SPEGIAL — OIL RIPOFF

Vol. XLVIII No. 1 VANCOUVER, B.C. JANUARY, 1980

save Peirocan,
Sell Clark

The Petrocan saga has
taken two interesting turns
since the election was called
in mid-December.

First, Clark announced the
fourth variation of Conser-
vative policy on Canada’s
public petroleum company;
part of it, he said, should be
given away to the people who
already own it, another part
should be sold, and the
remainder kept in public
hands.

Second, Trudeau — who
had only with the greatest
reluctance agreed in 1974 to
the NDP position that Petro-
can should be created — has
become a sudden convert.

Unfortunately, Trudeau
has not yet commented on
the NDP position that Petro-
can should be the only agent
for importing oil (to avoid the
disgrace and humiliation of
decisions like Exxon’s that
when supplies are short,
shipments to Canada must
be cut off first.)

Nor have the Liberals yet .

responded to the NDP propo-
sition that, since Petrocan
Chairman Bill Hopper says
that “hundreds of millions of
taxpayers’ money per pro-
ject can besaved” by having
the public company develop
the oil sands, it must be
allowed to do so.

Still” there is no doubt that
the future of Petrocan looksa
lot brighter than it did just a
few years ago.

The IWA was happy to join
in the fight, launched by the
NDP to save Petrocan. Re-
gional President Jack Munro
says “I believe that, like
Medicare, Petrocan will be a
lasting and major contribu-
tion of the New Democratic
Party.”

EDITORIAL

By JACK MUNRO

The Regional Board, held on November 28th and 29th, instructed the
Officers to prepare a position on energy and to circulate that position as
widely as possible.

We have since that time discussed the so-called “energy crisis” with
highly respected university experts, with energy consultants, and
government experts. All of these confirm our original view: Canadians
and Canadian Governments are being ripped-off, hood-winked, and
taken to the cleaners by OPEC and the huge U.S.-headquartered oil
cartel.

We are shovelling money at the oil companies so fast that they
literally cannot reinvest it fast enough. And Clark’s Tory government,
remaining faithful to previous Trudeau policies, proposes with the
budget to increase that amount by $33 billion.

Its the “ONE-PRICE” fever. We are the only oil producing couniry in
the world that proposes to base domestic prices on the wholly arbitrary
and outrageous price set by OPEC, that refuses for some insane reason
to take advantage of its own petroleum supplies.

If a handful of oil sheiks say “Gas should be $10 per gallon,” Clark and
Trudeau Say “Yes sirs, we'll up ours to $8.50 immediately,” and we work
ourselves into a sweat shovelling money into the hands of Exxon, et al,
and into the Alberta Heritage Fund.

At the rate that Clark proposes to shovel money into Alberta, financed
by a gas price increase of at least 80¢ per gallon over the next 4 y ears,
that fund will swell to 80 billion dollars. That’s about $40,000 for every
man, woman and child in that province.

It is clear now to everyone but Clark and Trudeau that, with the
middle-east caught up in several different kinds of struggles, countries
like Canada can use their relative wealth of energy to attract
manufacturing jobs. Instead of increasing our exports of natural gas —
another Liberal policy faithfully maintained by the Conservatives — we
should be offering it to public and private enterprises that contract to
provide jobs here in Canada.

Petrocan, created at the insistence of the NDP, has to be preserved
and expanded. The Liberals, despite their death-bed repentance,
cannot be relied on to do that.

The oil cartel already controls 90% of Canadian petroleum reserves;
that is a national disgrace. If, as Broadbent proposes, we allow
Petro-Can to expand and to undertake development of the oil sands, we
will not only save “hundreds of millions of dollars,” but begin the vital
task of “Canadianizing” our energy industry.

Elsewhere in this issue there is a table showing the kind of thing we
can expect if we don’t begin that task: the multinationals will acquire a
death-grip, not only on our petroleum, but on all our energy resources.

Then — having financed the delivery of all our energy resources into
foreign-controlled monopolies, Clark and Trudeau can relax perman-
ently, for Canadian capacity to govern our own energy resources will
have been lost forever.

Broadbent and the NDP offer the only sane energy policy; the
Liberals and Conservatives not only want the multinationals to gain a
complete strangle hold on us, they want us to vote for and finance the

process.