U.S. interests drain - Peace River wealth

Below a young reader of the Pacific Tribune, Bert Nilsson, gives his impressions of the Peace River country and describes some of the problems created for Dawson Creek by the boom which began when the town became Mile 0 on the Alaska Highway.

By BERT NILSSON

If you want to see an example of how our natural resources are being dominated by U.S. capital, the northern interior of our own province is a fine example.

My father and I have just returned home after a week's trip which took us through the Cariboo and over the John Hart highway to Dawson Creek. Our purpose for going

on the trip was to look for build

the wake of the enormous boom that we hear so much about.

When we were considering the possibilities of constructing small homes for the influx of job seek- ers whé are arriving daily, we became aware of many facts as we talked to various people.

The land-grabbing speculators have already bought up many sec- tions of farm land encircling Dawson Creek and they are ob- viously going to hold back sell- ing until they can make a lucra- tive profit by sub-dividing the land.

This practice has already paid big dividends to many specula- tors who bought property for around $100 per acre or less and are now selling it for $1000 and

up per acre and even as high]:

as $3000 or more per acre if it is suitable for residential lots.

The town has been unable to keep up with the demand for water mains, sewers and other services with the result that less than half of the homes have running water and little more than the business section has sewers. A shameful situation has developed in parts of Dawson

Creek because of completely in-.

adequate building restrictions that existed until recently so that parts of the town are built up with shacks and shanties or poor- ly built homes. 2

The whole strength of the present boom lies in the oil and natural gas development along with the lumber industry and the building of the gas pipe line and the extension of the PGE into the Peace River country.

There is not yet much em- phasis on the oil industry but it appears that there are fairly large reserves of oil in the area. A small oil refinery will soon be in operation in Dawson Creek that will provide local needs.

The natural gas pipe line from Fort St. John to the U.S. via Vancouver is the centre of. at-

traction at Dawson Creek. A large gas purifying plant is about to be constructed and all the feeder pipes to bring the gas to this centre from the gas wells.

A great variety of secondary industries could be developed around a gas purifying plant but so far the only concern has been to get the gas into the U.S.

*

The lumber industry for 100 miles around Dawson Creek is dominated by the Fort St. John Lumber Company, with the con- trolling interest owned by the Broderick Lumber Company of Pennsylvania.

This company buys up nearly all the timber that is put up for

-sale and then it lets out the log-

ging and sawing of the timber to small operators. These small operators deliver the lumber to Fort St. John’s planing mills where it is planed and graded and then loaded into box cars and shipped to the U.S.

We visited a sawmill during our trip and spent some time look- ing over the operation.

We asked how much of each log is used and how much is waste material. We were surprised to learn that about 60 percent of the log is completely wasted,

This gave rise to the question, why are there no pulp and paper mills in the Interior to make use of this appalling waste? We still haven’t found a reason why this

waste should be allowed to con-

ing opportunities which we thought would be inevitable in

This is the Peace River Bridge, 2100 feet long, 35 miles _north of Dawson Creek on the Alaska Highway.

tinue without some effort on the part of our governments to solve the problem.

The grain farmers around Daw- son Creek are probably the only people who are not filled with illusions of prosperity.

Even though the land is as good as one can find anywhere and even though there have been consistently good crops, the farmers must still face the fact that so far only 38 pecent of last year’s crop has been sold and they must begin to spend money to put in another crop. The higher freight rates in the Peace River country plus the rising cost of machinery certainly isn’t making the farmers feel that they are sharing in the boom.

It appears to me that this so called “boom” in our northern interior is more or less a tem- porary affair brought about by U.S. need—and greed—to exploit Canadian resources. For the moment, Canadians have the il- lusion of prosperity — while the long-term benefits accrue to foreign interests.

Attack on labor

Belated action on the part of federal authorities in sending in- vestigators to visit the Fisheries Association of B.C. was termed

“a fig leaf which cannot conceal misuse of the Combines Act to attack labor” by the general ex- ecutive board of United Fisher- men and Allied Workers’ Union, which has been harassed by in- vestigators for more than two weeks. :

Text of the UFAWU statement read:

The federal government seems determined to turn the Combines Act upside down as well as twist it beyond recognition. After two weeks of interference and harass- ment of our union, they finally got around to sending the investi- gators to visit the Fisheries As- sociation of B.C. On May 25, union counsel pointed out in Supreme Court that whereas the federal investigators had raided the union offices but had failed to raid the “untouchable” can- ners’ offices this was ‘obvious discrimination.”

On May 29 the two investiga- tors who previously claimed to be in a hurry, left the union of- fices in the middle of their raid to start a search of Fisheries As- sociation files. A few days earlier, they told us that as soon as their search of union files was com- plete they would leave for Ot- tawa with our documents.

This token investigation of the Fisheries Association ob- viously is nothing more than a blind to quell the public sus- picion of a plot to break the fishermen’s union.

If it is not a cover-up and if the federal government is truly seeking to expose a combine or monopoly or merger or trust which may be operating to the detriment of the public, why didn’t they go after big business and leave the union alone? Big business firms and not the unions set the prices on the market,

Why did the government wait until a public outery had arisen before dropping in on the can- ners’ association? Why did they in effect give the canners two weeks advance warning by raid- ing the union first?

How do they expect two fed- eral investigators to do a proper job of checking the Fisheries As- sociation and 13 individual firms if they telegraph their punches? Are they shadow-boxing with the companies and striving for a knockout against the union? Why didn’t they send at least 28 men to start simultaneously on the 13 fishing companies and their as- sociation? -

The United Fishermen and Al-

|lied Workers’ Union has never

Gov’! misuses act fishermen charge

had any say whatever in respect to prices of fish at the wholesale and retail level. We are amazed

at the manner in which the Com- bines Investigation Act has been distorted by the government.

We urge all unions and every person with a sense of fair play to demand action by the minister _ of justice to stop the illegal in- vestigation of our union. The fact that the investigators are now looking through the Fisher- ies Association files should not blind anyone to the manner in which the Act has been subvert- ed for use against a union of working men.

The UFAWU general executive board does not mean to imply the | fish companies are guilty of com- bining to fix the wholesale prices of canned salmon. However, if Ottawa has such suspicions they certainly have wasted a gréat , deal of the taxpayers’ money in a fruitless search of the union files and agreements. :

Our union is not in the sam

league as Crown.Zellerbach or Standard Oil or B.C. Packers. The search for combines, mon- opolies, trusts, or mergers which is the stated object of the act should be directed where it will benefit the public and not be used as a weapon against org- anized labor.

Ottawa’s expressed fear of this investigation backfiring seems to have prodded them into sending out an ante-dated search warrant to look into the actions of the Fisheries Association. This fig leaf can scarcely prevent expo- sure of the misuse of the Com- bines Act to attack labor.

Persecution act dropped

WASHINGTON

The Eisenhower administration has abandoned its efforts to strip old age social security payments from employees of the Commun- ist party or alleged ‘(Communist front” organizations.

Peter J. Hoegen, referee of the appeals council of the Social Security Administration, announc- ed the action in Washington re- cently by ordering restoration of social security benefits to 13 per- sons cut off the rolls.

: Hoegen, who conducted hear- — ings on the issue in New York last month, made the ruling on technical grounds, He ruled that the government waited too long before’ depriving the Communist Saree of their old age bene- its.

_One of those affected is Wil- liam Z. Foster, 75-year-old chair- man of the Communist party- Another is Jacob Mindel, 73-year- old Marxist educator now serv- ing a Smith Act prison sentence-

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PROVINCIAL PICNIC * GRAND OPENING * CHILDREN’S CAMP - WEBSTERS CORNERS -— JUNE 24°

TURN LEFT ON 8TH AVE. IN HANEY; RIGHT ON OLD DEWDNEY TRUNK ROAD — GO TO WEBSTERS CORNERS & WATCH FOR PICNIC ARROWS

‘June 8, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2

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