“Don’t stand there doing nothing, Perkins. Go around and mark up a few price increases.”

COPE to run full slate, leaves unity door open |

The Committee of Progressive Electors will be running a full slate “including a_ strong mayoralty

‘candidate”’ in the November civic

elections, COPE president Bruce Yorke announced this week.

Yorke said that COPE decided to go ahead and field a full slate of 27 candidates following a meeting of its executive last week which reviewed the efforts the civic group had made towards forming an alliance of reform minded groups to contest the elections.

“It’s become fairly clear in the last few months that there has been a distinct rightward drift in TEAM, until now it is virtually nothing more than the’ NPA. This has ob- viously left a void from the centre to the left in the civic scene and we've been actively promoting an alliance which would field a common group of candidates under a common name, with a common program and financial pool to fill that void.

“But, at the same time we’ve always said that adopting a “wait and see’’ attitude towards developments in the other civic

Why are beef

The regular monthly food price survey released last week by the federal Anti-Inflation Board reports that in July and August a “significant’’ drop in the price of beef in major Canadian cities — except Vancouver — accounted for anine-tenths of one percent drop in Canada’s food price index.

The AIB couples that an- nouncement with a warning that beef prices are due for a sharp rise in the next few months which may spark another rise in the food in- dex. Thus Vancouver consumers can look forward to sharply escalating food prices, especially beef, before they even had a chance to enjoy any of the benefits of lower beef prices because of the surplus of beef cattle this summer.

According to the AIB, retail beef prices across Canada are about 3.2 percent below levels of last month and 12.9 percent below corresponsing prices last year. But, it adds that not all regions have benefitted equally from lower beef prices, and names Vancouver as the region which benefitted least.

Thereport states that Vancouver consumers do not seem to have benefitted to the same extent and that average retail prices for the more popular beef cuts in Van- couver are “significantly” higher than prices for corresponding cuts in major centres in central and eastern Canada.

This observation is all the more revealing because most Canadian beef comes from Alberta, and since B.C. is much closer to this major beef producing area than Toronto or Montreal, one would assume that the lower cost of transportation would mean lower prices in B.C, But that is obviously not so. :

The AIB does give B.C. con- sumers a clue as to why this state of affairs exists when it points out that the lower prices of beef in Toronto and Montreal coincided with a price war between the major supermarkets.

The major reason for the higher beef prices — as well as the higher cost of all food in B.C. — is monopoly control by the two major

prices so high?

food chains, Safeway and Super- valu, and the lack of any com- petition between them. This is particularly noticeable in beef prices. :

The AIB does not concern itself with rising prices — only with freezing or rolling back workers’ incomes, All it does is monitor prices, but that doesn’t help con- sumers. They already know they are being robbed.

groups would prove to be fatal.

“At this time we feel that with time running out we have to make a move, and to that end we have decided to run the full slate, and have scheduled a policy session for September 7 in the Sheraton Plaza 500 Hotel. We will be nominating candidates on September 12.”

Yorke said that all of the various groups which COPE has carried on discussions with in the past few months towards a unity slate would be invited to the September 7 policy meeting.

‘We're still fully prepared to join in on a unity slate under another name, but the time for waiting is past. Right now we’ve got the ball, and we’re running with it. Any other reform group who wishes to join with us is more than welcome. We're still looking for maximum unity,’’ Yorke said.

The COPE president said that

BRUCE YORKE

Surrey housing stand hit

The Surrey Club of the Com- munist Party of Canada has condemned the decision of the Surrey municipal council to freeze the construction of all houses with Jess than 1,200 square feet, and non-basement houses of under 1,400 square feet.

The Surrey communists said that such a move was “‘directly aimed at preventing much needed, low cost, federally assisted housing projects” and will have the net

effect of turning Surrey into a “‘preserve for the rich.”’

The CP club said that the ban- ning of small house construction would. not solve any of the municipality’s taxation problems, as has been claimed by mayor Ed McKitka, and called on the council to press for changes in the taxation structure which will force “‘major industries, large chain stores, and land developers to pay their fair share of taxes.’

although the final decision candidates will not be made unl September 12, already col) mitments have been exacted fro anumber of civic leaders includifit| himself, Alderman Harry Rankily DERA president Bruce Erikseli) Grandview Tenants Associatio® : president Doug Laalo, Libby) Davies, Connie Kehoe and othel) that they will seek nomination | the COPE slate. As well, Yor said that there are a number other people who are not at pres members of COPE who will approached to run under the CO banner. | Alderman Harry Rankin, W™ was present at the press Col) ference, said that all candidate) who have agreed to stand are very active in the community and are all very able to put COPE*) position to the public. § Yorke said that COPE’s mel bership currently stands at aboll| 450, up from last year’s figure 300. He said that most of the neW members have come to COPE #| the last few months as a result df the establishment of COPE’s are?) committees which now function ten of the city’s former Communil) Resource Board areas. * “The people who are joiniig COPE are working members; Yorke said. ‘‘We’ve been activ? year round on community issues — the proposed truck route fo!) Boundary Road, the new runway for the airport, tenants’ issues, th? Standard of Maintenance and Fifé Bylaw enforcement questions:|

Each one of these campaigns ha)

drawn more people to COPE.” Yorke said that the COPE

executive had met with the)

executive of the Vancouver am District Labor Council and that the}

VLC executive “had indicated tha! |

they will endorse COPE and participate in the campaign. Yorke said that this was 4 significant addition to the COPE campaign.

Upon questioning, Yorke said |

that COPE was not interested endorsing candidates, as had bee? speculated by members of thé media. ‘‘We’re running a slate: We're not leaving a slot open fo! any particular candidates, al!

we’re not going to be endorsiné people not on our slate,” declared.

—

he |

AR ancient continent which measured the dynasties of its teeming millions by centuries, was girding again for battle. Names scarcely known were again beginning to assert themselves: Sun Yat-sen, Chou En-lia, Chu Teh, Mao Tze-tung. The names are legion.

It was twenty minutes after five, November 13, 1939, close to 40 years since Doctor Norman Bethune bade a

final farewell to his Chinese compatriots, and to millions

~ in Spain and Canada. His kind do not often inhabit this

teeming earth. When they do it is as if a flaming meteor _ had flashed across the heavens to restore Mankind’s faith in himself and his fellow men.

This is not and cannot be a “‘history”’ of the man known as Norman Bethune, neither a chronicle of his work in Canada, in’ war-torn Spain during the brief days of Republican Spain, or for that matter the great epic of the Bethune Medical Mission in China: But it centers on China because it was there that the last days of his life were spent bringing succor to the wounded and dying, and by which — often with sorely inadequate supplies and human aid — Norman Bethune spent the last days of his young life fulfilling with woefully inadequate supplies, that last duty which welds all men of sterling purpose into a deathless Brotherhood. Norman Bethune was such a man.

This week I received an invitation which made me at

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 3, 1976—Page 2

once deeply proud and infinitely sad. Proud that the government of Canada had at long last confirmed its

recognition of the memory of Norman Bethune, and sad

because the neglect which had hastened the passing of an eminent surgeon and doctor was accentuated by small men.

“The Department of External Affairs and the Depart- ment of Indian and Northern Affairs cordially invite you to attend the ceremonial opening of the Dr. Henry Nor- man Bethune House, 2:00 p.m., Monday, August 30, 1976, Gravenhurst, Ontario. R.S.V.P.’’.

Verily, the ‘‘Mills of the Gods grind slow and they grind exceeding fine’’ but after all the fact that they do “grind” is the all-important factor in a long-delayed recognition.

I shared the honor of chairing many meetings for Dr. Norman Bethune in British Columbia, of many personal meetings and interviews with this unique medical practitioner and man; of our last goodbyes as the Em- press of Asia cast off those flimsy ribbon tapes that bind

loved ones twix shore and ocean. Even as the ship’s band

played its farewell, Bethune was planing all he could do to ease. the suffering of a New Peoples China.

It was and is symbolic that as the fredom of a New Spain dawns upon the horizons of today, the memory and pride in his achievements for a New China are no less pressing, and will yet triumph over all obstacles, over all the storms and stresses of a new age. That was the dream of the countless millions of China who mourned his untimely passing.

One night shortly before he died Norman Bethune wrote: “I am tired, but I don’t think I have been so happy for along time. I am content. I am doing what I want to do. And see what my riches consist of! I have vital work that

than that — to satisfy my bourgeois vanity — the need fot me is expressed.

“T have no money or the need for it. I have thé inestimable good fortune to be among and to work among people to whom Communism is a way of life, not merely 4 way of talking and thinking. Their Communism is simplé and profound, reflex as a knee jerk, unconscious as thé movements of their lungs, automatic as the beating of thé heart. They are implacable in their hate; world: embracing in their love...” a

In October of 1956, seventeen years after the passing of Norman Bethune, I visited the vast . and beautiful 4 cemetery of Shih Chua-Chuan where he rests from his labors. The inscription on the headstone is the simplicilY of a name, but in the minds and hearts of millions wh? came to know him — and yet to know him, the memory hé left grows ever richer with time. The ‘Pai Chu En” of yesterday lives in the hearts and minds of all Humanity who honor him today. |

IRBUNE

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