page 3