Socred ‘transit conspiracy’ charged The Combines Investigation Branch has been asked to in- vestigate charges that five Members of the Social Credit S0vernment, two other Social Credit Party members and B.C. Ydro chairman Robert Bonner ve conspired to destroy the Public transportation system in ancouver and Victoria. The charge was made in a for- Mal petition to the Combines Branch last week by six candidates of the Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE). The application for the inquiry, signed by Bruce Eriksen, Libby Davis, Phillip Rankin, David Schreck, Paul Murphy and Bruce Yorke, alleged a conflict of interest between the Socred Party members influence over public transportation policy and their corporate connections to the private automobile and oil industries. George Orr of the Combines Branch in Ottawa told the Tribune by telephone Wednesday that the Branch would “‘initiate an inquiry to determine the facts”’ in the case. “The steps taken in the investigation will be private, he said, but the plaintiffs can assume that the matter is under inviestigation until they are informed otherwise. If the Combines Branch drops the in- vestigation, the plaintiffs must be informed of the reasons for dropping the inquiry. The action before the Combines Branch was initiated last week by COPE aldermanic candidate and Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association president Bruce Eriksen. Eriksen and the other Petitioners for the Committee of Progressive Electors, seen here during the campaign against fare in- meases in October, 1976, will be hitting Vancouver streets again this Saturday gathering signatures in PPosition to the latest round of fare hikes. Petitioners will be meeting at the COPE offices at 1588 Commercial Drive at 10:30 a.m. —Sean Griffin photo Washington summit poses danger of U.S. intervention in Mideast The world was alerted this week t e danger of U.S. military in- €tvention in the Middle East, pee at the behest of Israeli aa Minister Menachem Begin Sn Egyptian president Anwar in aS when they meet September 5 ashington at a “summit” with ‘S. president Jimmy Carter. Labor picnic to hear Rush 1 © 28rd annual Vancouver nd Labor Picnic will be held Ptember 3 from 1:00 p.m. at the Mmunity Hall in Parksville. Other large crowd is ex- Pected at the picnic, sponsored by he four labor councils on Van- ver Island and by individual Wions, Nig Picnic will feature speakers aia the labor movement, in- pr Ing Communist . Party de leader Maurice Rush, a lcal program, sports and a Salmon Da ecue e The summit has been widely condemned as a desperate, ill fated move with little chance of bringing peace to the Middle East. Con- secutive initiatives by Sadat and Begin over the past year have ended in failure and, observers note, the Washington summit will hear no new proposals from either side, with the exception of the possible proposal for the stationing of U.S. troops in the Middle East. In Geneva, United Nations secretary general Kurt Waldheim said last Tuesday that he is “skeptical” about the summit. Unless the summit could agree on a return to the Geneva conference on the Middle East and a solution to the Palestinian question, ‘“‘it would not be a step of any significance on the road to peace in the Middle East,’’ he said. But rather than moving closer to the resolution of the major issues, Begin will go to Washington en- trenched in his hard line stand against the establishment of a Palestinian state and the return of all occupied territory. Sadat, who fractured Arab unity with his in- dividual initiatives with Begin, has also shown signs of backing away from resolution of the Palestinian question. The danger peace movement spokesmen have pointed to is that both leaders will opt for a way out of the Middle East problem See U.S. page 7 COPE candidates made the charges in response to the 43 to 67 percent bus fare increases scheduled to take effect September 5, and to the cutbacks in Lower Mainland bus routes implemented this week by B.C. Hydro. The petition to the Combines Branch charges that the government and Hydro have been deliberately wrecking the public transit system since 1975 in order to force com- muters back into their automobiles and to give the private auto in- dustry a bigger share of the ground transportation market. The actions of the government and of B.C. Hydro amounted to a conspiracy, the application to the Combines Branch stated, to lessen competition between the public and private ground transportation industries. “it is our opinion that this con- spiracy consists of members of the Social Credit Party who have direct interests in the private ground transportation industry, and who since 1975, have enjoyed See TRANSIT page 2 Cut school taxes BCTF asks gov't The B.C. Teachers’ Federation Sunday called on the provincial government to give tax relief to homeowners by reducing the education __ tax, increasing homeowner grants and by lifting the cost of post-secondary education from property taxes. The demand was voiced by Federation president Pat Brady in an address in Naramata where he told local teachers’ association » presidents; ‘‘The citizens of B.C. need and deserve a system of taxation that is fair to students and taxpayers.” Brady called on the government to cut the mill rate for 1979 to 39 mills — a reduction from the present 39.75 mills — and to in- crease homeowner grants to $350 for those under 65 and to $520 for those over 65. Grants are $280 and $480 respectively for those under 65 and those over 65. The Federation also demanded that the government proclaim all sections of the Colleges and Pro- vincial Institutes Act,. passed by the Legislature in 1977 but still not proclaimed in its entirety. Because of the government’s failure to proclaim those sections of the act pertaining to financing, local school boards are forced to bear an additional $110 million. Proclamation would shift that cost to the provincial treasury where it rightly belongs. The shift in education costs — a major factor in increased property taxes — from the provincial to local governments is shown even more dramatically in the increase in the mill rate since 1975, Brady stated. “In the past three years,”’ he told the meeting, ‘the government has B.C. Federation of Labor delegation visits USSR A delegation from the B.C. Federation of Labor left Van- -couver Monday for the Soviet Union where they will begin a 10- day visit to Odessa at the invitation of the Odessa Council of Trade Unions. Four officers of the Federation are on the delegation, made up of president George Johnston as well as Bob Donnelly, Cy Stairs and Don Garcia, three of the B.C. Fed’s six vice-presidents. The delegation to the USSR follows a visit to this country of a delegation of Soviet trade unionists among whom was the secretary of the Odessa trade union council. The B.C. Fed. hosted the group when it was in Vancouver last December. Odessa, a Black Sea port in the Ukraine, was earlier proclaimed as a sister city to Vancouver by the city councils of the two cities. raised the provincial school tax by 50 percent — from 26.5 mills in 1975 to the present 39.75 mills — com- pared to an increase of only 1.6 percent for the previous eight years.” Because of that exorbitant in- crease in the mill rate, the provincial government has had to increase its grants to local school boards by only 1.3 percent while provincial government revenues have. inereased..by..more..than...12 times that amount, or 15.8 percent. “There is too much reliance on the property tax as a source of education funding in this provin- ce,” Brady said, pointing out that British Columbia is 25 percent above the national average in its dependence on this source of revenue. The result is not only an in- creased tax burden for homeowners but also adequate funding for B.C. school, he said. e a > o FESTIVAL: A glimpse in photos at the 11th World Festival of Youth and Students. in Havana, Cuba, pages 4,5. o LABOR: The lockout of shoreworkers by the Prince Rubert Fishermen's Co-operative Association —and charges of scabbing —raise vital questions for the trade union move- ment, page 8.