Friday, Feb. 12, 1982

40°

No rate
hike for

BC Tel,
Says CP

B.C.’s Communist Party has
urged rejection of the B.C. Tele-
Phone Company’s application
for the highest rate hikes in its

Honalization of the monopoly,

| 9S public hearings into the rate

hikes were set to begin Feb. 10in
ancouver.

In a letter which outlines the
Position the party was to present
to the Canadian Radio-televi-
sion and Telecommunications
Commission’s hearings, pro-
vincial party: leader Maurice
Rush asked CRTC head J. C.

Patenaude to reject the hikes of
} 28 percent for residential phone

es and 37 percent for business
Phones.

Rush also questioned the role

dog after it granted B.C. Tel an
Interim rate increase of 13 per-
Cent in September without refer-
€nce to public hearings, in viola-
Hon of its own rules.

“The CRTC must be aware
+. . that its credibility has been
Severely shaken and that most
Members of the public, who
thought the CRTC was set up to
Protect the public from excess-
erates, are now of the opinion
that the CRTC’s main role is to
sure that profits of this

‘S.-owned monopoly are re-
tained at a high level,’’ said

Ush his letter.

mid a growing storm of
Public protest, a recently-form-

Coalition of community, ten-
ant, ethnic and political groups,
‘ €d the Committee to Roll
eee Telephone Charges,
, RTC) has announced its in-
€ntion to demonstrate at the

earings,

Noting that the U.S.-owned
Monopoly had received a rate
bt € Just one year ago which in-
Sane its rate of return to be-

N 14 to 15.5 percent, Rush
Questioned the justification for
‘urther rate increases that ‘‘will
impose additional hardships on

€ public, especially working
on ple, Senior citizens and those
‘OW Incomes.”

th ond past rate hikes granted
f ny have resulted inno

T a in the quality of B.C.

€t'S poor service, Rush said.
“eh Publicly-owned Crown
See oration, such as the Tele-
jon peanications Workers Un-
aes called for, would better
i € B.C. Tel users by redirect-
ue the profits now going to the
ogee company to im-
pho Citing figures that show
Beer Tates for the three public-
“pea systems in the prairie
“e Vinces are half what B.C. Tel

Scribers pay.

eS pas

Vol. 44, No. 6

history and has called for na-.

Of the CRTC as a public watch-_

PACIFIC

Danger of ‘another Vietnam’

seen in U.S. aid to El Salvador

AERRASSELSAESSI

downtown Vancouver, during

UFAWU president Jack Nichol addres:

Lol

ses demonstrators outside Marubeni Canada °

—SEAN GRIFFIN ,

TRIBUNE PHOTO

ffices in

the rally called by the union to protest the Japanese company’s

closure of a Victoria fish plant and the loss of more than 200 jobs. (Story page 12.)

The Reagan administration in-
dicated this week that it will seek
further increases in military aid to
El Salvador — on top of the $55
million just sent to the right wing
junta — making it clear that the
U.S. is moving relentlessly towards
another Vietnam in Central Am-
erica.

With the latest shipment of mili-
tary aid, coupled with requests for
another $100 million in military
and economic aid, U.S. financing
of the Duarte regime has already
reached $300 million for fiscal
1982. And some published reports
— now given credence by the most
recent statements from the U.S.
state department — have already
claimed that the figure could dou-
ble, as U.S. involvement in El Sal-
vador increases.

Editorial, page 3
Trudeau, page 5

The stepped-up aid and the in-
creased belligerence of the Reagan
administration toward critics of its
El Salvador policy pointed omi-
nously to an escalation of U.S. in-
volvement like that carried out in
Vietnam more than a decade ago.

Observers have noted the direct
parallel with Vietnam in that the
announcement of new shipments
of weapons to El Salvador coincid-
ed with the attack by the liberation
forces of the Farabundo Marti Na-
tional Liberation Front (FMLN)

See CONFERENCE page 12

Loophole used to escape rent controls

Landlords appear to be jacking

up rents under thenewest section of

the Residential Tenancies Act as
part of a deliberate attempt to pull
low-rent dwellings out of rent con-
trols.

That’s the conclusion tenant act-
ivists have come to as an increasing
number of owners of low-rent
buildings are applying to the Rent-
alsman for increases under Section
67(3) of the act.

The tenants of two Vancouver
apartments are currently fighting
increases under this section which,

if allowed, would hike their rents
above the controls ceiling under
which their landlords are now lim-
ited to increases of 10 percent an-
nually.

Introduced by the Social Credit
government in January, 1981, Sec-
tion 67(3) allows landlords to pass
on to their tenants costs not cover-
ed under older sections of the act,
such as renegotiated mortgages.
The increases are usually much
greater than those granted for nor-
mal renovation expenditures and
annual increases.

The Vancouver tenants’ fight is
similar to that of North Shore resi-
dent Irmgard Woitas, a pensioner
facing a rent hike of 122 percent,
who with her fellow tenants is con-
testing their increases through their
organization, the North Shore
Tenants’ Association. Association
vice-president Greg Richmond
calls Section 67(3), ‘‘a built-in regu-
lated profit for landlords.”’

Tenants of 775 Victoria Drive
have a two-way fight on their
hands, appealing in B.C. Supreme
Court an increase from $185 to

$295 granted to their landlord
under Section 67(3) by the Rentals-
man last year, while facing another
application which, if granted, will
hike their rents further to $365
monthly.

Spokesperson Jackie Ruther-
ford, who is also attempting to re-
cover Overpayments made to a pre-
vious owner of her building whose
increases were rolled back by Rent-
alsman order 14 months ago, said
the current landlord is claiming re-

See LOOPHOLE page 2

Service, the CP letter stat-

Columbian workers sit in for new contr

——Page 12

saiiseananii