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GEORGE NORTH, Editor HAL GRIFFIN, Associate Editor
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No Platitudes Please
MENTION Labor Day and the platitudes pour forth from government and management spokesmen who have little in common with working people, except that they need them to survive in the way to which they are accustomed.
We don't propose to moralise on the subject except to say that all the money in the world can't create a single item of use. Only the application of labor can bring into being the houses, the cars, the goods on which our life depends.
Rather than backslapping on this labor day, we should be doing some head scratching and even more, deliver a few hard kicks at the kind of government leadership we've been getting since the last election.
Look at our civic political scene where a handful of businessmen, with a couple of exceptions, are rapidly ruining the city while real estate sharks are grabbing off the gravy.
Look at Victoria and Ottawa where one of the few "accomplishments" of the past several months has been the sellout of the Columbia River to the United States.
Or to Ottawa alone which has failed to provide a shred of leadership to the fishing industry but consistently follows through with a giveaway of the resource by means of a foreign made North Pacific Treaty and a phoney 12 mile limit.
The federal government and parliament as a whole have managed to waste several weeks on a flag debate that a 10 year old school kid could have settled in a few minutes.
Perhaps the suggestion of MP Frank Howard that the flag decision should be left to the children wasn't foolish after all. We're certain that a Grade I class would have done better than our grade B politicians.
While our $18,000 a year and up politicians trade wind in Ottawa, the big issues facing all Canadians are being sidetracked.
On this Labor Day, organised workers must dedicate themselves to a campaign to force the government to meet its promises and obligations.
The old age pension scheme pledged by the Liberals remains on the list of unfinished — virtually untouched — business.
The important Hall report on medicare is gathering dust instead of being implemented as a vital, immediately essential part of a modern day social security program.
Workers are being displaced by automation without a thoroughgoing retraining program coupled with a plan of job replacement.
And unemployment, despite the fact that the politicians are ignoring it and despite the high profits and boom in industry, is still with us on a big scale.
Without the slightest question, there will be half a million out of work next winter.
And our foreign policy, never independent, is more than ever a mere echo of the voices in Washington.
We're concerned about these and other crises facing the country, including the very real issue of French and English Canada which remains unsolved.
All this sounds a little negative but what other reaction is possible under present conditions?
The problems are there and as long as they remain, the duty of the government is to deal with them and to act in the interests of the majority.
Organised labor has, it seems to us, stepped backward from political action over the past recent period.
If the program desired by all working people is to be realised, if we are to have peace, prosperity, and real social security, the labor movement must resolve on the Labor Day to get back into the battle to win them.
Sports With Dollar Signs
OO CALLED sports fishermen with cheap commercial licences " are making a mockery of salmon fishing here this summer. The "meat" fishermen appear to be everywhere, yarding in as many fish as they can, then proudly selling them.
What makes it all the more galling is that most of these types have good jobs and shouldn't need the money. Some of the commercial boys who fish for a living are burned up about it and so are a lot of other anglers who still enjoy fishing for salmon as a sport.
Game clubs are expected to put pressure on the department* of fisheries, who are anything but pleased with the present regulations that allow the $1 licence, to either restrict or up the licence fee or put additional licence on sports boats fishing with commercial licences.
One way or another, they should stop it.
—Campbell River Courier
4 THE FISHERMAN - September 4, 1964
FISH
and SHIPS
Behind the Headlines
MINISTER LOOKS AT NATIVE ISSUES
km
This is the first of a series of three articles on the Native Indians of Canada,
* * ★ By BEN SWANKEY TA/TOST Canadians view the struggles of US Negroes for equal civil rights with a great deal of sympathy. We have been shocked to learn of the conditions under which they live and angered and disgusted at the brutal treatment they have received.
But we sometimes tend to forget that we have a somewhat similar problem right on our own doorstep, about which not too much is being done. I refer, of course, to our Native Indians. The conditions under which they live and the equality which is denied to them is a blot on our democracy. Here is an historic injustice that needs correction, and urgently so, just as much as that of the treatment of American Negroes.
An awareness of this need to do something about it is growing, and that is all to the good.
A SIGNIFICANT AND
worthwhile contribution to the public debate of what should be done is the publication of the pamphlet The Dilemma for Our Indian People by James P. Mul-vihill, OMI. It is a reprint of seven articles on Indian affairs by Father Mulvihill written for Oblate News.
As the foreword states, Father Mulvihill has had "over 20 years practical experience in Indian missionary work and Indian education in British Columbia" and is therefore well qualified to speak from his own experience. In this series of serious yet simply written articles, he views the problems of Native Indians with both sympathy and understanding.
"They are a minority," says Father Mulvihill, "but they have a special place among all the minority groups of Canada. First of all because they have a special body of laws—'The Indian Act'— and, secondly, they are the first inhabitants and only true natives of our country."
He notes the "astounding political abnormality that the Indians and their affairs should be placed under the minister of immigration ..."
ABOUT THE NATIVE IN-
dians themselves and how they feel, Father Mulvihill makes these pertinent remarks.
"Their native intelligence," he says, "is equal if not better than the rest of Canadians ..."
Because he misses "many opportunities open to the dominant group both in the social and economic fields," the Indian considers that "he is singled out to be cheated by employers and merchants and ridiculed by the other groups."
Indians live "in constant fear of prejudice" and "have no united front against this terror because they live on isolated reserves." This also explains, says Father Mulvihill, why "they have no common purpose."
He notes that they are a "proud people and wish to preserve their cultural identity" and believes they are "rebellious and not certain of what they want."
In Father Mulvihill's view, the real source of the troubles facing the Indians is living on Indian Reserves. "T h e Indian people as a whole," he declares, "cannot enjoy the Canadian standard of living while they remain on reserves."
The reserves, he says, "insulate the Indian against the necessity of adjusting to the changing conditions of this atomic age."
And he charges that "the reserves produce a type of child training that defeats any later attempts of the adult to adjust to Canadian living." He feels that in the reserves "the tradition of mistreatment by the 'whites' is emphasised and passed on ... "
But he notes also that sociologists claim the bad conditions prevailing on reserves are "not the fault of the Indians but come from the normal frustration of minority groups faced with low income living."
AT THE SAME TIME HE
recognises that "the Indians consider the reserve is the last bastion of protection from the greed and exploitation of the 'whites' . . . The reserve is their home and it will be protected by them to the last ditch and rightly so if there is no better home to be had elsewhere and a better way of life they could accept with dignity."
' He understands that "they still fear what the 'whites' might do to them if they relinquish their reserve rights."
He is certain that "opposition from the Indians will be met in any policy that will change the basic principle of the reserve system."
WE noted an interesting item in the federal fisheries department Sports Fish Bulletin for the week ending August 23. "Fishing is rated as fair in Al-berni Inlet, fair in Nahmint Bay, and good in Barkley Sound," it states. "Coho fishing is so good at Bamfield that several 'sportsmen' (the term is placed in quotation marks in the Bulletin) using sport fishing gear have taken out licences and are selling their catch commercially."
Our thanks to Vancouver Fishermen's Local secretary Roy Binney for passing along the editorial from the Campbell River Courier written by publisher Murray Poskitt on the very subject of the hybrid commercial sport. The whole process adds weight to the already powerful case for licence limitation. The editorial is reprinted on this page.
We were worried about wee kiddies falling off the high boardwalks at Klemtu when we were there recently and in fact cautioned some of the youngsters who were hanging over the lower railings. Our fears were realised last week when it was reported August 28 that seven year old Lloyd Houstie was drowned when he fell into the water.
★ ★ ★
The vessel Diana Girl was reportedly holed August 26 when she struck the north arm jetty near the mouth of the Fraser River. She was towed to Steve-ston by the Pacific Harvester as the coast guard cutter Ready stood by.
★ ★ ★
John Swaluk and his wife, troller Pride and Joy, dropped in for a short but pleasant visit. They set our minds at ease when they told us the Union troller with whom they were travelling and who dropped in for a visit on the Chiquita 3 in Alert Bay last month was Dan Sigmund, owner of the Eldo. Our apologies to Dan for forgetting his name.
★ ★ ★
Adeline Ratchford suffered an unfortunate and painful accident Tuesday when she lost the tips of three fingers when her hand was caught in the wrapping machine at BC Packers' Imperial cannery. We understand she is home from hospital. Adeline was formerly chief shop steward at the plant and a member of the Steveston Shoreworkers Local executive. For many years she served the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union as a member of the general executive board.
★ ★ ★
Former U F A W U organiser Fred Olsen hobbled his way to the office this week but unfortunately we missed seeing him. Apparently a boyhood injury has become a manhood nightmare. Which recalls to us these poignantly plaintive lines from the mighty Robert Burns: Oh age brings weary days And nights of sleepless pain; Thou golden time of youthful prime, Why comes thou not again?
★ ★ ★
Another visitor was Elgin (Scotty) Neish, whose size never seems to diminish. Scotty and his brother Angus are still going to pot — crab pot, that is — and are making a fair living with a lot of hard work. They're using Angus' Valjim although Scotty has his Semiramus in top shape (yes, he ground the valves). Scotty was telling us about the hazards of crab fishing, the tremendous loss in pots and the means they use to minimise it. Some are caught accidentally and dragged out to deep water but others are stolen. Fishermen and others consider it fair game to pilfer crab pots for a feed but they'd scream bloody murder if somebody plucked a few salmon out of their nets or walked into their backyard and started raiding the carrot patch. Funny — or
See FISH AND SHIPS—Page 10
