BRITISH COLUMBIA

‘Restore VIA Rail’

: = Paul Lawrence of the United Transportation Union hi

its federal government cuts that

_ chopped VIA Rail passenger service between Vancouver and Edmonton at an open
pee derhonstration outside the CN station at Vancouver's Thorton Park May 16. The
~ western Service was chopped in 1981, laying off several railway workers, but has since
been restored between Winnipeg and Edmonton, beginning in June. The Canadian
’ ‘Brotherhood of Railway; Transport, and General Workers, which organized the rally, is
* waginga write-in campaign to have the full service restored. Unemployed activist Kim
‘Zander, Mayor Mike Harcourt, Vancouver East MP Margaret Mitchell.and former CBRT

- . president Bill Epps also addressed the rally.

: Block’s book exposes
Institute’s immorality

Many people have been shocked by
the immorality of the social and eco-
nomic philosophies of the Fraser Insti-
tute, which acts as adviser to the Bennett
government and which is funded by the
big corporations in the province. They
would be shocked still more if they read a
book written by Walter Block, the senior
economist of the Fraser Institute, called
Defending the Undefendable.

Block adopts as his own the philo-
sophy of libertarianism. Based on this
outlook he discusses the role of various
groups in society such as the prostitutes,
pimps, employers who discriminate
against women, drug pushers, drug
addicts, blackmailers, slanderers and
libelers, advertisers, dishonest cops,
counterfeiters, slum landlords, specula-
tors; scabs, employers of child labor and
many others. And he makes the
unabashed assertion that “they are guilty
of no wrong-doing.

“They actually benefit society,” he

insists, adding that “if we prohibit their —

activities we do so at our own loss.”

Denying that prostitution is “demean-
ing and exploitive,” and claiming that
drug addicition and being beaten by
pimps, ‘thas little to do with the instrinsic
career of prostitution,” Block points to
what he calls, “its good feature (short
hours, higher remuneration)” and then
states that marriage (where only one
spouse is working) isa form of prostitu-
tion. Laws against prostitution, he avers,
“are harmful to women in that they pre-
vent them from earning an honest liv-
ing.” The pimp, he says, “performs the
necessary function of brokering.”

Male employers have the right to do
what they like to ahd with female
employees on their property, Block says.
If the women don’t like it they can always

quit — accepting the job is the equival-_

ent of accepting all that goes with it,
iricluding the employers’ unwanted and
unsolicited attentions. “The male chauv-
inist pig,” he concludes, “can be consi-
dered a hero,” adding that “‘any attack
upon discrimination, therefore, is an
attempt to restrict the options open to all
individuals.”

The function of the drug pusher,
Block says, “‘is to keep the price of drugs

down,” and he therefore, “must be con-
sidered the heroic figure.” Crimes asso-
ciated with the drug trade, he says, occur
because it is prohibited and the govern-
ment is to blame.

Blackmail, according to Block should

be legalized “to diminish crime,” adding
that the only people being blackmailed
are criminals or those whose sexual pref-
erences are different from the majority,
and for good measure he throws Com-
munists into the latter group.
_ The rights of slanderers and libelers to
slander and libel, he says, must be pro-
tected because they are “consistent with
the right of free speech.”

However, academic freedom, to Block, -

is “a fraud and theft.”

Advertising, he states, “does not lure
people to buy what they would not oth-
erwise buy” because of its “informa-
tional content.” Laws which regulate or
restrict advertising in any way are,

Harry
Rankin

according to Block, violations of free
speech.

Slum landlords, he says, do not over-
charge; the people who live in slums
“prefer to live in slums.” Publicly-owned
housing, he claims, causes racial tension
and shatters community life.

Those who attack profits and profit-
eering, says Block, “show themselves to
be in league with despots and dictators,
because they are attacking...the very
foundation of freedom in every other
area of human life.”

“The institution of child labor,” says
Block, “is an honorable one, with a long
and glorious history of good works. And
the villains of the piece are not the
employers, but rather those who prohibit
the free market in child labor.

If this is the kind of man Premier Ben-
nett and his cabinet go to for advice on
social and economic legislation, where is
B.C. heading? What kind of society are
we going to end up with in our province?

City urges Victoria
press porn charges

If senior levels of government would
press charges under the existing Criminal
Code, distributors of pornographic mate-
rials would be before the courts, Ald. Harry
Rankin told Vancouver city council prior to

the adoption of several measures to curb the .

spread of pronographic magazines within
the city.

Following recommendations from its
community services committee, council
unanimously agreed May 15 to apply an
existing bylaw limiting the sale of “sexually
graphic” magazines to 12 licenced adult
bookstores, giving corner grocery stores 30

days to clear such materials from their mag- *

azine racks.

The councillors also unanimously voted
to instruct the director of legal services to
bring forward a bylaw designed to regulate
the display of “other adult magazines” —
the soft-core type depicting nudity —

which are sold in corner stores. ;
The actions came at the request of several.

local women’s, organizations following the
North Shore Women’s Centre’s recent reve-
lations that Mainland Magazine Service,

_’ one of two major distributors in the Lower

Mainland, was responsible for the spread of
some 250 hard-core titles.

The centre also revealed that Mainland
belonged to businessman and chair of Expo
86, Jim Pattison.

Despite recommendations from the
community services committee that Patti-
son keep Mainland and get rid of the porno-
graphy, the company was sold to a former
Pattison Group employee early last week.

Speakers appearing before council critic-
ized the move.

“Mr. Pattison. . .has chosen this easy way
out, instead of becoming an example and

setting standards in the fight against porno-

graphy. Mr. Pattison has now set an exam-
ple of what an irresponsible public figure he
has chosen to be,” charged Lydia Legebokoff
of the Congress of Canadian Women.

The North Shore Women’s Centre also
hit Pattison for the sale, and took issue with

_zines by any companies under his co”!

the businessman’s claim that he had beet
“shocked” to discover the titles Mainlas®
was distributing. a

The centre suggested the RCMP invest
gate the interlocking directorships of oe
panies, to discover whether Pattison”
whose 40 companies provide 4 |
example of the phenomenon — and othe
are involved not only in pornography
tribution, but in its production as well.

Such a motion was before council, ae
community services, but it was defea
with the combined votes of council’s ®
wing — aldermen Warnett Kenné' ‘t
George Puil, Don Bellamy, Marguet
Ford and May Brown — and thos¢
Mayor-Mike Harcourt and Ald. Bill Y&%

Voting for it were the Committee of Pr
gressive Electors aldermen — Libby Da¥
Bruce Eriksen, Harry Rankin and Brut
Yorke. a

One of the strongest demands, expt! f
by women’s groups and the. coP
members, was that provisions of the ca
nal Code and the province’s guidelines ©
pornography be strictly enforced. |

“Basically politicians have not wanted
make this a priority,” said Davies, 9°
that true control of pornography dise
tion rests with the senior governments. ihe
should insist that charges be laid undef ™
Criminal Code.”

“There’s been a conspiracy not to chase
these people,” said Rankin. “The idea
the code is ineffective and that these “P2?
people’ (distributors) have a problem defi
ing it issheer garbage, — and the attomey
general, the police, and Mr. Pattison kno
it.” 3

Council subsequently adopted a motion
from Brown, that called-on the attom
general to enforce the province’s guidelin®

Council also agreed to ask Pattison ®
cease distributing any pornographic a
and to request all regional magazine wh
salers to dump pornographic material.

B.C.’s Socreds took another step
_ down the road to sell-out last week with
the announced privatization of the Insu-

division. =

Whether or not the government finds
a buyer, the profitable division is
going — even if it means phasing out the
operation, said Consumer and Corpo-
rate Affairs Minister Jim Hewitt.

employees, members of the Office and

Technical Employees Union, Local 378,

who work in five regional offices for the

general insurance division.

The move confirms suspicions that the
government is planning the dismantling
of the publicly-owned corporation, set

"up under the Barrett NDP government
shortly after it took office in 1972. Like
dozens of other major and minor
government services and corporations

. already privatized, it has long been the

target of private enterprisers anxious for

a grab at ICBC’s multi-million dollar

business.

-The division, which accounts for
about seven per cent of the general insu-
rance sold in B.C., made a $1.2-million
profit last year.

Hewitt’s statements did not preclude
the eventual privatization of ICBC’s car
insurance business. That the division will
go on the auction block in the future, if

rance Corp. of B.C.’s general insurance

At question are the jobs of 125 ICBC —

ICBC privatization hit
by B.C. insurance agents:

Social Credit continues to get its way,
was evident in the supporting statements °
of Brian Stanhope, regional vice
president of the Insurance Bureau °
Canada.

Praising the privatization of the ge2"
eral insurance division, Stanhope s4!
the government should be out of the
insurance business altogether, but felt
that “the government went as far as POS”
sible at the present time.”

The move was criticized by NDP
MLA Dennis Cocke, the opposition’s
ICBC critic, who said the privatization
would make it difficult, if not impossible,

for many small businesses to _purchas¢
general insurance.

The privatization was also hit by the
Insurance Agents Association of B.C.,
whose president, Barry Amies, said 70
per cent of membership favored the cot
poration and were unhappy about hav-
ing to look for another agent to provide
general insurance.

Uncertain is the future of the general

division’s employees, who work in offi-
ces in North Vancouver, Kelowna, Vic-
toria, Cranbrook and Prince George.

OTEU president Anne Harvey said

union members are guaranteed successor
rights under the Labor Code — the new

one — and should therefore be able to

retain their jobs under the new employer.

—_——

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 23, 1984

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