Protest Is Appropriate
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npHE bold posture taken by the Trudeau government toward U.S. encroachment upon our Arctic territorial waters has dissolved into what NDP federal leader T. C. Douglas aptly describes as "supine acquiescence" in its attitude toward the takeover of Royal Securities Corporation by the huge U.S. investment firm of Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith.
Announcing that the government would not block the takeover, finance minister E. J. Benson told the House of Commons on July 2, "I do not believe it would be appropriate nor have we presently the power to stop the sale of Royal Securities Corporation to Merrill, Lynch."
As a statement of policy, Benson's remark that it would not be appropriate is accurate enough. The Trudeau government clearly doesn't want to prevent the sale. If it did, it has all the powers it needs to act and place the enabling legislation before the House of Commons as an urgent matter touching the highest national interest.
Benson's statement that the finance department is undertaking a study of foreign ownership and control of investment firms is hardly reassuring. If the government, having had weeks to study the question, is not prepared to act now, what expectation is there that it will act effectively later after allowing the precedent to be set?
U.S. monopolies already own more than half our manufacturing, mining and smelting, petroleum and natural gas, distorting the development of our economy to serve U.S. interests and restricting our political freedom to determine our own independent course. Now they are beginning the assault
to obtain control of our financial institutions—and the Trudeau government doesn't think it would be appropriate to stop them.
As Melville Watkins, associate professor of economics at University of Toronto, said last October:
"The Canadian economy increasingly has taken on the character of a concessionary economy, and our politics have had to be tailored to meet this fact . . .
"Bluntly stated, the capacity of the Canadian government independently to create jobs and control inflation is negligible."
This fight against what Les Benjamin, New Democratic member for Regina-Lake Centre, has called "a knowing betrayal and unconscionable lack of concern for the preservation of Canadian sovereignty, unity and viability as a nation," is one that affects every Canadian worthy of the name and none more so than the generation of young Canadians whose future is in the balance.
This is an issue upon which all progressives, New Democrats and Communists and trade unionists of every persuasion, can find common cause. Unless the working people unite to defend the country's vital interests, which are inseparable from their own, there is no prospect of leadership elsewhere. With the U.S. monopolists already well entrenched within our gates, the Trudeau government appears to be concerned only in facilitating the sale and demolition of the homestead.
The boos that greeted Benson's statement in the House of Commons should become a roar of protest throughout the country.
OUR citation for the best political retort of the week goes to Robert Strachan, New Democratic MLA for Cowichan-Mala-hat. When Premier W. A. C. Bennett proudly released to the press messages he received from Hollywood after the Social Credit government film, "The Good Life, was screened there, Strachan commented: "Hollywood should like it. They have always been interested in fiction."
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We had a call this week from John Demetris, now 73, and retired after a lifetime in the industry. He had read about the speech made in the House of Commons by Ray Perrault, Liberal MP for Burnaby-Seymour, opposing any proposal to allow Japanese to process dogfish taken in B.C. waters, advocating subsidies for a Canadian dogfish industry and suggesting that dogfish be renamed to make it more acceptable to consumers. (The suggestion that certain species be renamed originated, as we recall, with Barry Mather, New Democratic MP for Surrey.)
John's suggestion was that dogfish be renamed Rofos or Famell, as similar fish are called by the Greeks, who use them in soups and stews . . . and very good, too, he assured us.
John also informed us that his venerable collector Tsuru, which he sold last year, has been completely rebuilt and "looks like a new boat." Ocean Fisheries will use her as collector this year.
★ * * UFAWU organizer Wayne
Patterson, who was in the central area holding a series of
union meetings recently, tells us he enjoyed the company of Frank Buble and the genial crew of the Eastpoint — in addition to a fine meal of fresh caught fish—when was given a lift aboard the seiner from Namu to Ocean Falls. Earlier, he had been helped in setting up a meeting of fishermen at Namu by union shoreworkers Ted Johnson, a member of the UFAWU general executive board, and Kon Benson.
At Ocean Falls, Wayne reports, he was treated most cordially by George Nairn, president of the International Pulp, Sulphite Union local which, as in past years, gave the use of its hall for the fishermen's meeting and cooperated fully in other ways.
Fishing had been very poor in the Addenbroke Point seine area, Wavne was told, and some boats had gone looking for greener pastures in upper Johnstone Strait. Among the seiners he met at Ocean Falls were Richard Martinolich and crew of the Mar Brothers, Pete Wishin-ski and crew of the Santa Rosa and Pete's son. Reg Wishinski who is skippering the Evening Star this season.
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As this issue went to press, we learned of the death on July 5 of Ole Vea, a frequent contributor to this department over the years. Early this year he underwent major surgery for cancer and his voice was sad when he phoned us this past March to tell us he was selling his troller Karmsund, the boat with whose name we shall always associate his own. To this passing tribute we hope to add the full story of his long fishing career in our next issue.
THE FISHERMAN — JULY 11, 1969
TfieTIflierman
138 East Cordova Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 683-9655
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HAL GRIFFIN, Editor MIKE JAMES, Assistant Editor
Second class mail registration number 1576. Published by the Fisherman Publishing Society every second Friday Deadline: Wednesday prior to publication.