pes “Ay by NATION Mounties still tail students who asked him to cooperate with Despite government denials, the RCMP continues to gumshoe through the campus, plaguing and harassing students over ‘‘secur- ity’’ investigations. Latest example comes from the University of Saskatchewan Regi- na campus, where the Student Re- presentative Council voted unani- mously last week to inform stu- dents that attempts are being made to have students on the campus act as contacts in the fe- deral police investigations. The council passed a resolu- tion to this effect after hearing a report from a student stating he had been approached by aman the RCMP tions.’’ After a three-hour talk at a public eating place the student refused. : The student was told that co- operation at the university was so poor the RCMP was unable to get a student directory. Which speaks well for the stu- dents. Student council president Bob Gaudry said such activities ofthe RCMP must not be condoned ‘‘be- cause the campus is an area of free thought, and students are not qualified to give opinions of other students.’’ in its ‘‘investiga- High funeral costs fought Memorial societies in Canada and the United States have been launching an all-out, frontal at- tack against the high price of funerals, According to the latest esti- mate (1956) the average price of a funeral in Canada was $405. It has risen sharply since, espec- ially in the cities, it is reported in the Financial Times. U.S. funerals are saidto aver- age more than $900 each for every man, woman and still-born child, Memorial societies have been Operating in Canada since 1955, Public interest in them became widespread after publication of a book, The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford. (A review of this book was published in the PT, issue of November 15). The groups attempt to secure simple but dignified burials and cremations in the $150 range. After writing a letter to the editor of a daily newspaper, the Memorial Association in Mon- treal received more than 70 in- quiries, Memorial groups in Ca- nada operate in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Ed- monton and Vancouver. Does RCMP aid ultra-Right? JACOB PENNER, veteran Commu- nist and former National Chair- man of the party, is recuperatin f om a heart attack which he suf- wpred recently. Although still un- er doctor’s care, he is reported be convalescing satisfactorily at his home in Winnipeg. Does an ultra-Right organiza- tion in Canada get its information (and misinformation) about so- called Communist. organizations: and Communist activities from the RCMP? One Member of Parliament, Douglas Fisher, New Democrat from Port Arthur, suspects it does. In the House of Commons Fish- er recently asked if Alert Ser- vice, an anti-Communist body in Toronto, got its list of ‘*Com- munist front organizations, un- ions and publications’ in Canada from the Mounties, Quoting a statement by former justice minister E. Davie Fulton, Fisher said the RCMP has co- ’ operated with the Alert Service and considers it areputable news medium, ~ Fisher moved to obtain all cor- respondence between the RCMP and Alert. His motion for infor- mation was talked out without reaching a vote in the Commons, Nationalize CPR, says SFU The opening hours of the an- nual Saskatchewan Farmers Unior Convention saw quick passage of 4 resolution placing the delegates on record ‘*as opposing the ac- Guisition by Canada of nuclear reads now or at any future ime for its forces at home or abroad,” ee convention also adopted €e other resolutions pertain- ing to foreign policy: one on world ements another calling upon i federal govenment to ‘‘con- nue the previous government’s Policy of refusing to join (the Or- pee vation of American States’’); ‘ a a third pressing the govern- €nt to extend foreign aid, ee in the proceedings the en N's President Roy Atkinson E Pace a four-page document a SFU Policy Statement on ional Transportation. The statement is awell-round- edo. ‘ a out demand for the nationali- On of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and for a unified, inte- grated transportation system. It should give a lead to the forces which are coming into organized existence in the province against the policy of rail-line abandon- ment, : ; Not only does the union call for the nationalization of the CPR, but it presents a rounded out sub- stantiation of its position, and asks for coordination by the gov- ernment of all forms of public transportation. : The statement received en- thusiastic support from: the dele- gates, There were four resolutions brought in from district conven- tions dealing with rail-line aban- donment. Two of them had been passed by almost all districts in the province, showing the wide range of unity and concern about the policy of the government on « ACROSS mewpey TEN YEARS AGO BECKIE BUHAY DIED Her work lives on.. By TIM BUCK December 16 will be the 10th poignant anniversary of the day when progressive people allover Canada were stricken with grief at the news that one of this country’s dearly beloved work- ing-class leaders, Beckie Buhay, had passed away. The memory of Beckie is still green. Many thousands who did not know her personally knew of her and her passionate battle against injustice and for demo- cratic progress. It was literally that knowledge, inspired by the unflinching exam- ples of Beckie and others like her, which enabled many work- ers to enter upon large-scale, bitterly fought struggles without funds, aye, frequently without any treasury at all, and win. Beckie was born in London, England, in 1896. She and her brother Mike (the late Councillor Buhay of Montreal) were in the Socialist movement there from their teens. They became activ- ists in the Socialist movement in Montreal almost immediately when their parents brought them ‘to Canada. Beckie, along with her two teenage and lifeling comrades, Annie Buller (now Guralnick) and Bella Hall (later Bella Gauld), or- ganized the Montreal Labor Col- lege. I do not intend to enumerate Beckie’s contributions to the working-class movement in Can- ada. As Leslie Morris pointed out in his beautiful tribute to Beckie 10 years ago, the contribution she made during her dedicated life is part of the warp and woof, not only of the working class move- ment but of Canadian democracy as a whole, Leslie was right. The evidence is all aroundus. Beckie’s earliest speeches were in condemnation of the entrenched tradition of monopoly capitalism, in Canada and the United States, that work- ers, particularly in the mass pro- duction industries, were not to be allowed to organize. * * * I shared the soap box with her at many a street-corner meeting on that theme. Beckie’s voice ringing with the flaming passion which characterized her, would bring traffic on the farthest corner to a stop, and eventually across the street, to hear better what this stirring enemy of in- justice had to say. It didn’t stop at protests. With- in a few years Beckie was fre- quently the fiery centre of oneor other of the many organizing Some of the hundre campaigns by which Canadian workers established, in effect, al- though not yet in law, their right to organize. Every worker who joins a union today without fear of open victimization, owes his immunity to the determined struggles through which the right to orga- nize was established; in which Beckie’s role was outstanding. As with trade unionism, so also in respect to Canadian democ- racy as a whole, To the extent BECKIE BUHAY that the democratic processes, and the civil rights of individuals, have been preserved and have be- come the cause of all the people,. every Canadian owes a debt to the work of Beckie Buhay. She roseto her greatest heights in the historic national campaign to repeal Section 98 of the Crimi- nal Code. The manner in which that evil law was being used, rep- resented the demand that it be repealed as bordering on sedi- tion. In addition, it made it un- avoidable that a serious attempt to force its repeal had to rely largely on mass demonstrations, marches, deputations, confer- ences and so on. * * * Beckie went across Canada in that battle. Everywhere she went her voice rang out, combining the interest ofimmediate issues such as: work or full maintenance for workers and their families; seed, feed, and security for drought- stricken farmers; defense of local victims of Section 98; re- lease of Annie Buller who was imprisoned for her leadership of the heroic miners of Estevan; release of the Communists from the Kingston Penitentiary, etc., etc., along with her over-all slogan: ‘‘Repeal Section 98!’ In that campaign the Canadian Labor Defence League collected 384,000 signatures on a petition for release of eight Communist ds of people who attended Beckie Buhay’s funeral in Toronto in 1953. leaders, imprisoned in the King- ston penitentiary under Section 98, and demanding repeal of that evil law. The campaign and the signatures were decisive in free- ing the eight and in forcing re- peal of Section 98. Beckie herself would never have permitted anybody to de- scribe her role in the campaign in the way that I have described it above. She was proud, almost fiercely so, of the role that the Canadian Labor Defence League played in that struggle but she insisted, always, that first credit must go to the national chairman of the CLDL, the Rev. A. E. Smith, whom she proudly and truly called ‘*The Great Defend- erz? That also was characteristic. of Beckie and part of her won- derful political tradition. Con- cerning her own work she tried, always, to learn from criticism— and she never hesitated to criti- cize herself. She meant every word of what she used to say so often, espec- ially to students in her numer- ous Communist Party courses: *“‘Ours is the party of unsung heroes, whose highest rewardis in the advance of the working class,”’ It was because she felt so deep- ly, as well as knowing so much, that Beckie was such a good teacher — she taught her stu- dents the necessity to fight. And Beckie fought. Even in her last painfulillness she insisted on working actively in the federal election campaign right until she was finally forced to quit. She did not leave the Toronto General Hospital again, but the letter. that she wrote from her bed is, still, a contribution from one in the struggle — not from one on the sidelines, Note one of her criticisms: ‘‘I still think the main weakness was in not ‘letting go’ in our propaganda and agita- tion to all Canadians around our slogan ‘Put Canada First,’ We must appeal to everyone who stands for Canada beyond class lines.’’? Those two sentences are completely correct today. I cannot conclude this without quoting one more sentence from that beautiful farewell letter: ‘‘My-feelings for our party and its. shining goal of socialism, my conviction that our partyis right, and true, and my love and loyalty to our party, werenever stronger than now.”’ Salute to the memory of a brave and beloved Canadian, May our united actions keep her memory green. Valley CP hits industry plans While recognizing the need for more industry and job opportuni- ties on the Lower Mainland, the industrial potential of the Fraser River should receive primary consideration. This was the con- GREETINGS OF THE SEASON to All Our Friends MAY & HI MARTIN to building industry ‘in the Boun- : December 20, 1963--PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7 clusion of the Delta-New West- minster Regional Committee of the Communist Party, which met in Whalley on Dec. 10. The committee pointed out that the only argument raised against establishing industry on the Fra- ser has been the assumed cost for keeping the channel open. ‘‘Such cost would be amply eompensatec for when the industrial potential of the Fraser is put to use,”’ it stated, The meeting also went on re- cord as being strongly opposed dary Bay area because of the al-. most certain ruination of the area’s beaches by pollution. It charged that the proposed © development scheme by Boult- bee-Sweet would ruin ‘‘the last remaining beach foreshore south of the Fraser River suitable for parks, recreation, and resort de- velopment.”’ It called upon the councils of Delta, Surrey and White Rock to form a joint committee to work out plans for the speedy develop- ment of these beaches for all the people of the Lower Mainland.