BRITISH COLUMBIA

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Sulphur trade

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be the key debate.

Vancouver residents Saturday demonstrate outside Federal Business Devel-
opment Bank to protest continuing sulphur trade with South Africa and to call
for full sanctions against that country’s racist rulers. Several speakers, includ-
ing Vancouver Centre NDP MLA Emery Barnes, addressed the rally, organized
by Call Off the Sulphur Trade (COST). The demonstration was held to mark the
upcoming conference of Commonwealth nations, and a parallel conference
here in early October, at which the question of sanctions against apartheid will

Accounting demanded for Expo site

The Vancouver citizens planning com-
mission will host a series of public meetings
on the future of the northern Expo 86 lands,
a move which followed an outcry over pro-
vincial government secrecy about the future
of the site.

Members of the commission, meeting at
city hall Sept. 9, expressed outrage over the
“closed door” negotiations the province is
holding on the development of the site, and
decided to press Mayor Gordon Campbell
to reveal what he knew of Socred govern-
ment plans.

And commission member Ald. Libby
Davies told a CBC radio program last week
that “the public has a right to know what is
going on.

“We have some key objectives and goals
for that land such as open space, affordable
housing which the city desperately needs
and social housing,” she said.

At the time the commission, whose 15
members are appointed by the mayor and

approved by council, voted against an-
nouncing their concern over the lack of pub-
lic consultation, and against a motion to
communicate this concern to Economic
Development Minister Grace McCarthy.

But now the commission will hold a ser-

ies of public meetings “right away” and air
“some public discussion on the future of the
False Creek basin,” commission chair
Kerry-Lynne Ferris stated.
* Outrage followed McCarthy’s announce-
ment last April that the Social Credit
government was scrapping three years of
planning for the Expo lands between Chi-
natown and the Georgia Street viaduct.

The plan, known as North Park, was the
result of three years of negotiations between

SalvAide dinner

Former Vancouver alderman for the
Committee of Progressive Electors, Harry
Rankin, will be the guest speaker at a dinner
organized by SalvAide, a non-governmental
group which raises direct aid to’ El Salva-
dor’s farmers, on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 7
p.m. at St. Andrew’s Wesley Christian Edu-
cation Centre, 1020 Nelson St. in Van-
couver.

Rankin visited El Salvador, along with
Windsor, Ont., Mayor David Burr and oth-
ers, on a recent fact-finding mission spon-
sored by SalvAide. For further information
phone Peter Hearn, 255-3471.

city planners and the former B.C. Place
Crown corporation, now replaced by the
B.C. Enterprises Corp.

Council voted to declare its anger with
the provincial government over the cancel-
lation of the plan, which had found broad
acceptance among community organiza-

_tions because it stipulated park space, a

school and low-income housing.

Since that time, deliberations over the
future of site — which McCarthy has
declared must be “cost-efficient” — have
been shrouded in secrecy, with the usually
well-informed citizens planning commis-
sion kept in the dark.

Since the meeting McCarthy has an-
nounced the government's intention to seek
applicants from other countries to develop
the site, and a Hong Kong corporation has
stated its intention to apply.

Among the fears expressed by some
commission members, aldermen and com-
munity groups is that the government will
seek a high-rent tenant to develop the site to

*-maximum density to the detriment of the

surrounding neighbourhood and despite
city zoning bylaws. The city supposedly has
the final say in zoning, a point Campbell has
been quick to make. But critics point out
that the government can always override
council with special legislation — admit-
tedly an unpopular option — or that coun-
cil’s right-wing majority of Non-Partisan
Association members will vote to change
the rules and accommodate a high-density
plan. :

Of little comfort to those who want to see

Municipalities facing

Tory gov't tax bite
on public services

When delegates to the annual Union of
B.C. Municipalities convention sit down
this Wednesday, they will likely be discuss-
ing a federal tax proposal that could hike
the costs of municipal services drastically
and hit low-income earners with enormous
property tax hikes.

The convention will have at least two
resolutions urging the organization back a
fight against the proposals to impose a sales
tax on municipal goods and services, cour-
tesy of federal Finance Minister Michael
Wilson.

Ald. Eunice Parker of Coquitlam district
council is the author of one of the resolu-
tions, which, backed by the council before
being sent as a late resolution to the conven-
tion, urges ther UBCM to support the Fed-
eration of Canadian Municipalities in
opposing the sales tax hikes.

The FCM sounded the alarm at its con-
vention last June when it pointed out fea-
tures of Wilson’s much-touted tax reform
proposals released for public debate.

the site developed for people is the position
taken by Campbell. When McCarthy
scrapped the North Park plan last spring the
mayor’s stated response was a shrug and a
statement that the city should make the best
of the situation.

In a Sept. 18 meeting with Campbell the
mayor told the commissioners that he felt
“well-informed” on the province’s plans for
the area, and that the province was “‘well-
informed” on the city’s position, Ferris
related.

Davies told the radio show she was cer-
tain the mayor knows what is going on with
the government’s B.C. Place development
plans.

“And I’m very concerned that what
they’re up to. They really want to pay off the
debts of Expo and the Stadium and the
development costs that they’ve had so far
... and they basically want to take the high-
est bid from private developers and get the
most that they can for that land with abso-
lutely no regard for the social objectives that
I think a lot of people have ....”

She said the government should provide
full assurances that the process will be sub-
ject to full public hearings “and not just bea
rubber stamp process where they trot this

plan out and say, ‘Here it is, take it or leave |

it

Ferris said the commission favours the
city’s proposals for the development of the
site.

She did not give a date for the first of the
public meetings, but said these would be
formally announced sometime this week.

Under Wilson’s proposed “multi-staged
sales tax,” goods that municipalities
purchase — culverts and __fire-fightiné
equipment, for example — will now
subject to a sales tax. a

Second, services that municipalities
offer — such as swimming lessons fot
children at a municipally owned recreation
centre — can be taxed, if a similar services
offered by the private sector.

Third, services that a municipality sells t0
itself — an example being city road work
performed by the city’s engineering dep-
artment — will also be taxed if a similat
service exists in the private sector.

An FCM communique on the issue notes
that “almost all municipal purchases of
goods and services will be subject to the full
tax. Since there will be no opportunity for
refund or credit for this tax (granted t0
private sector companies for goods they
sell), the cost to municipalities of purchasing
many goods and services will be highet-
Moreover ... taxes will be charged on 4
wider range of goods.”

Parker charges that the provisions arte
clearly aimed at making city services non-
competitive with, or more expensive than,
those offered by the private sector.

“The whole package is designed to fit the
Tories’ privatization plans, and it’s obvious
they’re carrying out their corporate agenda.

In a statement last June, the federation
did not mince words in condemning the ta*
change proposals. ;

“Effectively, a large burden of taxation
will be transferred to local government and
to the property tax. Because of the regres
sive nature of the property tax, low income
Canadians bear the heaviest burden,” the
FCM charged.

Nor will the use of the private sectot
mean any breaks for municipal residents,
the federation noted: ““As more and more
municipal operations are contracted out to
the private sector, these costs will become
yet another burden on the average
homeowner or renters whose property tax
costs will be forced up.” a

And, the FCM charges, an increase 10
municipal services will mean that cash-
starved municipalities will have to put plans
to revitalize “infrastructure” — items like
sewers and sidewalks — on hold.

“The deplorable and unacceptable dete-
rioration of Canada’s urban infrastructure
... will accelerate,” it warned.

Earlier this year the federal Conservative
government rejected an FCM proposal,
supported by almost every federation
member, for an equal cost-sharing agree-
ment among the federal, provincial and
local governments to upgrade municipal
infrastructure. The proposal entailed the
creation of thousands of jobs for Cana-

Continued from page 1

© Adopt as a fundamental tenet of
Canadian external affairs a peacekeeping
role and a commitment to global survi-

_ Val, well-being and collective security;

@ Adopt non-provocative defence
strategies, including passive detection
systems for territorial waters rather than
using nuclear submarines.

The resolution also urged local groups
to conduct a campaign through letter

Defence policy hearings urged

writing and other means to compel the
government to call hearings on the poli-
cies proposed in the white paper.

A related resolution on an independ-
ent foreign and defence policy stated that
Canada should not contribute to the
U.S. maritime nuclear strategy by per-
mitting nuclear armed warships to visit
Canadian harbours and by building its
own fleet of nuclear submarines.

Instead, it said, Canada should call a
conference of polar nations to create a
demilitarized zone in the Arctic.

The resolution also stated that Can-
ada should end support for “any military
alliance that does not adhere to a no
first-strike policy.”

In addition to launching the campaign
to compel Ottawa to conduct country-
wide hearings on the white paper, con-
ference delegates agreed to focus on
winning legislation to make B.C. and
nuclear-weapons free zone and to step up
the country-wide Peace Pledge Cam-
paign. October has¢been set as a target
month for the voter pledge campaign.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 1987