saan ee a er me eisai eA oian bE i COPE ON OFFENSIVE IN CIVIC ELECTION CAMPAIGN ... TOP -RIGHT: COPE aldermanic candidate Bruce Yorke took his demand for debate on the ward system to NPA-Volrich headquarters Mon- day, the empty NPA podium a visual reminder of the NPA’s careful TRIBUNE PHOTOS—FRED WILSON avoidance of public debate. TOP LEFT: COPE aldermanic candidate ~ Carmela Allevato outside the mayor's office at city hall Tuesday with map showing concentration of NPA candidates in upper class areas of city. Allevato, COPE’s “junior” council candidate, issued a personal challenge to Volrich to debate the ward issue. BOTTOM LEFT: COPE parks board candidate Pat Wilson addresses local resi- dents at Kerr Road park site last Saturday. Also shown are parks candidates Doug Laalo (right) and Libby Davies (second right). tion of wanking class vote key for COPE With just nine days remaining before Vancouver goes to the polls to elect a new city council, school board and parks board, ensuring a maximum turnout of working class voters is the key to success for the labor endorsed slate of the Com- mittee of Progressive Electors (COPE) and mayoralty challenger Mike Harcourt. In an effort to preserve the tradi- tional voting patterns. which have maintained establishment rule at city hall, mayor Jack Volrich and the NPA have studiously avoided controversy or debate. That strategy was working until this past week when COPE launch- ed an offensive of several demonstrative actions to focus public attention on the NPA’s most vulnerable point — its action in blocking the majority decision for a ward system in the 1978 plebiscite. More important than anything the candidates can do at this point, however, is the mobilization of the reform vote which both COPE and the Harcourt forces believe is large enough to ensure at least some vic- tories. COPE will benefit from increas- ed voter turnout almost anywhere in Vancouver east of Cambie or north of 16th Ave., but it is a thick band of about 30 polls stretching from Fraserview, through the Downtown Eastside, Grandview, and Hastings Sunrise where the turnout must go up substantially if COPE is to break through. Many of the 38,000 new voters on this year’s list are to be found in those polls. One Downtown Eastside poll has 700 more voters on this voters list — a 50 percent increase over 1978. Three important efforts are underway to mobilize the working class vote for COPE and Harcourt. First is the extraordinary decision of the Vancouver Labor Council to mail 135,000 poll cards listing its Mo: than once in recent times, the issue that various civil liberties asso- ciations — whose record of defending basic rights is otherwise a sterl- ing one — have stumbled over is the defence of the right to free speech and assembly for racist and fascist groups. In Illinois, they defended the right of a Nazi group to march through a Jewish community. And now, closer to home, the president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association Reg Robson has opposed any legal stifling of the Ku Klux Klan. In a radio interview, Tuesday, Robson acknowledged that the Klan incited hatred but countered that MPs in parliament also incited hatred in parliamentary debate and defied anyone to separate the two. parallel between an organization which has a century-old record of fomenting racial hatred and violence and the debate, however heated, in the House of Commons. But what is more dangerous is Robson’s ac- ceptance of the Klan’s right to continue its campaign. The racist record of the KKK is internationally known. Even those who have chosen to forget need look no further than the recent messages of the organization in calling for ‘‘racial purity.”’ Robson — and others who might agree with him — should ask them- selves: What right to free speech has an organization like the Klan which, given the power and influence, would suppress that and other rights for Blacks, Chinese, East Indians — in fact any group which is not white? What right to legal sanction has a group like the Klan which is seeking to take away basic human rights — including the right to live free from har- assment — from Blacks, Chinese, East Indians and other non-white groups? As the Vancouver Labor Council noted, the Civil Liberties Associa- tion is wrong, utterly wrong. Freedom for the Klan does not enhance freedom of speech. It diminishes it — and raises the spectre of asociety in which the only ones who will be allowed to exercise it will be those who are “‘racially pure.”’ * * * * a i aving combed city and municipal license records tracking down the various licenses issued to Amold Silber and the various furniture companies he’s operated — Stacy’s Furniture, in particular — we’re pretty familiar with his habit of holding a ‘‘closing-out”’ sale at one of his stores and then reopening another furniture store at the same location but under anew name. But we would not have thought that the perform- ance would be repeated so brazenly. But that’s what’s happened. Readers may recalla Tribune article Sept. 19 which revealed license As a legal rationale, the argument is completely spurious. Thereisno - _ tempted to turn the tables. PEOPLE AND ISSUES records to show that Silber and his company Value Industries opened stores in both Surrey and Vancouver, applied for ‘‘closing-out sale”’ licenses — and then reopened at the same place under a different name. In fact, Silber’s company, Stacy’s Furniture in Surrey, was until late last month, in the midst of such a close-out sale, while Silber waged an unre- lenting campaign against the effort of Teamsters Local 31 to win a first contract at Silber’s Richmond warehouse. The Surrey close-out sale only just finished — after several extensions — but already a new store is in the works. But this time there’s a slight twist — we learned this week from Surrey licensing department that Sil- ber’s son Steven applied Oct. 23 to reopen the furniture outlet at the old Stacy’s location. But perhaps the most bitter irony, in light of the Teamsters long strike, is the name Silber has chosen for the new/old store — Union Furniture. * * * * * OPE’s Bruce Yorke commented last week that the pressure cam- paign on the NPA to come out of hiding and debate the issues in the current Vancouver election campaign was beginning to draw blood. When Yorke took his proposal for a debate to the NPA offices Mon- day, dramatized by two speaker’s podiums — one for COPE, the other marked NPA — a hotheaded campaign worker for Jack Volrich at- Yorke and about a dozen supporters had just set up outside the side- by-side headquarters for Volrich and the NPA on Cambie St. when Saul Cohen, Volrich’s ‘‘friendly” bagman, came flying out of the office, knocked down a podium, attempted to obstruct the camera crews from local television stations, and charged after Yorke, at that time having a chat inside NPA offices with campaign manager Michael Francis. Fran- cis and another NPA’er had to escort the obviously out of control Cohen back to his own office. Bruce tells us it wasn’t exactly an isolated incident. Last week, COPE’s Dave Schreck had the misfortune to be outside the NPA- Volrich headquarters en route to a pet store when he too was confronted by ahostile Cohen who accused him of “‘spying,” among other things, in a brief, but heated, encounter. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 7, 1980—Page 2 « we yA ie tetas slate of Harcourt and COPE. The poll cards are also being distribu at major work sites throughout the city. Every COPE-Harcourt sup- porter is urged to use the cards 0 organize friends and workmates tO vote. Second is a major door to doo! canvas by COPE. Its first ever door knocking campaign is almost com- plete, but volunteers are still need for a final push. The other major effort is an elec tion day telephone campaign t0 pull out the vote in selected polls. COPE is calling for volunteers to help with the phoning and also 10 help scrutineer the vote. Phone thé COPE office at 253-6381 to sign up for election day work. : The big obstacle to overcome i! the mobilization is the low key campaign of the NPA which has dampened public interest in the campaign. However since nomina- tion day two weeks ago COPE has made a spirited effort to polarizé the campaign, especially over the key ward issue. j Pressure on Volrich to explait his stand on the ward system for Volrich this week to declare that he would recommend anothel plebiscite in 1982 to finally decide the matter. That brought a sharp responsé from. COPE’s Bruce Yorke who _ staged a demonstration in front of the NPA offices Monday. He termed the proposal “dishonest” and charged that the NPA has had two years to act on the last plebiscite. There is no reason tO believe another plebiscite will bé held, he said. Tuesday COPE continued the attack with aldermanic candidate Carmela Allevato unveiling a map at city hall showing the concentra- tion of NPA candidates in the Shaughnessy-Kerrisdale-Dunbat areas of the city, but they have none from Grandview, Cedar Cottage or South Vancouver, she said. COPE was also on the attack on the Parks Board front with can: didates Pat Wilson and Libby Davies demanding the scrapping of plans for yet another tourist trap —_ a proposed ‘‘Pioneer farm’? and miniature railway on the 100 acre park development at Kerr Road and Marine Dr. Wilson addressed a gathering of local residents at the park site to explain details of the project and call for community delegations to the next parks board meeting to demand the plans be scrapped, and new ones developed with input from local residents.