mm cpt, BA cates DK Charen Ste ha § OO me tM }™an Pauline Weinstein said, | |\Vancouver inew era-- i Tt was an historic moment / this week as Vancouver’s first | Progressive majority took office in the Vancouver school board. / As newly elected VSB chair- | “great changes are expected in | Our school system.” _ Among the reforms indicated | mm COPE’s inaugural address | | are a ward system, and _pro- | | &tams to combat racism. | — page 2 — — Abortion Rights Committee in | Britain told an audience of 700 in Vancouver Sunday that the mass . | Participation of the labor move- } Ment could be the key to winning abortion rights for women, just as i ithad been crucial in defeating the | eon Corrie Bill in Bri- Ann Kingsbury, one of the | leaders of the combined Trades Union Council-National Abor- | tion Committee campaign, said | that because of their united ef- forts, they had reached ‘‘a tremendous number of British Wwomen’’ and had been successful in blocking the contentious bill, Introduced by the Tories. She urged Canadian women to take similar action in involving the trade union movement to fight th ‘ 2 “< +99 eda e right wing pro-life : Montreal physician Dr. Henry M Standing ovation of welcome by women. He was the featured speaker éd Citizens for Choice on Abortion. Pro-choice rally hears call for labor, women fo unite The convenor for the Labor mene atiebuemin cee | | COPE majority Monday. aeemcrsasncate saat orgenthaler holds up his h 700 people in recognition of his s campaign and win repeal of Sec- tion 251 of the Criminal Code which delineates the abortion law. The capacity audience at Sun- day’s rally, organized by Con- cerned Citizens for Choice on Abortion following the election of ‘‘pro-life’’ majorities on hospital boards in Surrey and Victoria also heard Montreal doc- tor Henry Morgentaler denounce the pro-lifers as “fanatical busybodies who want {o impose their views on the entire popula- tion. “They argue that they are pro- life which they are not, “we are pro-life,” he told the meeting to thunderous applause. ‘“We are pro-life of women. Weare for the quality of life of children who want to be born wanted and lov- i he Oe a. 4 and in the victo Dib Wh te DR. PAULINE WEINSTEIN . . . elected new chairman of VSB by ndent scien STARE LAS UR y truggle to win abortion rights for in the rally at Kitsilano high school organized by the Concern- demanded by ry sign as he is given a j reer ramen oer omen ed, and grow up to be loving > . human beings Morgentaler, who faced mon- | ths of gruelling trials anda prison | term for performing abortions in his Montreal clinic, said that what had sustained him throughout that period ‘‘was that I had helped to maintain the life of women who could not get that | help elsewhere.” He denounced the - current Criminal Code provisions on abortion as “‘unjust, ineffective and dangerous.”’ Because of those provisions, which force many of those women who can get therapeutic abortions to wait beyond the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, he said, Canada has one of the highest in- cidences of second trimester abortions in the world, second See ABORTION page 3 cat robe of ICBC Fed delegates | The 900 delegates to the B.C. Federation of Labor convention Friday angrily condemned the In- surance Corporation of B.C. for exorbitant auto insurance prem- ium hikes and called for an inde- pendent inquiry into ICBC. A public campaign protesting the increases because they ‘‘hit hardest at working people, seniors, low-income earners and those peo- ple who could least afford it,’’ was also endorsed with the passing of an emergency resolution on therate hikes. : The new revelation that many- B.C. car owners now facing 50 to 60 percent premium increases, even greater than the previously an- nounced 38 percent increases, sent shock waves through the conven- tion floor. The increases gave substance to widespread concern that the Social Credit government is attempting to create a climate of dissatisfaction with the public auto insurance cor- poration in order to facilitate the reintroduction of private auto in- surance. Fred Trotter, president of the Office and Technical Employees Union, Local 378, which is facing a lockout by ICBC in its current con- tract dispute, told the delegates that ‘people were being asked to pay for shortsighted decisions of ICBC management.” He said that a major part of the problem was ICBC action in ‘‘chiselling away”’ on claims staff. Because more than 75 percent of ICBC revenue goes to pay claims, he said, ‘‘one percent saving in claims payments could save the corporation $5 million, five percent could save $25 million.”’ With that money, additional staff could be hired to avoid the inordinately large cost to the corporation for in- dependent adjustors, lawyers and court cases. Next Tribune out Dec. 17 The next Tribune, the annual Christmas issue and the final one of the year, will be out a little later than usual to allow time to prepare holiday feature material and com- pile Christmas greetings. It will be dated Dec. 17 and should reach most readers before Christmas. A whittled-down claims staff has meant that ‘‘more claims are sent to independent adjustors at double the price. ‘‘And more claims are sent to court where lawyers raise costs,’’’ he explained. He also cited an ex- cessive number of writeoffs and other costly problems created by ICBC management in reducing claims staff. . The Toronto Globe and Mail re- cently reported that private auto in- surers across Canada raised their premium rates an average 15 to 18 percent. Even though B.C. has one of the highest accident rates in the coun- try, the 50 to 60 percent premium hikes, nearly four times as much as the national average, cannot be ful- ly explained by that fact. Many observers have suggested that rates are being jacked up on the pretext of high accident costs, but with the real purpose of under- mining confidence in public auto insurance. “If many people become frus- trated with ICBC, they could bring a ‘snowovall’ effect by going to pri- vate insurers,’’ Trotter warned. “Is senior management really that stupid, or are people at work to put public auto insurance out of business in B.C.?”’ he asked. He urged unionists and motor- ists: ‘‘Don’t let inefficient man- agement take the right of public auto insurance away from you.”’