‘increases 100

~ MacMillan Bloedel profit

per cent

200 ee

rofit triples

at Weldwood

Clippings from financial pages of the daily press.:

Stop gas p

EDITORIAL

Th itm, NDP government should order an

Dic “diate halt to the hike in gasoline

Vile announced this week by the major Dub; panies pending the holding of a

ew By faring in the near future by the he : Energy Commission.

nis re announced by Shell Oil, which Ubanies ‘Glately followed by the other oil

Ment, my tt What looks like a monopoly arrange-

the, Mm ‘ebubiest Not be allowed to stand. It is against

Coming iterests.

rey vitg aa time when the cost of living is ea fase i. y upward, as shown by the index Dreotin di S Week, the boost in the price of myyedcts St “sel fuel, heating oil, and other oil

lic’ Sikes a hard blow at the consuming

Polies in B.C. have been acting as ‘ Power unto themselves. They have Vinca. their noses at the public and Year sa Sovernment. Only in January of Y ignored Premier Barrett’s appeal

ere

rice boost

and pushed through a price increase. Having got away with it then, they are repeating their arrogant action less than four months later.

All the major oil companies now seeking to squeeze more out of the public, have shown big increases in profits. While they keep their B.C. operations underwraps, Shell Oilreported net profits in 1971 of $244,504,000. Imperial Oil reported profits in 1971 of $136 million. Gulf Oil reported that its net earnings after taxes for 1972 were up $64.4 million.

The January price boost, like the current one, is plain and simply a profit gouge of the public.

It’s not good enough for the NDP government to say: we have just set up the new Energy Com- mission so we can’t do anything now about gas prices. They have a well-established procedure by which to halt the boost. They should immediately set a date for a public hearing at which the oil monopolies would have to justify ‘ their increase, and at which the public could be heard.

Until such a hearing takes place, the price boost should be stopped.

HUGE FOREST PROFITS ST HOUSING COSTS

By MAURICE RUSH The huge profits being rolled up by the forest giants are directly responsible for the sharp rise in housing costs in B.C., and are pricing homes out of the range of tens of thousands of needy families.

A report released Tuesday by the Canadian Real Estate Asso- ciation shows that the average price of homes on the Lower Mainland went up by 17 percent in the past year — the highest increase in Canada. Victoria was second.

The average increase in Canada was 11 percent, which means that the B.C. increase in housing costs has been more than 50 percent higher than the national average. And thisina province which boasts of the world’s richest timber re sources.

The major reason for that is to be seen in the clippings along side this story taken from the financial pages of the daily press in recent days. The forest mono- polies are piling up the biggest profits in their history. Inrecent months they have made profit gains surpassing by many times those made by other companies in North America.

Here in a nutshell is why housing costs are so high: Inthe first three months of 1973 B.C. Forest Products’ profits jumped 300 percent. MacMillan Bloedel’s profits rose 100 percent. Crown Zellerbach’s profits went up 144 percent. Weldwood of Canada tripled its profits in the same period.

Not only are these mono-

Tenants plan campaign... rs Labor hoycotts Seagram ...»:.:

polies, most of which are U:S.- owned, making their profits from high prices on the world market. They are charging all the traffic will bear on the domestic market, and have pushed prices up to an all-time high.

The greed of the forest mono- polies knows no bounds. The orgy of profiteering.is so bad that a few weeks ago the Minister of Highways Bob Strachan charged the industry with. “criminal irresponsibility.’ He pointed out that ina two month period before January sawlogs jumped fifty percent; lumber rose about 70 percent, while two- by-four hemlock went up 45 percent.

The forest monopolies can’t pass the blame off on the workers this time. It’s a year since there was any increasein wages in the forest industry and that settlement added up to about 15 cents on 1,000 feet of lumber.

When working people and people on higher incomes can’t afford to buy ahomethereason is that they can’t pay theransom the fat cats inthe forest industry are demanding. And what makes it worse is that they are

See FOREST PROFITS, pg. 3

Woodward profits Zoom... rs. 1

A program for B.C. woodworkers

—Pg. 12