IWA. parley meets .... see page 12

Tribune

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1970

NEW PUBLIC PROBE NEEDED

SAVE OUR FORESTS

\ tins JOBS NOT HYSTERIA ANSWER TO YOUTH NEEDS. Photo shows you

radio aimed at stirring up anti-youth hysteria sought to cover ma

on Page 2.

ng people in Vancouver's armory just before being moved to Jericho. Unprincipled attacks on young people by Mayor Campbell, the press and

in issue: need for jobs for youth. See articles

—Photo P. J. O’Kane

Crash program for jobs

demanded by city labor

Organized labor will demand a crash program for housing, school and hospital construction to relieve the harsh unemployment ‘situation in Vancouver, it was revealed at the Tuesday meeting of the Vancouver and District Labor Council.

Spearheaded by Local 213 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who have close to half their members unemployed despite the end of CLRA’s lockout, a brief to be pre- sented to city council demand- ing action for jobs was endorsed by delegates.

The brief will also go to the senior governments.

Delegate Constable of the elec- tricians union, Wm. Stewart of the Marine Workers, Wally Way- ward of the Carpenters union and others made scathing refer- ence to Welfare Minister Gaglardi’s contention that 10,000

jobs were available if workers would only take them.

Burrard Drydock had 150 welders at the peak; today there are only 6 on the job, Stewart

said. One hundred welders will

go anywhere in the province Gaglardi can find them work, but the family men who have put in from 25 to 30 years on the job in this city where they have their homes and family are entitled to the development of industry within the area.

Stewart stressed the need to build a Canadian merchant marine. ‘‘We have one— just one — deep sea merchant ship! ” he said. -

Delegates chuckled when a

voice asked, ‘‘That’s the ~

restaurant, isn’t it?”’

“It makes one ashamed to be a citizen of this province,’’ said John, Hayward, A.T.U. delegate

-in speaking to a resolution

condemning the reforestation policy of the provincial government.

“Nowhere is reforestation - adequate,’ he charged. ‘‘We* must replace equally to what we cut. . . the inheritance of future generations is simply not being planted. The public has been the victim of a snow-job on the part of government and the big forest concerns.” :

An executive recom- mendation receiving approval was one which would see the Vancouver Labor Council assisting candidates of COPE and the NDP in the December civic elections.

Delegates spoke enthusias- tically of the need for unity to defeat NPA and TEAM candidates, and methods of carrying on the campaign. Bob

‘See pg. 12

Vol. 31, No. 38

eS"

TOc

Overcut for profit threatens resource

By MAURICE RUSH With half the economy and jobs of the province depending on its forests, the disclosure this week by the B.C. Forest Service that our forests are being whittled away and that only one acre of trees is being replaced for every seven being cut will come as a

shock to most people.

Those most directly threat-°

ened by the overcut of our forests by the big monopolies in their search for profits are the tens of thousands of wood- workers whose livelihood and future is being rapidly destroyed.

The situation is so serious that the public, and particularly the unions in the forest industry, should lose no time in demanding the immediate launching of a full public inquiry into all aspects of B.C.’s forest industry. Such an inquiry is long overdue.

Some months ago the Pacific Tribune carried a feature article warning that the forests were being overcut. At that time the facts were not all available since the provincial government has covered up the actual state of affairs. Now the facts are out, and they reveal the following:

. To restock our forests 100 million trees should be planted each year covering 200,000 acres. Instead, we have been planting

WILLIAM KASHTAN, Communist Party leader, opens a national speaking tour in B.C. this week on the Party’s campaign for a million new jobs. See details of his meetings inside.

25 million trees on only 200,000 acres — less than a fourth of the trees needed.

. This situation goes back over many years so that there is now a disastrous backlog. According to the B.C. Forest Service over nine million acres of forest land are insufficiently restocked. That’s an area larger than Vancouver Island. :

« The above covers the coastal region. In the interior of B.C.. the problem is even worse. There over 313,000 acres were logged but only 12,206 acres have been replanted.

. Reforestation is not even keeping up to the acreage destroyed by fire. Over the last 10 years 2.7 million acres were burned. During that same period only 428,000 acres, or about one- sixth has been reforested.

Both the Socred government and the big forest monopolies cover up the actual replanting being done — or not being done. While the government has been cutting back on its expenditures for reforestation, the forest kings are not spending the money required to replace logged areas.

POLICY FAILS.

Over twenty years ago the government introduced what it called scientific management of the forests under which there was to be a perpetual yield based on replacement of trees cut. Under this plan it was held that B.C.’s forests would be managed like an agricultural crop with a constant cycle of new trees replacing the ones taken out.

The government’s main legislation provided for the issuing of forest management licences (or tree farm licences) to large corporations in perpetuity. The major condition ~ of these licences was that these

See FORESTS, pg- 12 <9