|G a ath

The provincial government should
take the $100 million earmarked for
Vancouver Stock Exchange investors
and put it in the GAIN program,
thereby realizing real economic benef-
its to British Columbia.

That’s the suggestion End Legis-
lated Poverty handed to Human
Resources Minister Jim Neilson dur-
ing a meeting with the minister in Vic-
toria April 16.

The coalition, comprising 17 anti-
poverty organizations, told the minis-
ter that putting an additional $100
million to $150 million into GAIN
would increase benefits to B.C.’s poor
by $400 milion.

ELP co-ordinator Jean Swanson
oar = pkoveeal “will alleviate a lot

of suffering.

“Tt will help
reduce the need
for food banks.
It will help
poor kids par-
ticipate in their
schools and
communities.
It will help our
economy. And

= it won't cost

JEAN SWANSON anymore than
a lot of things the government does
with questionable benefit,” she said.

The-coalition urged the govern-
ment to adopt the recommendations
of the Social Planning and Review
Council which include eliminating
age discrimination in GAIN rates and
the regulation stipulating reduced
support for the first eight months,
increasing the earnings exemption
and shelter allowance and indexing
GAIN rates to the cost of living.

The group pointed out that under
federal/provincial agreement, the
additional provincial funds would be
matched by federal monies. ELP cal-
culated that since each $40,000 in pub-
lic spending creates one:new job, some
10,000 jobs would be created along
with taxpayers would would’ help
reduce the net cost of the increased
aid.

The extra money could be found by
transferring the $100 million the
government plans to grant people
investing in the Vancouver Stock
Exchange, reducing the provincial
communications budget and impos-
ing a surcharge on the taxes of the top
20. per cent of B.C. income earners,
ELP suggested.

Additional “tno cost’ measures
suggested include rent control, a min-
imum wage hike and abolition of the
ministry’s distinction between shelter
and support payments.

Earlier this month Swanson warned
that a new rule allowing welfare recip-
ients to earn more before facing
benefit deductions could, without an
increase in the minimum wage, create
a low-wage ghetto in the province.

A similar warning came from the
Single Mothers Action Committee,
which stated in a release April 14 that
the policy would force B.C.’s poor
“into a cheap labor pool for the
government and the corporations.”

Shirley Ross of the action commit-
tee said the proposal “undermines the
minimum wage for all workers.”

For the fourth year in a row Vancouver
city council has adopted a budget balanced
by a transfer from fiscal reserves and a
modest property tax increase. But it did so
after acrimonious debate in which council’s
right wing fired several vollies heralding the
not-too-distant election.

The 1986 budget, which due to the con-
sistent policy of council’s Committee of
Progressive Electors/Unity majority avoids
drastic layoffs and curtailment of services,
was approved April 15 after a majority of
the several community and professional
groups and trade unionists appearing
before council a day earlier urged continua-
tion of the no-cuts policy.

Totalling $322 million, the budget still
faces fine-tuning as city department heads
adjust their figures to accommodate last-
minute appeals. It will be adopted later
when council passes the obligatory bylaw,
but to all intents, the budget debate is over.

This year’s budget takes a total of $10.2
million from the city’s lush property
endowment funds — the accumulation of
city-owned property sale and rental revenues
which stands at $450 million — and hikes
property taxes five per cent. Departmental
costs were also trimmed to overcome an
initial $24-million shortfall in revenues.

This year’s budget decision marked a
departure from previous deliberations in
that, due to a motion from Ald. May
Brown, council opened its doors to the pub-
lic in a special meeting.

At that meeting Linda Mead of the Red ©

7

with no layoffs or service cu

Door Rental Agency said council faced two
clear choices — reducing services or hiking
taxes.

Noting the city faces additional costs this
year due to Expo 86 and the recently com-
pleted Cambie Street bridge, she said, “Part
of the reason for our financial difficulties is
that the provincial government is not
accepting its share of the responsibility, and
the public should be aware of that.”

Cy Stairs of the Vancouver, New West-

minster and District Building and Con-.

struction Trades Council said that while the
province pursues a policy of cutbacks and
layoffs, “Vancouver’s rejection of this
approach in favor of one which is more
practical, sensible and humane has helped
to protect residents from many of the nega-
tive impacts.”

Council has done “‘a great favor to the
people of Vancouver by not eliminating
services,” said Jim Green of the Downtown
Eastside Residents Association. Several
other organizations voiced the plea that the
city not cut back on health services, arts and
other community endeavors.

Those in the minority proposing cut-
backs were. mainly representing business
interests. Phil Hochstein of the Independent
Canadian ~Business Association, whose
actions in Supreme Court recently over-
turned the city’s fair wage bylaw, criticized
council for its attempt to ensure city
workers’ union rates are the minimum paid

to those who perform contract work for the _

city. .

~ Vancouver have opted for that roulé

That attack was furthered by 16
aldermen during the budget debalé
don Campbell, who will contest the
chair for the Non-Partisan As9
alliance in this year’s election, OPP¥
use of interest accrued by the
endowment fund to balance
expenditures and claimed the city
examine ways to preserve services '
accompanying tax hikes.

Campbell did not say how this @
done, but the NPA alderman has4
before council calling for privatiZa
City services. Some municipalities

questionable claim that savings ©)
_realized, but studies by Vancou
found city-operated services are ©

Mayor Mike Harcourt defen
budget, calling the property end?
fund a “heritage fund” similar to
and saying that in running for M4
three “very tough elections” he’d
strong mandate” for retaining S¢
jobs.

COPE Ald. Libby Davies
statements of the groups appearing
council: “Basically, they were telling
want their services and they know
going to have to pay taxes for it.
_ “As we get close to election i
aldermen know they can make polit!
out of this...The real test of thes¢
will be in November (election tint
said.

When President Reagan launched his
bombing attack on two Libyan cities April
14, he said it was in retaliation for a Libyan
terrorist attack on a West German night
club (where on American soldier was
killed and some wounded). The president
claimed he had evidence linking Libya to
the terrorist action in Berlin that was
“direct, precise and irrefutable.”

If the president really has such evidence,
why didn’t he reveal it to the world? Why
didn’t he put in on the table for all people
and all countries to assess? Even the
Libyans challenged him, before the attack,
to do so, but he declined.

The president’s failure to reveal his evi-
dence leaves the suspicion that he may
not have “direct, precise or irrefutable”

by someone to provide the excuse for the
bombing attack. After all, president Lyn-
don Johnson, in his time, set a good
example with his false claim that the U.S.
navy had been attacked in the Gulf of
Tonkin, and then used this as an excuse to
bomb Hanoi and involved the U.S. in a
full scale war with Vietnam.

According to media reports, eight of the
16 planes involved in the attack dropped
32 bombs weighing 2,000 Ibs each on the

be staying. They didn’t succeed in killing
the Libyan leader as planned, but they.can
take satisfaction from the fact that they
killed his baby daughter and critically
wounded two of his other children.
Clearly the Gaddafi family was a key
target, despite the denials of U.S. top
administration officials.

This military strike was clearly in viola-
tion of international law and the United
Nations Charter.

The U.S. did not undertake this action,

allegedly against terrorism, with “clean

evidence, but simply evidence cooked up .

area where Col. Gaddafi was believed to:

hands. Last year, after an Air India plane
was bombed off the coast of Ireland killing
all aboard, the CBC revealed the fact that
privately-operated terrorist schools in the
USS. are training terrorists. Furthermore
the U.S. financed, trained and armed Con-
tras in Honduras are attacking Nicara-

‘guan schools and hospitals and killing

civilians. This is state terrorism, no less
objectionable than individual or group
terrorism.

Many people are wondering why the
U.S. has been directing such a virulent
propaganda campaign against Libya and
Gaddafi for some months now. Whatever
else the result will be, the attack on Libya

will not stop terrorism because its roots
are not in Libya. That many Canadians
understand this is shown, for example, by
the statement on terrorism adopted by the
convention of the B.C. Longshoremen’s
Union held last month. It declared:

“If Libya were wiped out tomorrow ina
U.S. attack, that would not stop terrorism
in the Middle East. That terrorism has its
basis in the occupation of Palestinian and
Arab lands by the Israelis, and terrorism in
this part of the world is unlikely to end
until this problem is resolved.”

Many people are asking the question: is
an underlying reason for the U.S. assault
the fact that Libya nationalized U.S. oil
companies, forced the U.S. to give up two

~ manner if the Soviet navy had sail Jed ™

-the U.S. air strike against Libya.

important military and naval bases, ©,
strongly opposed to U.S. and Israeli PO
in the Middle East? :

Others are wondering whether the“)
attack on Libya didn’t have as its real
the scuttling of any arms control
ments with the Soviet Union and the
pedoing of Gorbachev’s plan for bi?
about nuclear disarmament by the ©
this century.

It does look as if the U.S. is bel
torpedoing any process leading tO ©
mament. It refused to go along W"
Soviet self-imposed ban on nucleaf
ing. It turned down the Soviet pf Al
that both the Soviet and America® Oh
be withdrawn from the Middle
defuse the situation there. And the?
was the American provocation
Black Sea recently where the U.S:
cruised within eight miles of the.
shore on an electronic spying
Fortunately for the world, the Soviets
not respond with military force. wa iF
the U.S. have acted in such a rest

sat

American, waters?
To me it’s not surprising that opi
polls in Britain showed 65 to 70 per
opposed both to President Reagan's oF
gerous military venture in Libya * i
Prime Minister Thatcher granting fy !
bombers permission to use British#
for this purpose. Nor is it surprisi
the South African government supe
‘What we may be seeing noW &
beginning of a U.S. policy of
military might indiscriminately
any government with which it
agree. That path can only lead !
nuclear war. World public opinio®
assert itself more strongly than
opposition to such dangerous acts:

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 23, 1986