-# =

tt Jabs by Ol Bill

Ur YG.

ns ; 9S earned for themselves the |: qr towns.” Everything was eee ir, but nothing ever came off. They Uliacteristic allesed i standine: national flexicans who are jeverything “ma- prow. -Much of #to business is Not (3 the West. The Wg] S 2 good sample

07 - - - allie things credited fne corporation, mg features of- ag xt to the amas- aia, are promises Biments “in the ic@acse we recall a i some big and - g but all promises which

never

the Bridge River power develop- * 28 to supply power for the great er which was to flourish in our #orld.. It started off with a great @cts and fizzled out like the squeal thistle about four years after: it Without providing enough power mophone jong enough to play a exme TecOrd to the end. That is, as # = concerned because it was jacked

be enough power to supply the me.

‘e was the Campbell River plan. ‘be another source of power and t the dark places and lighten the labor of the Vancouver Island ae wes abandoned about the time ou

J. Smith report to the Utilities j the Vancouver City Council in ‘ost the city about $20.000 and er acted upon by the Council, con ie BCCollectric system, the only ts kind on the North American regulated, was:obsolete; that the company were so mixed up that y. difficult, but almost impossible, her to arrive at any definite con- =s finances, that the roadbeds were or modern nor according to its wh the “city; that its method of isfuised the rates of profit and ost $22,000 annually thereby.

he effect of this criticism in the ancouver citizens the BCCollectric purchase half-a-million. dollars street cars in the following year. - promise fell down also.

y had car tracks laid on Georgia its construction, with the promise . line from Main to Granville to affie jams on Hastings; another never came off, for not one street un on these tracks laid 32 years

1 fell out of all these beautiful

7

re ga days in the West many jerk. -

The BCCollectric is an Excellent ‘ Example of ‘Manana’ Philosophy

Promises for the simple reason that the BCGol- leetric is not organized to serve the needs of the people of this town or country, except insofar as these needs enable the company to pay dividends. Not public seryice, but public disservice is its rule; instead of a public utility it should be called a “public futility.” Proof of this lies in the fact that Vancouver is the only spot in the British Empire, thousands of miles from the battlefront, that suffers a nightly blackout (for the second time in its history, by the way) due to the inefficiency or greed; or both, of the BCCollectric.

Today we have another promise. The BC- Collectric is going to! spend fifty million dollars on improvements, “manana.” On their record we are justified in refusing to believe that the florid phrases of their desire to meet the needs of industrial expansion of our province, appear- ing in paid advertisements in the press, mean anything more than the’ promises mentioned above. Ae

Rather we are justified in assuming that the 50 million “manana” proposal is for the same

purpose as the promise to put ‘half-a-million ~

dollars worth of new street ears in operation in 1935—to offset the expressed will of the people of B.C. made known through Premier Harts proposal to take over the power and transpor- tation monopoly. and operate it as a people’s undertaking. : : :

With the change over from war to peace--

time industry the most vital factor in such a change will be cheap power. Efficient transpor- tation will also be a factor. This cannot, and will not, be supplied by a company whose first, and only reason for carrying on, is dividends

for its shareholders and imterest for the bond- _

holders.

And since we know they will not meet the situation, we would suggest they inquire from some worker the meaning of the old adage about doing something with a pot.

This is not a question that affects any one class in the community. It concerns every indi- vidual in B.G., workers, storekeepers, business- men and farmers alike. If jobs are to be made

‘available to all the men now in the armed sery- .

ices when demobilized and to the workers let out of war industry, a new set-up in the power industry must be established. Premier Hart must be supported in his proposals and: the city eouncils must be compelled to fall in line- : One Vancouver newspaper editorial writer asserts that the City Council could not run the street car system efficiently. It is done in other. places and if the Vancouver City CGouneil can- not do likewise, get a new one that can. Throw out the BCGollectrie stooges and put men in the

council whose interests are the interests of the —

1 ho put them there. : : ae ne "he price—the BCCollectric has told

their property is valued at 175 million ee The public oe Commie oe its purposes, placed the value o e }

se cde assets at $31,187,977.00. We sont want to buy junk, which is another name for t i BCCollectrie properties, and should not, but a we pay the price asked by the company it will he money’ well spent to get rid of this yampire

corporation.

of presenting.the argument is

istic predictions without heavy emphasis on the need for a

73 to me to be a bh of a tendency sf us who believe “world is possible s even under the

Some of us, I begin to bristle ention of such a begin to detail economic and

idations upon hope to avoid a rophe.

ally, TI think that s attitude to take Ky. Club technique

not much help in convincing someone we are right. After all, things are not going to be better automatically. life has neyer yet handed the people their bread and butter, leave alone cake, on a silver platter.

Yes, there can be a decent living for all of us after the war, if the United Nations stay that way, and we are kept united. But that means nothing more or less than a continuous struggle of the people.

And the workers, in particu- lar, understand this. Tt has been built into them by long years of their history until it js almost an instinct. No won- der, many of them greet op- timistic predictions with ree serve, often downright sus- picion.

There can be no such optim-

continuing struggle against re- action, a struggle which de- mands real strength and or- ganization. 5 With such emphasis, it can be explained that the added favorable feature today is that the range of our allies has broadened immensely. But even here it must be added that these allies, while ready to move in the same direction with us, need continual prod- ding. They also are faced with a new world, in some cases somewhat frighteningly new because of the company they. find themselves in, as well as the fact that they find that, in this topsy-turvy world, old friends and associates who used to be on the same side of the

fence are now enemies. = eee UNITAS.

Saturday, November 4, 1944 — Page 5 CIVIC AFFAIRS 1 sinnmnmnnnnnnnnrmnmnnnnn

Mayoralty Candidates

Enter the Civic Arena

A BY ELGIN RUDDELL

REETINGS to P. A. It’s a good name! Social reform and industrial development like charity begins at home. “Advocating” the satisfy- ing needs of the “Pacific”? area of our country is a useful and worthy. purpose. Canada as a country can only progress as its various parts progress.s And so best wishes in your labors to bring the democratic forces into step on the needs and issues of the hour.-

The fires begin to warm a little under the civic election kettle. This: week has seen a second contender enter the mayoral field. One of the aldermanic candidates takes a stand for civie participation in the B.C. Electrie take-over, and the partisan leaguers enter a slightly short scrub team for political propaganda. The new contender for the mayor’s chair, Dr. Worthington, has quite some experience in civic affairs.

While this by itself does not recommend anyone for the office, the

“lack of it is a serious handicap in the eyes of most citizens. During his

term as alderman he hag associated himself with and supported the few ‘positive achievements of the city council. One of these was the loaning of 100 city lots.to Wartime Housing for the erection of a similar number

- of homes for service men. John McPéake, if you remember, lead the ,-bublic demand for this project and Mayor Cornett and Alderman Bus= _ -combe stubbornly opposed it. It was touch and go for a bit and Alder-

man Worthington tipped the scales in the council te put it over. His announced program is good as far as it goes. The trouble is of course that it doesn’t go far enough, a good stout stand for civic participation in the responsibilities and benefits of public owned electric utilities and transportation would certainly have helped to round it out: However, his candidacy does offer the opportunity to move ahead to oust Cornett provided there is no third candidate. : :

The Winch-MaclInnis Clique

HE only direction a third candidate is likely to come from is the CCF. # So far this is still a question. The answer will come when the CCE’ reconvenes its nominating convention on November 10. Here is an opt portunity for the CCK to rise above reckless partisan politics by de- ciding not to run a candidate and throw what weight they have into defeating: reaction in the person of “Tory” Cornett. Lhe labor movement and progressive forces will watch closely how the Winech-MacInnis clique handle this question. Lo date the reported statements of the GCF do not indicate that they have any thought of considering their res- - ponsibility in this matter. It appears rather that their only worry is to find a candidate sufficiently strong to poll a vote that will not adversely affect their federal and -provincial election chances.

This same attitude was evident in their nominating convention of October 27 where they named a nearly full slate for the other civic offices. The only reason stated for not filling out the slate was the lack of candidates. ‘Ehis decision to run a political slate appears as the extension of their provincial and federal policy into the civie field. In other words, to attempt to force coalescing of all other old line political elements into one reactionary bloc and make the GGF the second party of capitalism in the hope that some day in the sweet by and by they will achieve power. - ‘ a

As far as the civic field is) concerned it is only an opportunist pipe- dream. It has been going on for eight years now and the net result so far is to keep the tory elements in the saddle and to keep out progressive minded candidates. ;

The decision to.make a repeat performance again this year was greeted by reaction with shouts of glee. One could almost see the tory interests rubbing their hands and saying to themselves “It is in’ the bag,” all we have to do is run around shouting about the danger of “Socialism” in the city hall and all will be well.

As for the €CF candidates their chief claim to fame seems to be that they are acceptable to the Winch-McInnis clique. With very few exceptions these candidates have made no contribution to civic affairs or community work. For a time, while he was associated with the “5000 Homes Now” committee, E. S. Scanlon was heading towards making a worthwhile contribution. But then, when the provincial exe= cutive of the CCF saw that this committee was likely to get results and decided to scuttle it by withdrawing their support, Scanlon obeyed the party dictate and pulled out too.

Revenue for the City

(pees program adopted by the convention contains six points that look very good on paper. The list is headed by a demand for low rent housing which certainly corresponds to a very serious community need. However, the plank comes unseemingly- from a group who have not only done nothing to implement such-a program during the past year but yanked their support from those who were trying’ to get such a pro- gram underway. :

The most serious weakness of the program is the complete omis- sion of any stand on the question of public ownership of utilities either electric power or municipal transportation. This is all the more notice- able as the CCF is alleged to favor public ownership generally. Then, too, civic rumor has it that this question may be submitted to the elec- tors on December 13 in the form of a referendum. The issue will be for or against civic participation in public ownership. Let the GCF stand up and be counted.

In sharp contrast was the clear cut stand taken by John McPeake. . McPeake as an independent aldermanic candidate has come out fully in strong support of public ownership of the hydro-electric resources of this province and for civic support and participation in this project. This is all the more important because Mayor Cornett is placing the whole proposal of the provincial premier in jeopardy by erecting civic straw-men to confuse the people and block action. There are real bene- fits available to the city if public power is achieved. McPeake states the benefits as follows:

Planned development of hydro resources to ensure abundant supply to replace the present shortage.

Cheap and abundant power would aid materially in developing in- dustry and agriculture and so increase jobs and payxoll possibilities.

Revenue for the city. (A number of municipalities even under pri- vate monopoly rates are retailing electrie energy in their area, a notable erp is the city of New Westminster which grossed $400,000 last year). : ;