British Columbia Minority wont mean defeats for COPE The Non Partisan Association has five members on Vancouver city coun- cil. The Committee of Progressive Electors has five. NPA Mayor Gordon Campbell could cast the deciding vote on any issue. Does that mean that COPE will be defeated at every turn? I don’t think so. It’s no secret that the NPA and COPE look at issues from opposite standpoints most of the time. Basically the NPA represents a select few big developers who are getting handouts from city hall. COPE represents those who have been getting the short end of the stick and who want new policies at city hall that reflect their needs —protection of neighbourhoods, building affordable housing, an end to the demolition of perfectly good housing, and so on. COPE represents 45 per cent of the voters, voters who are angry and want action on these issues. The way to get it is for any and all groups who want such action to come to city council meetings en masse to make their demands. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney may ignore Harry | Rankin the 85 per cent of the people who op- pose his grossly unfair Goods and Ser- vices Tax (GST). He’s far away and can’t feel the pressure so directly, but the NPA aldermen live here and are answerable at every city council meet- ing. They can’t afford to ignore voters. I think it would also be useful if the people in each neighbourhood, if they have not already done so, would set up some form of neighbourhood organiza- tion where all their needs could be raised, policies worked out and delega- tions sent to city council. I am reminded that some years ago we had a dozen ratepayer organizations in Vancouver. They represented the real grass roots. They were united in the Central Council of Ratepayers and they had an enormous influence at city hall. They campaigned ceaselessly to keep down taxes, to build low-cost housing, for a rapid transit system, against the NPA’s scheme to criss-cross the whole city with a series of freeways, and against an NPA scheme to cut up Stan- ley Park to make way fora Third Cross- ing. We won some of these battles too. It was people’s power in action. The day is past when city council can meet in secret to make decisions that affect everyone of us. Citizen groups want to see city council in action, they want input and they want city council to lis- ten. The five COPE aldermen will do their best to create an atmosphere at city hall that will enable citizen groups to be involved directly in civic government. Their success depends on the support they get from citizen groups. 2 * Pacific Tribune, December 3, 1990 Police actions called ‘political’ Continued from page 1 on known dangerous people, such as sus- pected drug dealers. Both suggested a political motive behind the operation, which will cost city taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. Police cleared the remainder of a group of squatters who had occupyed the six houses in the 1600-block of Frances Street on Vancouver’s east side last February. These had been sitting vacant during the city’s latest, and ongoing, housing crisis while owner and developer Ning Yee was seeking development permits to erect con- dominiums on the site. During those nine months Yee sought several times to have the squatters, who had legal representation, evicted. He succeeded in obtaining an eviction order from B.C. Supreme Court on Nov. 23, but the order did not empower police to take action. Whatever the merits of the squatters’ ac- tion — and there are variety of opinions among community organizations on this question — few deny that it came to sym- bolize in a very direct way the housing malaise in the city. Politically, it translates into a city council dominated by a dev- eloper-supported civic group that has con- sistently refused to heed calls for rent con- trols and a moratorium on the destruction of affordable housing. Police staged the massive operation Tuesday after claiming to have “reliable in- formation” that the initial squatters had been replaced by an element that was armed and bent on killing a policeman. During the operation several squatters sat on the barricade, waving a large red banner, while others stood in the streets, occasional- ly yelling to a large crowd of onlookers, many of whom expressed support. At approximately 2 p.m. several police, More funds More dollars and greater public control of B.C.’s colleges and institutes are needed to undo the decimation caused by years of provincial restraint, the College-Institute Educators Association says in a report call- ing for far-reaching improvements in the system for the coming decade. The faculty union’s report containing 90 recommendations warns that the current system is inadequate, and maintains a pub- licly controlled and funded system is the best for a well rounded academic and technical education. : “We say education is not an expense. It’s an investment in the future,” CIEA president Ed Lavalle said in releasing the report at a recent press conference. The 77-page document, Profile for the Nineties, reflects the opinions and experien- ces of the association’s campus units, said Lavalle. Several local association presidents attended the briefing. Lavalle said advanced education was “pretty well decimated” by the restraint pro- gram initiated in 1982-83. Wages fell and tuitions skyrocketed when the Socred government severely slashed operating and capital funds. “From 88 on, there has been what we call rehabilitative funding ... We think the government is still working on restoring the system to what it was in ’82-’83.” But “its expansion is not the order of the day, either in quantitative or qualitative terms,” Lavalle remarked. Right now, the college-institute system operates with almost eight per cent less funding and 27 per cent more students than it did in 1982, he noted. That has led to many inequities, including barring potential stu- dents from access through space restrictions, notably with English as a Second Language programs. walking behind a front-end loader, ap- proached the squatters. They offered no re- sistance and were handcuffed, searched, photographed and put in waiting police vans. In several instances police forcibly ripped scarves from the faces of those ar- rested. The front end loader then went to work on the houses, tearing out large chunks of wall. Four occupants in one of the houses subsequently surrendered after police threatened to use tear gas. In the view of the COPE aldermen, the military-style action was completely unne- cessary. “All of a sudden, what was originally a housing issue tums into a neighbourhood that’s under seige,” Davies said. “We believe that what should have taken place was a political intervention by the mayor (and) members of council at a much earlier time to de-escalate the situation. Even yesterday, that could have happened.” Davies said that the large-scale operation must have been planned for “a number of days.” Mayor Gordon Campbell, as chair of the Police Commission, should have known of it and hence could have informed council, she said. Davies and Rankin said the COPE coun- cil members are calling for a public inquiry into “what we see as a political decision.” Davies said an explanation from the mayor - and the police department was needed. The alderman said there are several com- munity groups in Vancouver which could have been used as “lines of communication” _between police and squatters, and that the immediate neighbourhood should have been involved. Instead, said Rankin, resi- dents found themselves under seige with no prior warning. S _avaekmege Rankin also called for a more com- B.C. has the lowest educational access rates in Canada, “and of course that’s dis- criminatory because it’s lower rates for women than it is for men,” Lavalle said. To ensure greater equality of access, he said, “we’re looking to the education system to be more responsive and democratic by major changes in governance, he said. The Socreds abolished college boards in which half the members were local school board representatives, replacing these with the cur- rent all-appointed boards. Ademocratically controlled local college board might have prevented last year’s strike which at one point saw the parties only $250,000 apart, noted Langara Faculty As- sociation president Michael Sharzer. But a board member “saw it only terms of govern- ment funding,” he said. The CIBA calls for a provincial standard in bargaining and working conditions, he said. Lavalle noted some nine colleges face bargaining next year, and that based on past ~ practice, more than half could lead to work stoppages or lockouts. The association is concerned about the increasing drift towards privatizing pro- grams — notably among the trades at Van- couver Community College recently — and contends that public education offers better education through general theoretical edu- cation as well as narrow job specifics. The association’s key recommendation is that “the college and institute funding for- mula be amended to recognize the real costs of providing adequate levels of instruction and support services ....” It calls for community representation to be restored to local college boards, recom- mends education councils at each institution comprising students, faculty and staff, and a provincial “process” involving the “major stakeholders” in the system to advise the munity-oriented police force that would set up “store-front” style operations to facilitate communication with residents. He compared the alleged arms cache to a Gulf of Tonkin incident, referring to the manufactured military action that gave the United States the excuse to escalate the Viet- nam War. Vancouver’s Tenants Rights Coalition in a statement said it was “shocked” and called the police action “out of context with the reality of the situation.” It said the confrontation could have been avoided if the Police Commission and Mayor Campbell had liaised with the com- munity and used organizations such as the coalition which had been in contact with the squatters. Penny Singh, a spokesperson for the squatters, said none of the group were armed as police had charged, and that the source of information for that charge was unknown. (Police had claimed one of the squatters gave the information.) “Other than that, we’ve never talked about guns in the squats. We’re non-violent; we would never consider an armed assault on the police force. It wouldn’t be very smart on our part,” she said. Of the 27 arrested, only 12 were charged, and only before a court hearing the moming of Nov. 28, Singh said. . And the charges were mischief and ob- structing a police officer — neither of which carries criminal penalties. Most of those charged have been in the houses between three to eight months, Singh said. “My analysis is: The police wanted to squash the. squats. They-wanted our defiance to end and I think they found a way to do it.” for colleges, union argues advanced education minister. The report recommends 50 per cent plus one of a col- lege/institute board to be elected by muni- cipal voters. spec Grae’ An affirmative action program to en- hance access for women, including child- care, should be enacted. Access oppor- tunities should be made available through new programs for Natives, the disabled, visible minorities and seniors, the CIEA in- sists. The report supports campus unionism and calls for the repeal of regressive labour legislation, such as the recent Public Sector Collective Bargaining Disclosure Act. Regarding students, the report calls for more non-repayable student financial aid and a move towards tuition-free education. Acknowledging that college faculty are “the new kids on the block when it comes to lobbying,” Lavalle said current plans in- volve distributing the report to, and meeting with, government and opposition members and representative groups such as the B.C. Federation of Labour, the B.C. Business Council, and community organizations. Local faculty associations, “hopefully, will be animating it at the local level,” Lavalle, a labour studies teacher, said. Positions in the report reflect CIEA policies of the last 10 years as well as posi- tions generated by locals and association staff members. It was debated at the assoc- iation’s annual convention last June. The association plans to make college- institute improvement an election issue, said Lavalle, warning that: “By the end of the Nineties, what kind of a B.C. we have in terms of opportunities for our young people are going to be pretty well set.”