=

which there is no justification, as story below shows.

SHORTAGE CORPORATE CREATION

CANADIAN CONSUMERS are threatened with rising meat prices for:

Poor need guaranteed
income, report shows —

‘By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

One of the better reports to come
out of Ottawa in recent months is
“Prices and The Poor’, by the
National Council on Welfare, dated
April 1974. The reason it’s better is
probably because it isn’t a
government report. In fact it is a
damning indictment of the
government for its lack of policies
to deal in any positive way with the
one fifth of our population that falls
into the category of the poor.

The poor, by the way, are not
only those on welfare or pensions.
A large proportion of them,
probably the majority, are
working but their wages are so low
that they are little if any better off
than they would be on welfare.

It is about 10 years now since the
government of Canada (following
closely.on the U.S. government)
declared war on poverty. But the
war has largely been limited to
rhetoric. It’s been a war of words
against poverty. The result is that
the poor in Canada today are much

_ Meat price boost unjustified

By H. K. WARREN

With virtually every newspaper
headline and radio newsca&t
joining in the clamor about im-
minent price increases of up to ten
cents a pound on beef because of
the meatcutters strike, the words
of the Meat Packers Council of
Canada will probably be studiously
ignored. But they’re worth
hearing.

According to the Council’s
reports over recent weeks; there
has always been three month’s
supply of meat in storage. The
shortages, as usual, are a cor-
porate creation.

In addition, poultry marketings
were expected to reach 219 million
pounds during the second quarter
of 1974 — seven million pounds
more than during the same period
last year.

As of April, 1974, there was 50 per
cent more poultry in cold storage
than last year. Increases in stocks

of both hen and-tom turkeys range.

anywhere from 8 to 31 percent
more than for the same period last
year.

The picture is about the same for
eggs. Producers’ sales of eggs to
registered stations amounted to

5,635,000 cases for the first two
quarters of 1974, compared to
5,314,000 for the same period in 1973
— an increase of more than six per
cent. :

Yet despite these stocks, the
packing industry is trying to panic
the public into accepting price
increases on account of shortages
caused, in turn, by the meat-
cutters. Some supermarkets are
also predicting that prices on other
meats and poultry will probably
increase as a result of increased
demand for them as people turn
away from more expensive beef.

The purpose is obviously
twofold: provide an excuse for
more price gouging and turn public
opinion against the meatcutters
and their just demands.

Amore accurate appraisal of the
situation can be found in some of
the reports coming from the farm
media — that annual consumption
of red meat is on the decline in
Canada and meat packers are
attempting to bolster profits in the
face of dwindling sales.

In 1959, the annual Canadian

consumption of red meat was 135°

pounds per capita, a figure which

\

rose steadily every year until 1972
when it reached 165 pounds. But in
1973, it dropped to 159.8 pounds per
capita and is still dropping.

The industry, predictably, at-
tempted to justify the decline on
the basis of all the protest
demonstrations and consumer
boycotts. But not a word was said
of the fact that soaring meat prices
had forced a large section of the
population to find alternate foods

— inadequate incomes, in fact,’

denied thousands of people any
beef on the table.

~ With sales falling, the packers
want to hike prices again and in-
crease the profit return. And if the
higher prices can be blamed on the
meatcutters, all well and good. But
the figures tell another story.

worse off than they were 10 years
ago.

All the problems that press on
the ordinary Canadian — the high
cost of housing (and rents), the
inflated prices of food and clothing,
high interest rates, and many more
— hit the poor twice as hard.
Discrimination against the poor is
a built in policy in our corporation-
dominated society: That goes for
all levels of government too.

The Welfare Council’s report
points out that:

e The poor pay more for food
than other citizens; chain stores
and other merchants in poor areas
make it a practice to charge more.
An investigation made in the

Vancouver area, not so long ago, ~

showed that this was the ease here
too.

@ Because credit unions and
banks by and large, deny loans and
credits to the poor, they have to go
to the finance companies where 24
percent is not an uncomnion rate,
or to loan sharks where a 500
percent rate is enforced with
physical violence.

e The prices of those foods that
the poor eat (in an effort to find a
Substitute for high priced meat)
have gone up much more than
other foods. This includes ham-
burger, weiners, beans and
spaghetti.

¢ The Consumer Price Index,
which is based on, (or is supposed
to be based on), what the average
Canadian buys, is largely
meaningless, because there is. no

such thing as the average

Canadian. Canadians have dif-

‘ferent levels of income. A person

who has an income of $15,000 a
year, for example, who spends 15
percent of his income on food isn’t
hit nearly as hard by a 20 percent
increase in food prices as poor
people who spend over a third of
their income on food.

Therefore to tie the cost of living
increase clauses of pensions and
welfare based on this Consumer
Price Index, is to deny poor people
increases that correspond to the

This Robin Hood takes from poor

Robin Hood Multifoods Ltd., one
of the biggest producers of food in
Canada, reported net earnings for
the fiscal year ended Feb. 28, 1974
which were 60 percent higher than
the previous year.

Profits rose to $5,089,000 from
$3,004,000 in one year. Robin Hood

Multifoods is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of International
Multifoods of Minneapolis, Minn.
Contrary to the company’s
namesake, Robin Hood took from

the rich to give to the poor, but.

Robin Hood Multifoods takes from
the poor to make the rich richer.

real cost of living for them.

Solutions advanced Py
Welfare Council include:

* genuinely reflects a
penditures of the poor W
Consumer Price Index
does not. ; 5 ired

2. Immediate action is requ
improve the nutritional
the poor. :

3. Bonne ded action 1s a i!
against stores that ener
sales malpractices a8?”

poor. t be ue

4. Immediate steps mus

to provide more 4?
-housing for the poor. adit

5. Low-cost consumer Cr ‘i
be made available to a
poor by government low!
loans and credit ume
some controls esta hi
lending institution» itt
iNeed and discrimi
against the poor. mis

6. Cut-offs of able uti f
not be permitted a
application to 42 et ye
demonstration tha ving
customer is able but unW

pay.

7. Open ended statutes ar ents”
that will permit gover?
move quickly to &
practices by unscruph
get-rich-quick busines. WW
terests. These should mail
more accessible small
procedures, the ° ee
launch consumer-clae 1ti0
tions and mass-restil!
remedies. oe
The Welfare Council 5 Ds

concludes with a statem@

heartily endorse:

“|. The root cause
vulnerability of the POO |,
sumers lies in the circumS”
poverty itself. This ran
remedied only by the eur {0
of an adequate incom —
Canadians.” ~ i

The introduction plac’ sf
more forcefully when } o of
“the right of every mee re
Canadian society to 4 a
national wealth sufficie? “in
him to participate fuyy —
society.” a

To me that means a 8U@!
national income for 2¥-

3

of

? pockets, and probably an empty gas tank.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 197

TOM
-McEWEN

aie time ago a big to-do was generated over the an-
nouncement Premier Dave Barrett was going to make
on easing the burden on the average motorist of excess
price-gouging by the big oil octopi. But nothing happened,
other than the nebulous “‘promise’’, sometime in the sweet
bye-and-bye, that the monopoly ripoff would be “refun-
ded” in a lower car insurance, especially to those coming
under the general heading of “‘youth’’. That left a hell of a
lot of others at the mercy of the oil pick-pockets.

Now we read that the B.C. Energy Commission, an
agency of the same government, will now ignore an 8
percent hike at the gas pump, and as of now, the oil
monopolies will be allowed to charge what they damn well
please per gallon. In his media blurb, the chairman of this
commission ‘hopes’ the oil magnates won’t be too
greedy, then unloads this gem upon a harassed public:
“We are sure the motoring public will shop around for the
best price, and therefore we are relying on competition at
the retail level to keep prices reasonable.”’

Ah, sweet “reasonableness”, when applied to
socialism, invariably ends up with an empty belly, empty ,

Anyone who holds the monstrous illusion that a
faceless, soulless corporate monopoly, or any monopoly in
fact, can be sweetly “‘reasonable”’ with respect to pelf and
profit is either a candidate for Filbert’s farm or an un-
mitigated scoundrel. It just doesn’t happen that way in

our “free-enterprise” way-of life. Not even with a slight '
dash of ‘‘socialism” added.

a

U.S. monopoly as we all know, lead in everything, be it
Al Capone crooks or aspirins. Now they have another
dilemma aside from Watergate on their minds — just

what to do about this great new “money power”’ that is~

emerging upon the world, the countless billions of profits
from oil. Arab sheiks buying up huge chunks of California,
others becoming the ‘owners’? of huge slices of New
York’s famed Fifth Avenue. A new “money power’
aborning under their very noses, which, as one writer put
it, “may change the whole face of civilization”. Maybe not
so bad as that, but there is a connecting link between the
chairman of the B.C. Energy Commission’s homily to the
gas-buying public in B.C., the big oil monopolies, and the
feudal Arab sheik who owns six Rolls Royces, two dozen

wives, and by the will of Allah keeps his own herd of feudal

serfs in perpetual poverty.

M. Trudeau now declares ‘‘we have got inflation licked
—So you shouldn’t get overly excited about the problem.”
Not to be outdone, your friendly undertaker Stanfield

- Shouts “‘no, we’ll put it in a deep freeze’’ and fix wages at

levels designed to give inflation a new head start. And Mr.

es

Se ee 7 get
Lewis of the NDP says, ‘“‘by gosh I’ve got it. ;

“high paid” unions to wait until the low-p4
“catch up’”’, and presto, the problem is solve?

Such barefaced mendacity at the highest
government is difficult to imagine, but unfor
the common people at least, it is all too real! oral

While we hear a lot these days about the mince
of nuclear know-how, there is little of any subs what
proliferation of badly-needed housing. Bie ois
promised by the purveyors of campaign ae t's
nearly all pure crap. (And that’s one expletive ~~
going to be deleted!)

sg Pa
Trudeau is giving us a ‘‘phased ou ” hous ye
with (naturally) Stanfield and Lewis bringing " wor
with other “plans”. But tens of thousands ® ne
tenants are homeless or under the multip ele,
evictions and sky-high rentals for what hove™ — g
heading that way! Those lucky enough to i} live
budget to meet the payments of buying, e inter
their children and grandchildren still pay"? ~—
the deal. 5) digtulP@: of
Nor have any or all of these ‘plans dso
maximum profits of the big realtors and Jam
iota. ol
They are still doing business at the a
raking in the profits, while the citizen gets 0”
but no roof over his head. on
We’ll pose the question again: people oF *

seve
fs

q stat
dies (Qd