Eviction points up need
for Tenant Act changes —

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

On Good Friday Gus Borgstadt
and his wife Edna were evicted
from the Columbia Hotel, an
apartment hotel in which they had
lived for 20 years.

Were they bad tenants? Did they
cause disturbances or noise? Were
they behind in their rent? No, they
weren’t guilty of any of these
things.

The only thing that Borgstadt
was “‘guilty’’ of was exercising his
ordinary human rights to go to the
office of the government appointed
Rentalsman to protest an ex-
cessive rent increase imposed by
the owner of the Columbia Hotel.

For this he was told to get out.
And when he didn’t comply, he and
his wife were forcibly evicted and
their belongings thrown out on the
street. ee

Aren’t tenants protected against
such heartless and arbitrary acts
by the Landlord and Tenants Act in
B.C., you might ask? Not at all,
hotels and rooming houses are not
covered by the legislation even

City west end tenants organize

A new component of the tenants’
movement was born last weekend
in the midst of the highest con-
centration of tenants anywhere in
Canada — in Vancouver’s west
end. >

More than 250 tenants came from
the towers overlooking English
Bay to the organizational meeting
called by the Vancouver Tenants
Council at the West End Com-
munity Centre on Denman St. And
before the meeting had ended,
nearly 100 had signed membership
cards and an executive had been
elected.

Vancouver Tenant Council
secretary Bruce Yorke opened the
meeting with a warning that “the
gains of the-past years may be lost
completely” if the Social Credit
government went ahead with its
plans to scrap rent controls.

Yorke noted a subtle but: in-
sidious propaganda campaign by
the government aimed at creating
the illusion that a higher vacancy
rate was bringing rent levels down
and negating the need for controls.

“J don’t believe it,’ Yorke
exlaimed, ‘‘and you shouldn’t
either.” ‘The vacancy rate is less
than one per cent in Vancouver and
lower for those most in need, he
said.

British Columbia Tenant
Organization secretary Margaret
DeWees supported Yorke’s con-
tention and pointed out that the
government has yet to supply
figures to support their claim of a
higher vacancy rate.

Citing a recent news story in the
Vancouver Sun in which Socred
minister Rafe Mair predicted the
“end of some controls by the end of

the year,” DeWees warned that
“we must protect and improve the
rent control we have.”

The probable course of the
government would be to wittle
away at the rent control program,
she said, by increasing the
exemptions available. ©The
recommendations of the dis-
credited Jaffrey report which
DeWees said may now be on the
agenda again, called for rents over
$350 to be exempt, down from the
present $500, and new buildings
within seven years of construction
to be exempt, rather than the
present five years.

DeWees conducted a survey of
advertised rents over a period of
five weeks and found rents to be
substantially higher than official

See TENANTS, pg. 12

Clarke,

though they areused as apartment
houses with permanent tenants.
They are covered only by the Inn-
keepers Act, a medieval piece of
legislation that gives a landlord the
right to evict a tenant any time he
wants without having to justify it in
any way.

In this case the landlord was
exercising his ‘free enterprise”
rights. The rights of Gus and Edna
Borgstadt as tenants or human
beings just didn’t enter into the
picture at all.

When the NDP was in office and
brought in rent controls, the
Downtown Eastside Residents
Association (DERA), the Com-
mittee of Progressive Electors
(COPE) and I personally time and
again urged the government to
include apartment hotels and
rooming houses in rent control
legislation and the Landlord and
Tenants Act. But the NDP
government wouldn’t budge.
Apparently it wasn’t prepared to
antagonize this section of the
business interests.

The Borgstadt case is now being
taken up by DERA, and its officers
Jean Swanson and Bruce Eriksen,
with both the Rentalsman Barry
and Consumer Affairs
Minister Rafe Mair. Clarke is
“investigating” while Mair says
“thematter is under study.” In the
meantime, though, the Borgstadts
are without a home.

If this case is left to the non-
existent goodwill of Clarke and
Mair, nothing will be done. Clarke,
a-right-wing Liberal, has never
been accused of being sympathetic
to tenants. Mair, a millionaire who
made his bundle in _ land
speculation in Kamloops and a
Liberal who turned Tory who

turned Social Credit is a dedicated-

“free enterpriser.” Their only
concern is that the public pressure
being generated around this case
may reflect unfavorably on Social
Credit.

This case illustrates again the
need for an organization such as

ee

ome too big to touch?

DERA to protect human rights
when they conflict with property
rights.

I am sure that all fair-minded
citizens will support the Borgstadts
in their fight. No landlord should
havethe right to evict a tenant just
because he verbally objects to a
rent increase that he considers
unjustified.

The Borgstadt case is actually
just the tip of the ice berg. DERA
estimates that some 7,000 tenants
in Vancouver live in apartment
houses and hotels not covered by

See RANKIN, pg. 11

“From the top you can just
see the country home of the

man who designed them.”

a

By MAURICE RUSH
Hi MacMillan Bloedel become so big and all-powerful

in B.C. that it can no longer be touched by govern- -

ments, the media or any other public agency? That would
certainly appear to be the case after watching the total
lack of response from any of these groups to the recent
disclosures of corrupt and, in its own words,
‘questionable’ practises over a five-year period.

The fact that these disclosures came out only because
Mac Blo had to file a report with the U.S. agency in
Washington in order to do business on the U.S. money
market is another story. One wonders if the wrongdoings
of this forest octopus would ever have seen the light of day
if it had not been for the fact that the U.S. law was
changed after the Lockheed scandal.

Just imagine. Here is a company which admits that one
or more government employees might have received

something of value from a company agent; that large -

sums of money were turned over to the principal
executive officer of the government-controlled pur-
chasing corporation for political or personal use; that
sums of money ‘‘may’’.have been passed ‘on to a govern-
ment employee or used by him for political contributions
— and the government and big business media shows not
the slightest interest!

None of the government employees involved are named.
None of the admissions of corrupt and immoral practices
involved here are investigated. Only the company’s word
is taken that it won’t happen again. The name of the head
of the government — controlled purchasing corporation,
who received money for political or personal use, is un-
named and for all we know he may still be holding that
position. None of the Mac Blo officials who headed the
company during the years these “questionable”
operations took place are named or their part in them
revealed. And yet, here are admissions which are the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 22, 1977—Page 2

most serious since the Sommers case shook the province.

Mac Blo admits that these ‘‘questionable” practices
took place between 1972 and 1976. I made a check the other
day and found that the man who was chief executive of-
ficer of Mac Blo from April, 1972 until he resigned in 1974
was Robert Bonner — the same Mr. Bonner who heads
B.C. Hydro and now is involved in negotiations to sell B.C.
water to the U.S. He is the same Mr. Bonner who was
B.C.’s attorney-general during the Sommers scandal and
was widely criticized for failing to act for about two years.
He is the same Mr. Bonner who was condemned in the
legislature afew days ago when the leader of the Liberals
called for him to be fired from B.C. Hydro.

Surely the public has a right to know what, if any, was
Bonner’s role in the ‘‘questionable”’ activities that went on
at Mac Blo while he was its leading officer.

But there seems to be a conspiracy of silence
surrounding the disclosure of these scandalous and im-
moral activities by B.C.’s largest corporation. It’s almost
as if the word went out, “‘lay off.” Outside of the Tribune
(anda news story in the Sun which headlined other things)
there has not been (to the time of writing this column) a
single newspaper, radio station, open line broadcaster, .
columnist, or political personage to speak out on this issue
—or evento darea comment. It’s as if everyone wants to
bury it.

One wonders in all this: Where is ‘‘Fearless”
Fotheringham? Where is the thunder of righteous in-
dignation we have come to expect from Jack Webster?
And indeed, where are all the other columnists and open
line broadcasters who pour out endless phrases about
“freedom of the press” and “human rights?”

I always knew that Mac Blo exercised a powerful in-
fluence all over the province, over the media, over old-line
party politicians. But I fail to believe that public morality

has sunk solow in this province that a corporation can get |

away with this kind of thing without finally being brought
to public account.

The insidious influence of this giant corporation stems

TRIBUNE

not only from its dominant role in the forest industry. Mac
Blo is, in fact, at the top of the financial clique which owns
and run this province. Its board of directors reaches out
into every corner of the province and into every industry.
It exercises the real power in B.C. |

Consider a few facts: Two of Mac Blo’s directors sit on —
the board of directors of Pacific Press which publishes —
both the Sun and Province. One is J. N. Hyland, chairman —
of Pacific Press, and G. H. D. Hobbs. Another Mac Blo
director is G. T. Southam who sits on the board of direc-
tors of Southam Press which owns the Province. —

Astudy of the extensive holdings of Mac Blo directors in
other corporations reveals that their tentacles reach out
into just about every field of economic and human activity
in B.C. Take as anexample J. N. Hyland, named above.
As well as being top man at Pacific Press, he is also
president of Granduc Mines and director of Crown Trust,
Inland Natural Gas, Mercantile and General Rein-
surance, North American Life Assurance, Selkirk

-Holdings, Southam Press, Wardair Canada and Wood:
ward Stores.

Mac Blo’s directors also include I. D. Sinclair of the
Canadian Pacific empire and John Turner, former
minister of finance and chief contender to prime minister
Trudeau’s post.

Is Mac Blo too big to be touched? That question cries for
an answer today.

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
- Business and Circulation Manager — FRED WILSON

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