Study has
better idea

OTTAWA (CP) An
unpublished study done for
the public works department
recommends that the
government postpone most
.of its construction in Ontario
and Alberta and channel its
spending into Quebec and the
Atlantic provinces.

Benjamin Higgins, author
of the study, told the Senate
finance committee Thur-
sday: ‘‘We estimate that
between one third and one
half of existing unem-
ployment could be elimi-
nated by such a_ policy
without aggravating in-
flationary pressure."

Higgins, a University of
Ottawa professor and a
specialist in regional
ecopornic planning, said his
research shows that federal
spending on public works in
recent years has sys-
temalically contributed to
the economic instability of
every regioa in the country.

His analysis led to the con-
clusions that Ontario,
Alberta and Britlsh
Colurnbia are generating
most of the country's in-
flation while unemployment
is concentrated in Quebec
and the Atlantic provinces.

“Without changing the vol-
ume of public works, we can
do much lo reduce inflation
and unerapluyment at once
by concentrating these
oudays in areas of high
unemployment,” he told the
committee.

Laler ia an interview the
economist said he had in-
cluded Central Mortgage
and Housing spending in his
definition of government
construction spending,

The shidy was com-
missioned by the director-
weneral of policy co-
ordination aud departmental
Planning, but has never been
made ouhlic. Higgins did not
say why.

Prof. Higgins also urged
the governnient to abandon
what he called a simplistic
and outdated approach to
regional * economic
cevelonraent,

The current approach of
vicking one ar two cities ina
backward region and
pouring in financial in-
centives was doomed to
feilure.

The government should -

use its..resources to plan
regional development on a
communityby-community
banis.

Prof, tiigiging told the eight
senators at the committee
that Canada lags behind the
aocallec less-develapec
countries of Asia and Latin
American in recognizing the
ianportance of regional
ecancmics and devising
realistic ways to overcome
regional disparities.

These developing coun-
tries are largely reaponsible
for the new concept of
“barefoot  planners’’—

specially trained economists
who go into communities and
work directly with the pop-
ulation. They, find out what
the people need then devise
specially-adapted loca:
development plans.

Higgins said the theory of
regional planning now
practised by the'department
of regional economic ex-
pansion was rejected by
leading economists as much
as 15 years ago.

“The idea that you can
pick one city like Halifax or
Moncton as a development
pole for the Atlantic region,
pour in incentives and sit
back waiting for the benefits
to seep down to the entire
region has almost never
worked."

Higgins was also critical of
the federal government for
using tax dollars to en-
couraging the development
of high-cost industries with

- low productivity.

“It is bad regional policy
to permit—let alone en-
courage— more textile
plants in the astern
Townships of Quebec.”

* KELOWNA, B.C, (CP)
— Some Britlsh Columbia
teachers got high salary
increases in past because

. weak school boards gave
In to thelr demands too
soon, & tribunal that will
impose contract settle-
menta in eight Okanagan
school districts has been
told.

Al Akeburst, labor
relations officer for the
Okanagan branch of the
B.C. School Trustees As-
sociation, told the
tribunal hearing Wed-
mesday that teachers
_would wait for one board
‘to agree to a high set-
Wement and then use it as
the basis for their
demands. ‘Everyone
wants to see who
collapses first,” he sald,
. Umer the Public
| Schools Act, teacher
associations and districts
that did not reach a con-
tract agreement by Nov.
15 must have settlements
imposed by arbitration.

The Okanagan
bargaining zone districts
include Kelowna, Pen-
ticton, Vernon, Shuswap,

WEAK BOARDS
THE PROBLEM

Okanagan South, Prin-
ceton, Summerland and
ArmstrongSpellumcheen,
The 2,225 teachers in

‘them earlier rejected a
tentative two-year pact
providing increases of 6.9
and 7.9 per cent.

The hearing was told
teachers want a 9.72 per
cent wage Increase over
one year while the
districts were offering six
per cent,

The three-man
tribunal, made up of one
person each appointed by
the districts and teachers
and a chairman chosen by
the two, was expected to_
announce a decision next
week, - ;

Teachers’ represen-
tative Rolli Cacchioni
said during the past year
the consumer price index
has risen 8.? per cent and
Okanagan wages have
gone up nine per cent.

Non-teaching em-
ployees in the district,
members of the Canadian
Union of Public Employ-
ees, earlier settled for 5.5
and 6 per cent wage in-
creases over two years.

’

BARCELONA, Spain
(Reuter) -— Ramblas, a
spacious treelined- walk in
the heart of this city, wit-
nessed an unusual protest
recently.

Residents were com-
plaining that theimsleep was
being disturbed by hordes of
prostitutes haggling with
their customers during the
early hours of the morning.

It is this side of Bar-
celona— its red-light district
and nightclubs—that makes
the city’s name for many

Spaniards.

The political weekly,
Cambio 16, described
Barcelona as the ‘'New
Sodom.” ;

The basis for this
assessment is the fact that
commodities from live sex to

guidebooks on how to grow
hashish can be hought here
long before they reach the
rest of Spain. Indeed, they
are more readily available
here thanin much of Europe.

It is true that a lot of what
happens in Spain takes place
here first, but the reasons
are ingrained deeply.
Barcelona, for example, was
a city before Madrid, and it

shows both in the planning’
and architecture. -

When the former kings of
Spain moved their capital
from Valladolid to Madrid,
the shape of the new im-
perial capital was designed
more to intimidate the
subjects of a new and
tenuowsly unified Spain than
to impress by its beauty.

Barcelona, on the other
hand, not only looks more
rational on a street map, but
also is capable of surprising.
It is possible to round a
corner, and be startled by
some capricious and vir-
tuouse building, put up by
Gaudi, or one of his more
fervently modernist
followers.

The university towns of
Salamanca and Santiago de
Compostela can compare
with Barcelona's
magnificent cathedral and
gothic quarter, but none of
the major Spanish cities has
the same ability to refresh
unexpectedly,

What makes Barcelona
stand alone among
European cities is the
Ramblas, built on the bed of
a now-forgotten rivr, run-

The Herald, Friday, December &, 1978, Page 5

Prostitutes cause protest

ning from the city's main
square down to the port.
From being a river it has
become a social torrent of
unpredictable ebb and flow,
a swirl of color and oddity.

In the last three years the
Ramblas has changed from
a staid middle-class Sunday
afternoon walk to the social
nerve centre of Barcelona.

In between the old men at
the top and the prostitutes at
the bottom of the Ramblas is
a peacock-walk where the
extravagantly dressec
young and not so young—
male and female— traipse
past the cafe-table spec-_

tators, inviting their atten-

on.

For the thousands of or-
dinary people who use the
Ramblas, it is rather like
street theatre.

‘ A look through the Bar-
celona papers will quickly
establish that in this new
Sodom, seldom a day goes by
without a demonstration of
some kind.

Now that the political fire-
works of the transition from.
dictatorship to democracy
have begun to die down,
protest has become more
commonplace.

Use
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