"Criticism of NDP gov't

dominated UBCM parley

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The dominant theme at this year’s convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) was criticism of the NDP provincial government. For a small noisy group it was an opportunity to play cheap, partisan politics against the government. This was in sharp contrast to the way these people acted when the Social Credit government was in power.

Then they willingly accepted the demagogy of people like Gaglardi and Campbell, despite the fact that the government they represented consistently disregarded the needs of B.C.’s municipalities.

And it seemed to me that the provincial government has not yet learned the lessons of the NDP defeat in the July federal elections nor is it implementing its own decision to take its case to the

people in a more forthright and

aggressive way.

We had 700 delegates at this convention of aldermen, mayors and regional government mem- bers. They represented the form of government in our society that is closest to the people — municipal councils. Premier Dave Barrett should have been there to explain the matter of that $100 million over-run on welfare. So should human resources minister Norm Levi.

I know that they would have faced an audience that in part at least would have been vocally hostile. But that is part of politics, and the government’s credibility and opinions on the courage of its ministers were not enhanced when the key people under criticism chose to stay away and make long distance explanations from Vic- toria.

It left those of us who understand the need for these expenditures on welfare in a difficult position. Personally I did point out to the delegates that if we have an in- flation factor of 10 per cent and it is

cutting into people’s incomes and

causing hardship, then it is twice as bad as for people who are on welfare. Often they have to pay as much as 50 per cent of their welfare cheque just for rent, leaving little enough for food and clothing. As far as I’m concerned this extra $100 million was not over-expenditure in relation to the needs of people on welfare; it was an over-run due, apparently, to mistakes in budgeting.

The Community Resource Boards also camein for a good deal of criticism and discussion. The delegates feared that this will develop (no one really knows what they take right now) into another level of government with just one more bureaucracy and an over- lapping of services.

Human resources minister Norm Levi should have been at the convention to give authoritative answers to some of the questions that were troubling the delegates.

After a good fight from the floor of the convention, we did defeat a resolution which would have banned all strikes. But a resolution advocating that the provincial labor minister have the power to impose binding arbitration in labor disputes involving firemen and policemen was endorsed. I think labor minister King should have

been there to deal with this issue. .

I’m opposed to compulsory arbitration in principle and there’s no way it can be made to work because labor is just not going to give up its basic democratic right — the right to withdraw its labor. But I did state to the delegates that where compulsory arbitration is imposed, as the government did in the case of firemen recently, it should at the same time provide for reasonable compromises as it

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| FOR THOSE WHO KILL ---

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certainly did not do in this case. -

One of the things I would like to suggest to the provincial govern- ment in a most emphatic way is that they must communicate with people, especially the grass roots councils, villages, towns, cities and regional districts across this province. Not to do so would be fatal to their cause.

EDITORIAL COMMENT | | The furor over welfare costs.

By MAURICE RUSH |

The furor caused by Premier Dave Barrett’s announcement of a $100 million over-run on welfare budgeting has some very distur- bing overtones which sould not be lost on progressive people who do not want to see B.C.’s social welfare program undermined.

There can be no defending the sloppy budgeting for which someone in the government is responsible. Nor would it be just

' for the provincial government to

pass on the bill for a few million dollars to the municipalities who

_ haveno sources or taxation powers

with which to meet the additional costs.

The mistake was Victoria’s and they should pay the municipal share which amounts to about $5 million out of the province’s

abor has been presented with another “‘history”’ to its fone this time published by the Ontario Federation of Labor (OFL) and authored by one Morden Lazarus.

This book is entitled Trade Unions and the Working- man in Canada With Years of Hard Labor, the latter in big. block letters. From the identity of most of the thumb-nail pictures scattered through its pages we would say offhand that had many of them done a few years “hard labor” while they lived, it would either have made much better socialists and labor leaders out of them — or frightened them more into pursuing the devious courses they chose. Be that as it may, they are now preserved for ‘“‘posterity”’ as valiant champions of labor and socialism.

Of the author’s life-long hatred of communism or anything he thought was communistic, there is little to say that hasn’t already been repeated a million times by other historians, some alleged to be ‘‘great’’, others of a lesser

stature.

The right-wing CCF’er or NDP’er when attempting to compile a history is confronted with a dual problem; his inherent anti-communist bias, plus the fallacy of

general revenues. Loading it on to municipal taxpayers would be no solution.

But some of the loudest voices raised in condemning the NDP government have strong political

overtones. Take as an example

Surrey mayor and leading Socred,

Bill. Vander Zalm who loudly

voiced his outrage that the public will have to pay $100 million for welfare costs over and above what

was budgeted. What Vander Zalm:

is Shooting at is not the over-run, but the expenditure on social welfare programs.

Where was his indignation a couple of weeks ago when a brief . issued from Victoria showed that the people of B.C. will have to foot a $300 million bill to complete the dams on the Columbia to which we :

imagining that just because of hi the ranks of right-wing social democracy, he

With this biased and distorte the end result is more tha “stubborn facts of history”’ fiction, or worse still, blacke could otherwise be a very me another history of which po

It has often been said for the benefit of st others of a young

were committed by the Socred government?

The fact that many of the critics of the NDP government are shooting at the social welfare program, which is one of the better things. done by this government, was to be seen in editorials such as that carried in the Province on September 19. It charged that the NDP government deliberately kept out of the budget the sharp in- crease in welfare costs, and con- demned the increase in welfare spending which goes for such programs as Mincome, increases in welfare payments, Pharmacare, child day care, etc.

Perhaps the sharpest indication of what some old line politicians have in mind when they haul the NDP over the coals for its mistake,

See WELFARE, pg.:11 See er ee

1973.

cent.

Profits booming The federal elections held in

July have not changed very much. Two weeks ago Statistics Canada announced another Sharp rise in consumer prices and unemployment across the country. Now Ottawa has an- nounced that after-tax profits of industrial Canada showed that profits were 36.9 per cent higher for the

second quarter of 1974 com- pared to the same period in

Companies producing pulp and paper and petroleum products had the greatest in- creases which accounts for the way prices for paper products, newsprint products have been climbing.

Resource industry profits rose by 43.2 per cent and for manufacturing 42.8 per. cent.

: ; disclosures. eral _ Estimated profits for au Implications of the fer industrial corporations totalle budget proposals made in M@i

$2.611 billion, an increase of $704 million over the total for the second quarter of 1973. Metal mining companies in Canada showed profit gains of 37.1 per

West Premiers meet in city |

ae

Industrial development western Canada has been re the. the top item on the agenda ie forthcoming western Pe this Conference which will be he me year in Vancouver on Sept. othe!

The parley will bring Oe oe Premier Ed Schreyer of Mami Premier

Allan. Blakeney 4, Saskatchewah, Prema ; Lougheed of Alberta am | Premier Dave Barrett. : conference was held in Calg@ 1973. ; Other items placed on agenda will include a repor fart inquiry into pricing 9 5 wel machinery and fertilizer, # i

as discussion of farm _ a stabilization and farm credi ture Another issue which. pees prominently at the carol meeting last year will be Be of

of freight rate anomalies 4% forts to obtain transportation ©

corporations in

and. petroleum

2S

1974 on the province’s powers ™ 5g natural resource field will als°™ matter of major concern. ye Conference sessions W1 i and place in the Hotel Vancouy will not be open to the publl@

S political affiliation in

is “‘labor’’.

d approach and perspective n often disastrous. Those become reduced to mere d out entirely. Hence what ritorious work, just-becomes sterity has in abundance.

udents and

er generation, that not nearly enough of the history of labor has been written. This is i true, but unfortunately the Lazarus’ “‘Years of Hard Labor”.

There is much in this book th of great value to students of labor. There are also wide gaps and omissions where the se author goes on to other events.

The great “free speech” struggles of the before the Toronto free speech battles of the ’30’s, largely led by the Communists, developed and w cases, Ontario labor

ndeed very

gap will not be closed by OF L- at is highly meritorious and quence is broken and the ”80’s, 50 years

hich, in both played a very prominent and decisive role, are totally omitted. Undoubtedly in Stirring events, th

both these

e author couldn’t extract any ‘“‘kudos”’ for the CCF nor the NDP. The earlier free speech ~ Struggles had a great deal to d trade union organizations in Toronto and fur

And as for the Workers U °30’s, the author disposes of “obedient” tools of the Comm

0 with the early origins of

ther afield.

nity League (WUL) of the these Commie liners” and unist Party in a couple or so

: ing S : . Stooges, within and outside the ranks of right-wing, to? |

i 0 - get smeared and slandered for the aggrandiseme? + fo!

nabs | brief paragraphs. Even ‘‘Iron Heel’”’ Tory Bennett am jal |

: e democracy, conceded a much greater importane’ eno!

vital fact of history. Even the brevity which tee y and | permits the “‘Commie liners’’, both Communist pa: : WUL, is not without its full quota: of historic ie ind and patent falsehoods. Like others of his kind ctl bourgeois-invented fables more convincing than fools truth, emphasizing again the old saw, that ‘ one knaves argue with history”’. With a truly great ht } fro? its credit, one would have expected something bela out the OFL, as undoubtedly a future generation 9 Canadians will. bi 5 In presuming to write history, Morden Lazarus ith | kind should draw some lessons from the American", Len De Caux, author of The Labor Radical and ie This book is done in conformity with the objective history. Communist and non-Communist alike ae union organization are equally recorded. The one

other. The historian lists them for what they did, ne what they said. His political affiliations, what ee ep were, if any, did not permit the warping of his Jue s jac? consequently he gave his readers historical facts 1 A of right-wing NDP political pap. Nor did he atte™ impossible by dressing up widely-known labor ie the garb of ‘‘men of principle’, ‘integrity’ and § g which reduces so-called ‘‘history’”’ to mere propa ay and cheap propaganda at that. : :

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