138 East Cordova Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 683-9655
10 CENTS A COPY $5 A YEAR $6 FOREIGN
HAL GRIFFIN, Editor
Authorised as second class mail by Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash. Published by the Fisherman Publishing Society every Friday except the last Friday of the month. Deadline: Wednesday prior to publication.
Organized Hypocrisy
ii A CONSERVATIVE government," Benjamin Disraeli once remarked in the British House of Commons, "is an organized hypocrisy." The truth of this is being substantiated at Victoria and by none better than Hon. Leslie Peterson, minister of labor in the Social Credit government — a government led by renegade Conservatives and equalled in its corruption only by the Conservative government of Sir Richard McBride half a century ago.
Explaining section 18 of Bill 33, the government's new Mediation Commission Act, empowering the government to prevent or end a strike or lockout, Peterson asserts that the government does not dispute "the basic right to strike or lockout. These are basic to free collective bargaining." And, "There is no intent to take away the right to strike and lockout, except in very special cases."
This, from a government which already has stripped labor of basic rights; which has made unions legal entities subject to penalty, permitted the use of injunctions to break strikes and jailed unionists for contempt, is the height of hypocrisy.
Organized workers in the fishing industry, who have seen the UFAWU fined $25,000 and its president, H. Steve Stavenes, and secretary, Homer Stevens jailed for one year, can only regard as a threat to their living standards Peterson's reference to their industry in defending his refusal to define what he means by "very special cases."
"It may be in the public interest, for example, that there should be no strike or lockout in the fishing industry to impede or prevent the processing of fish, a common property resource, during a season when the salmon run is at its peak, whereas during an off season this would not be so," he said.
Nothing les than the full strength of an aroused and united labor movement can prevent the government from imposing compulsory arbitration and destroying the "basic rights" that, hypocritically, it professes to uphold.
HARRY RANKIN
Time NHL Hockey Combine Broken
V'ANCOUVER hockey fans, land they number many thousands, want a National Hockey League team located in our city. But apparently the NHL establishment has decreed otherwise. It lias turned a cold shoulder to the bid of Labatt Breweries, which has just bought a controlling inter- _
est in the Oakland Seals, to move the S e a 1 s' franchise to Vancouver.
Leading the opposition against Vancouver, just as they did in 1966 when the NHL expand-panded from six to 12 teams, are the wealthy owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. The reason is as simple as it is selfish and unpatriotic. They can make more money from TV rights by keeping the NHL teams in the U.S. than they can by expanding into other Canadian cities. And so Canada, where hockey was born and developed into a fine art, from which virtually all the NHL players come, has only two NHL teams while the U.S. has ten.
That's typical of the barons who run the NHL. They operate a closely knit combine, exploiting the public and treating their own players like serfs.
Few NHL players have any security. They can be sold to another team like slaves at any time; they must be willing to pack up and move on a few hours' notice to another city regardless of family considerations. Should any player refuse to sign a contract with the team that owns him, or refuse to go
to another team when sold, he is blacklisted throughout the professional hockey world and can't play hockey again. * ★ ★ IT'S TIME THIS HOCKEY combine was broken up. NHL teams should be established in all Canadian cities that want them and can support them financially. Professional hockey players must be granted full citizenship and bargaining rights and no longer subjected to slave contracts that clearly violate all concepts of the rights of the individual.
Our Pacific Coliseum, the finest hockey arena in the country, is very much involved in present campaigns to bring an NHL team here.
The Coliseum was built and paid for by the taxpayers of Vancouver. No professional hockey club, whether an NHL team or the Vancouver Canucks, should be given an exclusive monopoly on the use of the Coliseum for hockey. Rent at a reasonable price, yes, but monopoly control, no.
The city council and the PNE should take steps to promote amateur hockey a good deal more, especially among the youngsters who show such a dedicated enthusiasm for our national game.
Why shouldn't we have one of Canada's national amateur teams based here? And why shouldn't we invite teams from the Soviet Union, Finland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, East and West Germany to play exhibition games here more often? They play a pleasing style of hockey and would be well supported by the public.
The city and provincial government should both make generous grants to promote amateur hockey in Vancouver and throughout the province.
As this picture taken by Fisherman photographer John Rutka shows, Campbell Avenue dock is a busy place these days.
FISH and SHIPS
THE FISHERMAN — APRIL 5, 1968
THE department of national revenue has spent a fair amount on an advertising campaign persuading people to file their income tax returns early. For those who did so, in anticipation of getting their refund back that much sooner, it would appear to have been wasted effort.
The number of inquiries we have had from people who filed their returns early in February led us to make a few inquiries of our own. We obtained some opinions of Liberal policy, couched in rich but unparliamentary language, but at this time of writing, we have yet to find one taxpayer who has received a refund.
The official explanation is that the taxation data centre at Ottawa has been having trouble with its new computer. This explanation is just a little too pat to be credible. Conveniently, after his five percent tax gouge was defeated in the House of Commons, finance minister Mitchell Sharp decided it would be too complicated to return the estimated $25 million illegally extracted from taxpayers, part of which will now be retained under the three percent levy approved by parliament.
If this year's performance is any criterion, taxpayers will get their money back in April 1969 —and the government will keep the interest. Not satisfied with this, the government apparently decided to chisel a little more out of the taxpayers by holding up their refunds for a period of up to two months, during which it has the use of the money interest free.
* * ★
Our congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. David Mann, now of New Westminster. Until their marriage at Sointula on March 8, Mrs. Mann was Linda Mildred Crowell. A psychiatric nurse, she is the eldest daughter of Bernard Crowell, president of Sointula UFAWU Local.
* ★ ★
Joe (Hard Hat) Babcock, we're glad to relate, is now back in his room at the Balmoral Hotel, seemingly as spry as ever after the operation in Vancouver General Hospital for removal of his right eye and looking forward to celebration of his 93rd birthday on May 19.
* ★ ★
From Prince Rupert we have word that Tony Miele, one of the "outside group" of shore-workers who honored picket lines at Prince Rupert Fisher-
men's Co-op during last summer's dispute, has decided to remain in his native Italy.
An active worker on the picket line and a member of the UFAWU committee that negotiated with the Co-op management following the dispute, Tony went back to Italy for a visit when it became apparent that he had no immediate prospect of getting back to work. Now apparently he has decided to go into business for himself operating a combined grocery store and taxi business, a venture in which he will have the good wishes of his many friends in Prince Rupert.
* ★ ★ Barbara Stewart, wife of Kit-
katla Local secretary Joe Stewart who is pictured elsewhere in this issue in his role as coach of the Darby Lodge basketball team, is laid up at Heather Pavilion in Vancouver General Hospital with a broken ankle. The Stewarts have been in Vancouver since early January when Joe began an upgrading course at the Vocational Institute.
* ★ ★
Fisheries department enforcement officers may proceed with three charges against a gillnet fisherman apprehended in the Fraser River on April 1, we were told this week, and our informant suggests that the date on which the incident took place may have been appropriate. One charge, we understand, is for fishing without a licence and the other two counts are for using illegal gear.
★ * *
In its latest bulletin, Canadian Aid for Vietnam Civilians acknowledges a donation of $50, representing a collection taken among UFAWU officers and staff in memory of W. J. (Robbie) Robson, husband of UFAWU shoreworker and former trustee Lillian Robson. A lifelong unionist and veteran of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, which fought with the International Brigade in defence of the Spanish Republic in 1936-39, Robbie Robson died on December 30 at the age of 67.
★ * ★
Unlike some publications, we offer no prizes for those readers who looked in vain for Stanley Hair Style Studio's advertisement on page 7 of our last issue and finally found it on page 15. The explanation is simple: the makeup man at the printshop switched it at the last minute, blissfully unaware of the con-
fusion he would cause. But if the number of readers who drew it to our attention is any indication, Gilda Hansen, daughter of UFAWU small boat vice-president Alf Hansen, should be the most popular hair stylist in the Lower Mainland by now.
★    ★ *
Familiar faces under new hats these days are those of Jim Perigo, Bob Burley and Lome Ayres whose combined experience in hydraulics totals nearly 30 years. They are putting this experience to use now in a business venture aptly called Able Marine Hydraulics at 1342 Clark Drive in Vancouver.
"One of the complaints most frequently heard on the waterfront is that a fisherman must tie up his boat for a long period in order to send his hydraulic equipment out for repair," Lome Ayres told us. "We overcome this problem by taking our workshop to the boat."
Able Marine's workship is a mobile repair van outfitted with flexible hose and fittings, pumps, motors and control valves, and a phone call to 254-7161 will bring it to the dock.
North Delta and District UFAWU Local secretary Carl Liden informs us that New Democratic MPs Barry Mather and Bob Prittie will be the speakers at a meeting to be held at 8 p.m. April 17 in Sunbury Hall at which, we understand, they will discuss issues of particular importance to fishermen.
Mather's New Westminster riding presently includes Delta but because of changes in federal constituency boundaries, Carl told us, the area will be part of Prittie's Burnaby-Rich-mond territory when the next elections are held. The meeting will present Delta residents with a unique opportunity to hear and question both their current MP and the man who will in all likelihood be their representative after the next federal election.
Shoreworker Konrad Benson of Namu is progressing satisfactorily at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver where he recently underwent surgery, Union welfare director Glenn McEachern told us this week. Konrad was said to be looking forward to an early discharge from hospital and returning to the job at Namu before long.