The Lubicon
Cree and the
Olympics

— page 5 —

Groups set to fight

August 19, 1987
40°

Vol. 50, No. 30

Socred welfare cut

Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell and Kinuko Laskey,
he new peace memorial in Vancouver s Seafo
he city of Vancouver's Legacies Committee,

Union and PetroCanada, which will supply the ¢

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

gas to keep the fla

'e survivor of the Hiroshima bombing of 1945, light the flame a
rth Park which was dedicated in a special ceremony Aug. 13. Conceived by
the memorial was backed by donations from Vancouver City Savings Credit

Canadians’ experiences ‘just a hint

of govt repr

By SEAN GRIFFIN

Just back from El Salvador, Vancouver
‘lementary school teacher Christine Hayes
Urging other B.C. teachers to consider
a hg a trip to that country in December
attend a congress of the National Associ-
ation of Salvadoran Educators (ANDES),
= event that is expected to be a key demon-
ig on of solidarity amidst the tension that

8tOwing in El Salvador. :
«OF the first time, 50 of the countrys
pular educators” — untrained volun-
"et teachers who have begun basic educa-
wee Campaigns in their villages and
ee — will be attending the congress,
“Pite bans on their participation that have
“imposed by the Salvadoran military 1n

previous years. And Hayes, echoing the call
from ANDES, wants international partici-
pants at the congress to help stay the hand
of the increasingly repressive army.

The unity and growing strength of the
popular movement in El Salvador and the
mounting repression that reflects the declin-
ing support for U.S.-backed president
Napoleon Duarte are the two mirror nue
of El Salvador that Hayes, a grade 5 teac a
at Britannia School in Vancouver, an
Keith Hughes, a third-year pone
tions student at Simon Fraser Loss y
brought back with them following a Ne
week visit earlier this month. The two wer

e delegations, one a Six-

f two separate a
Fae group organized by the Teachers

ession in El Salvador

Committee on El Salvador and the other, a
seven-member group organized by CUSS-
AGEUS, the Canadian University Students
in Solidarity with the General Association
of Salvadoran University Students.

Hayes herself had a terrifying encounter
with the repression that has become an
everyday reality for those in the trade union
and political movement in El Salvador.

Returning from the village of San Jose
Las Flores in Chalatenango province, a vil-
lage re-populated by peasant groups follow-
ing its destruction by the military in 1983,

she remembers helicopters flying overhead,

as they drew up to a military checkpoint.
see UNIFIED page 7

Calling the Social Credit government’s
action “appalling” and “vindictive,” wel-
fare advocates this week vowed to launch a
flood of appeals to hold up plans by the
Ministry of Social Services to cut welfare
rates for over-26 single employables and
couples to make up for court-imposed
increases to under-26 recipients.

““We’ve got no choice but to advise peo-
ple to appeal — this is the an unbelievably
vindictive, vicious act by this government,”
Jim Green, organizer for Vancouver’s
Downtown Eastside Residents Association,
said Monday.

“It is just appalling what the Socred
cabinet has done,” echoed Kamloops
unemployed advocate Donna Biro whose
said that the Kamloops Unemployed
Action Committee would also be advising
people to launch appeals.

Representatives.of some. 30 groups.at.a
‘conference in Prince George, organized by
the Federation of Anti-Poverty Groups,
also condemned the cuts in a special state-
ment adopted by the Aug.14-15 meeting.

“Anti-poverty groups around B.C.round-
ly condemn the government decision to
reduce welfare rates for employable singles
and couples over 26,” the statement said.
“These two categories of recipients have
had only a 2.4 per cent overall increase in
rates since 1982. Since the rates were entirely
inadequate to begin with and have fallen
progressively behind inflation, even this
small reduction is insult piled on injury.
Even the increase granted to singles and
couples under 26 will not make up for the
years of government neglect.”

The government’s decision to cut some
rates in response to the court ruling, which
was formally announced by Minister of
Social Services and Housing Minister
Claude Richmond Aug. 13, had been half
expected by anti-poverty groups. But few
could not be outraged at the government’s
cynicism.

Emerging from a cabinet session in Cow-
ichan Bay, Richmond announced that all
employable singles and couples would have
their benefits cut by $6 a month. The move
followed a Supreme Court ruling Aug. 6
that determined that welfare rates, which
gave under-26 recipients $25 a month less
than those over 26, were discriminatory
under the Charter of Rights.

After stalling a week on implementing
the ruling, Richmond stated that under-26
rates would increase — but others would
be penalized to make up for the increased
cost.

He lectured reporters that the cost of
increasing the rates as ordered by the court
would be $4.6 million and, in order to main-
tain budget restraints, the overall rates
would have to be cut.

But the cuts have nothing to do with
budget restraints, critics charged, pointing
to the budget overruns in the Coquihalla
Highway as only one example of misplaced
government priorities.

see CUTS page 2