On Apr. 13 the provincial
government announced chang-
es in revenue sharing (grants to
municipalities) and responsibili-
ty for welfare costs. For Van-
couver this will mean a loss of
$7.2 million in revenue from the
province. What they’re doing in
Victoria is balancing their own
budget at the expense of the
municipalities.

How is the city of Vancouver
going to make up this loss? We
have several options open to us,
all of them bad. The city can in-
crease taxes. It can cover the
bulk of this loss by transferring

Harry

Rankin

money from reserve funds to
our budget. It can reduce the
budget by cutting services. Or it
can use a combination of all
three of these.

A cut of $7.2 million in one
year in provincial grants is bad.
But it’s small compared to other
costs that are going to be forced
on us by the provincial govern-
ment in the next two or three
years. Let me give you a couple
of examples.

PIER B.C.:

The city of Vancouver will
have to supply Pier B-C (which
will be an Expo pavilion until
1986 and then turned into’a
trade ard convention centre),
with all services including police
and fire protection, which will
run into several million dollars a
year. But we will not be able to
make them pay a nickel in taxes.
Pier B-C will be tax exempt.

The cruise ship facility and
Expo pavilion will require an ac-
cess viaduct and roads. The
mayor estimates that these will

million.

$5.2 million.

Projects tax city

cost $20 million in 1982 dollars.
Who will pay for these access
roads? The city of Vancouver?

The city is supposed to take
over the operation of the trade
and convention centre. Such
centres always operate at a loss
that could amount well over a
million dollars a year. That will
come out of the taxes of our
citizens. This is entirely wrong.
The operating costs of this cen-
tre should be covered by the
business interests that will
directly benefit from it — the
trading corporations and tne
tourist industry.

B:CoPLAGE:

We didn’t ask for B.C. Place
and it isn’t being built according
to city plans for the develop-
ment of Vancouver.

B.C. Place will require a new
Cambie Bridge, the cost of
which is estimated at $62.5
million. The city is expected to
pay one half of this, or $31.25

New sewer facilities will be re-
quired, at an estimated cost of
$17.4 million. The city is ex-
pected by pay 30 percent, or

Anew water system will be re-
quired, costing $4.1 million.
The city is expected to pay $2.6
million of this.

Total costs to Vancouver of
just these three (bridge, water
and sewer) will be $39.5 million,
all of which will have to come
out of the pockets of taxpayers.

And after all this, premier
Bennett still thinks we'll be
stupid enough to re-elect him!

Individuals and community
groups will have some chance to
present their own views on the B.C.
Place mega-project that threatens
to engulf Vancouver’s False Creek
area with high-rise office towers
and high-rent apartment com-
plexes following decisions at Tues-
day’s city council meeting.

But the adopted plan for public
consultation on the north shore
development is a clear retreat from
the procedure initially considered
at city council’s Apr. 7 meeting.
There, a majority of aldermen
bowed to pressure from B.C. Place
Officials and agreed to shelve pro-
posals for presenting the city’s own
markedly contrasting plan through
its own independent public
meetings.

Instead, community and
neighborhood groups, many of
whom urged council Tuesday to
conduct its own public review, will
be given the option of presenting
their views to one or more meetings
jointly sponsored by city and B.C.
Place officials. °

The joint meeting process came
as a result of three weeks of high-
level meetings between B.C. Place
officials and city planning staff, in-
itiated after B.C. Place chairman
Alvin Narod berated councillors
for being ‘‘uncooperative’’ and
taking the. road of
‘‘confrontation,, at the Apr. 7
council meeting.

_ Aldermen from the Committee
of Progressive Electors argued un-
sucessfully that council approve the
independent consultation process,
noting that B.C. Place had already
promoted its own plan with two
slick brochures and its own city-
wide meetings. The city should

Sera TeR VANCOUVER
City public meetings cut

after BC Place planners
put pressure on council

an

ae

receive public input into and sup-
port for its people-oriented
development plan before holding
any further talks with the Crown
Corporations planners, said the
COPE aldermen, backing the
strong recommendation from city
staff.

But at the Apr. 27 meeting,
COPE councillors supported the
modified city plan, although Harry
Rankin called it a ‘‘dog’s
breakfast’ that obscured the city’s
‘major role in presenting our posi-
tion.’ ”’

COPE?’s Bruce Yorke explained
afterwards that the input process,
while replacing the independent,
city-run meetings, still allows sup-
porting community groups to ex-
press that support and provide their
own input into the city’s north
shore concept at the jointly-
sponsored meetings. And city staff
and aldermen are available to pre-
.sent that position at ‘‘any meeting
called by any neighborhood
group,’’ he added.

The city will also go ahead with
plans to produce and distribute a
brochure outlining its independent
position which argues for far less
office space and more parks and
low-rent housing than is called for
under the B.C. Place plan. Addi-
tionally, a joint statement presen-
ting the differences between city
and B.C, Place positions is slated
for production.

The approved consultation pro-
cedure also includes environmental
and impact studies jointly carried
out by the two parties, and a joint
report on the results of all public
meetings, which would include
“points of disagreement’’ between

’ city and B.C. Place officials.

-downtown

Community activists who at
dressed council prior to the debatt
unanimously urged the city to con
duct its own public meetings.

“It has been our experience that
“‘co-operation’’ does not fit the
vocabulary of B.C. Place
Officials,’ declared West Endcom —
munity activist Carol Walket,
charging that Crown Corporatio)
representatives ignore suggestion’
from concerned groups but ‘‘thel
tell everyone they’ve had publi
consultation.”’

She urged council to be indepen
dent by producing its owl
documents and holding its owl
meetings, a call repeated by
speakers from the Downtowl
Eastside Liaison Committee,
Community Action and Planning
for B.C. Place, the Mount Pleasant
Neighborhood Association, the
Grandview Woodlands Area coum
cil and other individuals..

Right-wing alderman from the
Non-Partisan Association con
tinued to oppose the city develop
ment concept. Warnett Kennedy
called the plan ‘‘this silly, foolish
scheme that is put mischieviously
before the B.C. Place scheme —
very good scheme.’’

Letters of support for Van-
couver’s plan came from the B.C.
Place Citizens’ Advisory Commit-
tee, the South False Creek Citizens’
Committee and Burnaby
Municipal Council. The Burnaby
council reminded the city that
crowding office space into
Vancouvel
contravene’s the Greater Van-
couver Regional District’s ‘livable
region program.”’

he death in Port Moody this month of Gordon
Lee recalls the first days of what is now the Pa-
cific Tribune, for it was exactly 48 years ago, in April
1934, that a committee headed by Era White launch-
ed its campaign to raise a fund to start publication of
a British Columbia labor weekly.

Nine months later, on January 10, 1935, the first
issue of the B.C. Workers News appeared and under
various names — People’s Advocate, The Advo-
cate, The People, Pacific Advocate and Pacific
Tribune — it has continued to appear ever since,
with the exception of the period June, 1940 to Octo-
ber, 1942 when it was banned under the War Mea-
sures Act.

Back in 1934, in the trough of the depression,
times were hard, but nevertheless the financial cam-
paign to found the new paper was oversubscribed —
establishing a tradition that has been upheld in virtu-
ally every annual sustaining fund campaign since
that day.

Gordon Lee was one of those who bought a cer-
tificate in the new venture and worked in the cam-
paign, as the first issue of the B.C. Workers News
4 noted, ‘‘at a considerable personal sacrifice.’’ And
to the end of his days, despite a crippling illness in the
last 14 years of his life, he remained a supporter of
the paper.

* *

A tits recent annual general meeting, B.C. Teach-
ers Federation conferred honorary life member-
ship, its highest honor, on three of its members for
their outstanding service.

Honored were Allester, director of teacher
personal services, who retired this year after 43 years
in education; Jim Killeen, a former president and the
first to serve two terms; and Betty Griffin, a former
president of Burnaby Teachers Association.

Life membership carries with it the right to voice
and vote at federation conventions and entitle-
ment to serve on any committee.

A mid the unremitting attacks on the quality of |
public education, hampered by provincial bud-
getary ‘restraints’ and restrictions of school boards’
authority, scant attention is paid to the quality of
education being offered by some of the private
schools now receiving public funds. :

We have on our desk a book published by the Ac-
celerated Christian Education Inc. and reportedly |
being used as a social studies text in at least one pri-
vate school.

Here are some excerpts:

“The basic assumption of the (United Nations)
Charter is that war is evil. That wars have been and
are often caused by evil motives is a truism. That
their effects are horrible is true as well. War, how-
ever, is not evil in and of itself. The Old Testament is
replete with God-ordained and ordered wars.’’

“In September of 1961, the United Nations sent |
troops into Katanga to force her to become part of
the Communist-dominated Congo. What happened

‘is difficult to believe. The United Nations troops

committed acts of cruelty and barbarity that were
equal to those of Genghis Khan. Hospitals, schools,
churches and private homes were the deliberate tar-
gets of bombs and mortar attacks. Innocent men,
women and children of both races were machine-
gunned down in the streets. Helpless infants were
bayonetted just for ‘fun.’ Africa lost one of her
greatest leaders (Moise Tshombe, ‘‘an educated
Christian gentleman’’), and International Com-
munism gained another ‘victory.’ ””

And McCarthyism is dismissed in these words:
‘‘McCarthy’s charges were never denied, but he was
attacked and vilified from every angle.” :

If that isn’t straining the quality of education, we
don’t know what is.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 30,. 1982— Page 2

f=

DERA
LABOU

.

No

I spent my whole life makin’ somebody rich;
I busted my ass for that son-of-a-bitch;
And he left me to die like a dog in a ditch
SALUTES THE fie ssc up ny ibour, te wed

He used up my labour, he used up my time,
He plundered my body and squandered my mind
And he gave me a pension of hand-outs and wine
And told me I’m all used up.

MOVEMENT

Slaving their lives out for some other jerk;
My youngest in Frisco just made shipping clerk
And he don’t know I’m all used up.

U Young people reaching for power and gold

p U. Utah Phillips Don't have respect for anything old
: For pennies they’re bought and for promises sold,
é Someday they'll all be used up,

“7

My kids are in hock
to a God you call work,

y,

May Day
greetings

to the labor m
and all Tribus venders

Let’s keep up the fight for a
ward system, rapid transit
and affordable housing

Vancouver, B.C. V5T 3E3

#3 - 2414 Main St.

876-2615