BRITISH COLUMBIA:

—

The Lower Mainland’s unemployed
can make their voice heard in two ways:
by joining the organized unemployed
movements and being part of the mass
rally planned to protest the Socred’s
latest budget on Saturday, Mar. 31.

That was the word from the Van-
couver and District Labor Council’s
Unemployed Action Centre at an organ-
izing meeting Mar. 15, where the Feb. 20
budget was linked with B.C.’s growing
numbers of jobless.

“If we don’t start organizing now,
we’re going to have a hell of a long way
to go later,” said action centre co-ordina-
tor Kim Zander, while George Hewison,
president of the VDLC unemployed
action committee, and Mike Proniuk,
head of the Jobs or Income Now (JOIN)

area’s jobless at the rally.

In fact, unemployment — the word
not mentioned once in Socred Finance
Minister Hugh Curtis’ budget speech —
will be the key theme at the rally, spon-
sored by the VDLC and the Lower
Mainland Solidarity Coalition.

The rally, under the theme “Scrap the
new Socred budget,” begins at 1 p.m. in
Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park,

blocks east of Main Street. Entertainers
and a speaker from the provincial Solid-
arity Coalition are planned.

campaign, urged a large turnout of the.

between Powell and Cordova streets two _

‘Scrap Socred budget’
rally set for Mar. 31

It’s the first major action set to greet
the Feb. 20 budget, which Hewison
called “three times as bad as the July 7
(1983) budget.

“Last year’s budget opened the door
to cuts in democratic rights. This one
goes much farther and attacks economic
rights,” he said.

In addressing the mainly young
audience of unemployed at the Mar. 15
meeting, Hewison showed how recent
Scored budgets have increasingly shifted
the costs of running the province from
corporation to individuals.

Meanwhile, the Socreds ‘have moved

against B.C.’s younger unemployed by
cutting $50 from monthly welfare pay-
ments and ending GAIN support for
those waiting for unemployment ‘insu-
rance, Hewison noted. :

“Hugh Curtis says this is to prevent
people from coming into the province to
collect welfare, as if B.C.’s own workers
didn’t face unemployment. His budget is
based on an outright lie,” he charged.

“The immediate demand must be to
scrap the budget now — and Mar. 31 is
only the beginning,” he asserted.

Zander said later the meeting and
media coverage of it brought several
“new faces” into the action centre to
volunteer services.

““We’ve sowed the seed,” she said,

“And already we’re reaping some of the -

benefits.”

Guest columnist Ald. Libby Davies
replaces Ad. Harry Rankin this week. The

International Women’s Day dinner spon-
sored by the Congress of Canadian
Women Mar. 11.

Not in modern-day memory has there
been such a deliberate and calculated:
attack on the working people of this pro-
vince. The legislative packages, the two
recent budgets and the propaganda
about restraint were carefully orches-
trated and planned to legislate out of
existence our democratic rights and ser-
vices and crush the gains made by work-
ing people and create a climate that will
cater economically and socially to the
whims of private capital. Every working
and unemployed person has been target-
ted. Women especially, as low wage
earners, single parents and welfare recip-
ients have been terribly hard hit.

Many social services for women were
among the first to go — family support
workers, post partum counsellors, child
abuse teams, youth workers, legal aid
services, women’s health programs,
human rights — and, of course, there is
the massive attack on our public educa-
tion system that threatens its very future.

To add insult to injury, many of the
comunity organizations, particularly
women’s organizations that defended
women’s rights and services, have also
been cut or had their programs axed.

_ Butthe Socreds made a mistake. They
believed they could destroy by legislation
what working people have fought for
and won over many decades. They uni-
ted us all: the labor movement, progres-
sive and reform minded forces, women,
students, tenants, seniors, the unem-
ployed, professionals, and the poor, into
a single strong force — Solidarity —

remarks are taken from her speech to the’

Women found unity
in Solidarity fight

against the repressive Socred legislation
and programs.

We have not won the battle yet, but
without a doubt the new alliance that has
been forged among working people,
women, the organized and unorganized,
has signalled a new era in B.C. Solidarity
has welded together the key elements in
advancing the cause of working people.

We began in 1982 with a victory at city
hall, where the people of Vancouver
elected a progressive, labor-backed
majority. We suffered a setback in the
re-election of the Socreds on May 5
...but events since then clearly show us
what working people are up against, and
more importantly, what we are capable
of when we unite our forces.

In 1984 we in Vancouver have a spe-
cial task ahead of us. It is to maintain

Libby
Davies

Vancouver city council as a progressive
local government for people. . .there’s no
question the Socreds would dearly love
to kick COPE and our independent allies
out of city hall.
They know Vancouver city council,
and in particular the COPE aldermen,
have strenuously opposed Socred peo-
ple-bashing and the erosion of municipal
autonomy and revenue sharing. You can
be sure they will pour pots of money into
the NPA in an attempt to defeat COPE
and the labor-backed majority. :
1984 will be a big showdown and we
have to gear up now to defend the needs
of working men and women in this city. I
am confident we will find the strength
and resources to meet this challenge.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 21, 1984

Low East End vote
sets COPE’s task

for 1984 election

COPE trustee candidate Gary Onstad (r) thanked supporters at election night rally Mar. 14.

The mood was one of “‘let’s work for the
future” rather than of defeat Mar. 14 at the
Committee of Progressive Electors byelec-
tion headquarters in the port unions’ Mari-
time Building in Vancouver.

The Wednesday byelection saw COPE’s
Gary Onstad lose to right-wing Jonathan
Baker of the Non-Partisan Association in
the race to fill a vacant seat on the Van-
couver School Board. The vote ensured that
domination of the board will remain in the
hands of the NPA until the civic election this
fall.

“We will simply have to reach out to
more people in the fall because I am con-
vinced that once people realize that public
education is going down the Socred drain in
this province, they will speak out elector-
ally,” said Onstad to supporters after
incoming poll results showed Baker’s win.

“We have a small grass-roots organiza-

_ tion. We didn’t have the money for ads in

newspapers. We hoped that by what we said
at all-candidates’ meetings, we would get
the message across. But the media and the
message were silent,” Onstad said.

The preceding weekend COPE volun-
teers were out in a door-to-door canvass of

the city’s voters, handing leaflets to resi- -

dents and informating them where to vote.
At all-candidates’ meetings and through ads
in local newspapers, COPE urged Van-
couverities to vote against the cutbacks to
the city’s schools dictated by the Social
Credit government, and in most cases, read-
ily accepted by the school board’s NPA
majority.

Of the 287,292 voters on the 1982 list,
little more than 15 per cent turned out to
vote in the byelection.

Voting followed traditional geo-political
lines in Vancouver: East End, West End,
Kitsilano and several south end areas in the
main favored Onstad over Baker. In thé
most West Side neighborhoods, such as tht
affluent Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale, thé
NPA candidate was the automatic choice
the majorityofthe voters.  —s_.

The difference was in the number of
voters who turned out. Among the polls #
which the right-wing vote prevailed, tul
nout was high, while those favoring COPE
showed a low voter turnout. ;

The votes for the other candidates — 1”
cluding the more extreme right-winger Peté!
Westlake, and B.C. Home and School
Association president Helen Minishka, wh?
also came out against school cutbacks, wel®
low, and were not a factor in deciding thé
overall outcome. ‘

The-vote for the new Cambie Stree
bridge, which authorized the city to borrow
$35 million on a 10-year loan that will cost

$75 million and hike property taxes abou!
$26 yearly, was high at 73.7 per cent.

In a letter distributed to voters, COPE
aldermen had warned a vote for a new bridgé
— over the option of a rennovated, 1
aligned version of the current structure —
would mean other necessary projects woul
be put on hold, and the costs of the new
bridge could take money away from city
services.

For Onstad, the school board result gav¢
a clear message that COPE’s volunteers
have to work harder to ensure a large work
ing-class vote in the fall elections. —

““We must continue our struggle. Educa
tion is far too important an issue to let thé
Socreds and their right-wing hacks on thé
board have their way,” he said.

_. Victoria: 80% sign for peace

Victoria Mayor Peter Pollen was the first

‘to place his signature on the petition a

national peace caravan will be carrying to
Canadian centres this spring and summer.

More than 200 petitioners were out Mar.
1 in the federal constituencies of Victoria
and Esquimalt-Saanich — both Conserva-
tive ridings — netting an 80-per cent favor-
able response from those petitioned, local
peace activists report. |

_ The petition, circulated through door-to-
door canvassing, urges a free vote in Parli-
ament on halting testing of the cruise

~ missile, declaring Canada a nuclear-

weapons free zone, and redirecting arms
expenditures to human needs.

The Peace Petition Caravan Campaign
has been organized by a broad coalition of
trade unions and women’s, church, peacé
and Native groups, and is sponsored by thé
Canadian Labor Congress. Those wishing
to volunteer for the Greater Victoria Dis
armament Group’s efforts should phone
384-2445.

Plans are also underway for Victoria’s
annual Walk for Peace, on Apr. 28. It beg-
ins in Centennial Square and proceeds
through the downtown area to McDonald
Park at James Bay, fora rally with speakers
and entertainment. ,

Fae

I

tocatcsindis Sage eee