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A C.C.F. government in a province must necessarily work within the limits imposed upon it by the B.N.A. Act in its present form. It cannot of itself introduce a fully planned and socialized economy; the complete aim of the party can only be realized when a C.C.F. government is in power at Ottawa as well as in the province.

The aim of the British Columbia C.C.F., therefore, is to create a socialist sector within the capitalist economy to expand it as rapidly as possible.

Within the capitalist sector of the province, the Party will improve the present condition of workers and farmers and apply a greater measure of governmental control to the existing spheres of unregulated private enterprise. the immediate program for the transition to a fully-socialized province which the C.C.F. puts before the electorate is as follows:

1. Provincial Finance.

Reduction of interest charges on provincial and municipal debt. Consolidation of provincial debt by conversion to non-maturing, fixed-interest-bearing bonds, callable at option of the government. Redistribution of the tax burden through higher income and inheritance taxes. Tax on surplus profits of private corporations. A balanced budget as the basis for productive state expenditure. The opening of new sources of revenue from socialized enterprise.

2. Socialization of Gasoline Distribution

Creation of an Oil Commission with full power to create government monopoly in the purchase, distribution and sale of gasoline and oil. Elimination of present wastes of competition and the provision of new revenue for social services.

3. Socialization of Breweries.

Enlargement of powers of the Liquor Commission to include production as well as distribution of beer. Expropriation of existing breweries for compensation to be fixed by the Commission.

4. Development of State Insurance.

Public appropriation of the undue profits being made in fire and other kinds of insurance through the creation of a Provincial Insurance Department which will offer state-guaranteed policies at more reasonable rates.

5. An Electric Power Commission.

Pending the socialization of electric power production and distribution, the creation of an Electric Power Commission with complete authority to investigate conditions in all private power companies, to assess plant, property and capital-structure, and to regulate profits and rates.

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6. A Lumber Control board.

Establishment of a governmental authority for the lumber try with power to regulate cutting, marketing, conservation and reafforestation, and to develop state-operated mills on the Crown reserves. To co-operate with the Department of Labour in the improvement of employment conditions.

7. Provincial Labour Code.

Consolidation of labour legislation and administration under Ministry of Labour. Protection of union organization, collective bargaining, peaceful packeting, and the right to strike. Pensions at sixty. Forty-hour working week.

8. Unemployment and Relief.

Immediate raising of relief standards. Education and vocational training for the unemployed pending their absorption into useful labour. Fair wages for all works programs.

9. Public Health and State Medicine.

Extension of present health insurance scheme to include full programme of state medicine covering all employed and unemployed persons.

10. Housing, Rural Development, and Roads.

Planned expenditure on socially-heeded developments will be an integral part of the C.C.F. programme. A comprehensive housing policy will replace slums and shacks by decent homes in urban and rural areas. Rural electrification facilities will be a special concern of the Power Commission.

11. Producers’ and Consumers’ Co-operatives.

Co-operative enterprise is an additional method by which workers and consumers may replace the private-profit system through their own collective action. It is no substitute for state action, but it is a powerful ally in the democratic process of socialization. The C.C.F. will actively support co-operative societies in all appropriate fields, such as agricultural production and marketing, co-operative canning factories, consumers’ co-operatives and credit unions. It will enact a provincial statute to foster and protect co-operatives as fully as the Companies Act provides for private corporations.

12. A Planning Personnel.

Strengthening of the civil service. Adaptation of the Economic Advisory Council to the requirements of provincial planning. Simplification of judicial procedure. Greater use of committee method in the Legislative Assembly.

A C.C.F. government in a province must necessarily work within the limits imposed upon it by the B.N.A. Act in its present form. It cannot of itself introduce a fully planned and socialized economy; the complete aim of the party can only be realized when a C.C.F. government is in power at Ottawa as well as in the province.

The aim of the British Columbia C.C.F. therefore, is to create a socialist sector within the capitalist economy of the province, and to expand it as rapidly as possible.

Within the capitalist sector of the province, the Party will improve the present condition of workers and farmers and apply a greater measure of governmental control to the existing sphere of unregulated privaye enterprise. The immediate program for beginning the transition to a fully-socialized province which the C.C.F. puts before the electorate is as follows:

1. Provincial Finance.

Reduction of interest charges on provincial and municipal debt. Consolidation of provincial debt by conversion to non-maturing fixed-interest-bearing bonds, callable at option of the government. Redistribution of the tax burden through higher income and inheritance taxes, with fair allowance for dependents. Tax on surplus profits of private corporations. The opening of new sources of revenue from socialized enterprise.

The objective – a balanced budget, – but on the basis of a socially just tax burden, and as the preliminary for a policy of productive state expenditure.

2. First steps in Social Control.

(a) Socialization of Gasoline Distribution

Creation of an Oil Commission with full power to create government monopoly in the purchase, processing, distribution, and sale of gasoline and oil. Elimination of present wastes of competition and the provision of new revenue for social services.

(b) Socialization of Breweries.

Enlargement of the powers of the Liquor Commission to include production as well as distribution of beer. Expropriation of existing breweries for compensation to be fixed by the Commission.

(c) Development of State Insurance.

The creation of a Provincial Insurance Commission which will offer state-guaranteed policies at more reasonable rates and save for the people of B.C. the undue profits and the costs of competition now present in capitalist underwriting of fire and other insurance.

(d) An Electric Power Commission.

Pending the socialization of electric power production and distribution, the creation of an Electric Power Commission as a new branch of the present Water Rights Board, with complete authority to investigate conditions in all private power companies, to assess plant, property and capital-structure, and to regulate profits and rates.

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(e) A Lumber Control Board.

Establishment of a central governmental authority for the lumber industry and amendment of the Forestry Act, to provide more strict powers to regulate cutting, marketing, conservation and reafforestation; the Board to co-operate with the Department of Labour in the improvement of employment conditions, and, if deemed advisable, to develop state-operated mills on the Crown reserves.

(f) The Regulation of Private Industry.

Amendments to the Companies Act to prohibit abuses in promotion and financing. Provision for state investigation of any company on appeal of fifteen per cent of common shareholders. All persons and films doing business in British Columbia to be licensed by the provincial government. Stricter control over all concessions granted to private industry for the exploitation of natural resources of the province.

3. Agriculture.

Security of tenure for the farmer for all land in productive use. Insurance against crop hazards. State assistance in marketing of agricultural products. A price tribunal to investigate unfair contracts for the purchase of farm produce.

4. Producers’ and Consumers’ Co-Operatives.

Active support of co-operative societies in all appropriate fields, such as agricultural production and marketing, co-operative canning factories, consumers’ co-operatives, credit unions, co-operative associations of fishermen. Enactment of a provincial statute to foster and protect co-operatives as fully as the Companies Act provides for private corporations.

5. A Code for Labour.

Consolidation of labour legislation and administration under the Department of Labour; provision for labour and trade union representation in the Department.

Protection of trade union organization, collective bargaining, peaceful picketing, and the right to strike. Protection in particular of the right to form new unions in company towns and industries where companies unions are now in existence.

Extension of minimum wage and maximum weekly hour standards to all employed persons. Stricter supervision and higher penalties for infractions, including the importation of cheap labour.

6. A Planning Personnel.

Strengthening of the civil service. Adaptation of the Economic Advisory Council to the requirements of provincial planning. Greater use of committee method in the Legislative Assembly.

7. Housing, Rural Development, and Roads.

Planned expenditure on socially-needed developments will be on integral part of the C.C.F. programme. A comprehensive housing policy to replace slums and shacks by decent homes in urban and rural areas. Rental-purchase plan for moderate-income families. Rural electrification facilities to be a special concern of the Power Commission. Improvement and extension of the present roads system, and proper attention to the tourist traffic.

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8. Unemployment and Relief.

Immediate raising of relief standards. Education and vocational training for the unemployed pending their absorption into use labour. Fair wages for all works programmes.Protection of civil rights — franchise, freedom of speech, etc, — for all unemployed persons.

9. Pensions.

Old age pensions at sixty for all residents of the Province for twenty-five years. Disability pensions for all persons physically unfit for work, who have lived at least five years’ and worked for at least one year in the province. Revision of Mothers’ Pensions Act to provide adequate maintenance for children.

10. Public Health and State Medicine.

Extension of present health insurance scheme to include full programme of state medicine covering all employed and unemployed persons.

11. Education.

Provincial administration of all public elementary and high schools. School books and supplies to be provided free. A system of maintenance grants and scholarships for high school and university.

12. Civil Liberties.

Freedom of speech and assembly for all. Non-interference with cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. Reform of legal procedure, adoption of modern penal methods in prisons.

C.C.F. PLAN OF ACTION

NECESSARY FACTORS

(1) The C.C.F. Plan must state definite objectives in the order of their intended accomplishment, and if possible set definite periods for their achievement.

(2) The Plan must be one that realizes that the winning of the citizens to its support must not be done on the basis of watering down Socialism to suit the moderation of any particular class of society, but must be for the purpose of clarifying the aims of the C.C.F. and the precise formulation of intended measures of transition.

(3) The Plan must have a two-fold objective. It must serve on the one hand, to ameliorate the immediate conditions of those who are suffering from the economic crisis, and on the other, the foundations for a new economic structure by positive measures of socialization.

(4) The Plan, in order to be carried through, must involve in the political spheres, a complete overhauling of the existing machinery of legislation and administration.

AIMS

(1) To build up a provincial sector side by side with the private economy; The provincial sector to embrace the organization of credit and the producing (and, or) distributing functions of the principal industries.

(2) To subject private monopoly to the control of the State, in the general interest, so as to enlarge the domestic market in order to absorb the unemployed and to create conditions which will promote increased economic prosperity.

(3) To reform the parliamentary institution in such a manner as to make possible the laying of a foundation for a real economic and social democracy.

(4) The practical application of all contemplated measures must, as a whole, be directed towards:

(a) A fuller satisfaction of the primary needs, notably those of nutrition of the people and of social hygiene.

(b) An increase in the amenities of life.

(c) The improvement of economic equipment.

(d) The development of education.

(e) The realization of a comprehensive program

for the use of leisure.

PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY

(1) The Legislature will take such measures as are needed to organize the supply and distribution of credit as a public service.

(2) The Legislature will take such measures as are needed to organize as public services, the principle industries now under private control, which produce either raw materials or motive power.

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PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY

(3) The Legislature will take such measures as are required to control Provincial Transport.

(4) The Legislature will take the necessary steps to socialize all forms of insurance.

(5) The Legislature will lay down a policy tending to security of investment and to the suppression of speculative manoeuvers on the money market.

(6) The Legislature will enact laws in relation to prices, the objective being to provide for the suppression of monopolistic exactions and of speculative operations in the commodity markets, which will tend to the stabilization of agriculture, industrial and commercial profits.

(7) The Legislature will enact statutes in relation to labor, working on the policy of reducing the working day until all unemployed are reabsorbed in industry, Wages will be standardized by legal agreements, and all Trade Unions, Joint Boards of Employers and workers, Collective Agreements, and Minimum Wage Rates must be State recognized.

(8) Political Reform…….

(a) The exercise of constitutional liberties must be completely guaranteed to all citizens.

(b) The system of economic and political organization must ensure the independence and authority of the State and of the Public Power in general in relation to the money power.

(c) The Legislature must simplify its method of proceedure and adapt itself to the requirements of modern social organization. It must be assisted in working out the details of laws by Consultative Councils, whose members must be chosen in part from outside Parliament on the ground of their recognized competence.