ee British Columbia Progressives back ward For the third time in 10 years, Vancouver voters will vote in a plebiscite on a ward system —a vote that civic progressives approve, despite some reservations. Jim Quail, president of the labour- supported Committee of Progressive Elec- tors, says the 20-year-old civic alliance of trade unionists and community activists has always worked for wards and will “strongly campaign” for a ward system in the fall civic race. A “yes” vote on Nov. 19 means demo- cracy in a city that since 1932 has elected the mayor and council through an at-large sys- tem that denies neighbourhoods area representation — and which has meant domination by the wealthier neighbour- hoods backing the big-money campaign of right-wing alliances, says Quail. Jeff Hoskins, president of the Civic New Democrats, says his organization in its var- ious forms — previously, the Civic Inde- pendents led by former mayor Mike Harcourt — has always called for a ward system. “But of course, we'd prefer a larger number of wards and a larger council.” Council unanimously backed a ward sys- tem plebiscite at its regular meeting Sept. 13, even though the COPE aldermen — Libby Davies and Bruce Eriksen — consider the plan offered to voters to be a poor one, blending as it does diverse areas and tipping the electoral balance in favour of the civic right. The plebiscite will ask two questions: First, do voters support a ward system to elect members of council and parks board commissioners, one each in 10 wards, with the mayor continuing to be elected at large? Second, do voters support electing school trustees in the same manner? The posing of two questions — three Separate questions were recommended by the city’s electoral boundaries commission — acknowledges that council and the parks board, the latter consisting of seven members, come under the Vancouver Char- ter. The school board is governed by the School Act and must apply, if a ward sys- tem is approved for trustees, to the provin- cial government to change its current system of electing nine trustees at large. Approval for the council and parks board change was granted by the govern- ment last year after the city petitioned for charter amendments. But in doing so the council, dominated by the right-wing, tradi- tionally anti-wards Non-Partisan Associa- tion, set a plebiscite that requires a minimum 60 per cent approval by those casting ballots. That position echoes the sentiments of Premier Bill Vander Zalm, who as munici- pal affairs minister rejected a 57-per-cent approval of wards in a 1982 plebiscite spon- sored by Harcourt, his electoral slate and COPE. Previously voters supported by close to 52 per cent a ward system in 1978. The province refused to abide by the voters’ 1982 decision, while an NPA-dominated council rejected the 1978 résults. _ When the issue of wards was aired in the opening months of 1987, groups such as the Area Representation Electors Alliance opposed a third plebiscite, arguing that voters had already made up their minds in two previous votes, and that requiring a 60-per-cent majority was contrary to Cana- da’s democratic traditions. AREA called instead for an independent commission to study a 12-ward system and to have in place recommendations in time for the 1988 elec- tion. Former CQPE alderman Bruce Yorke also hit the proposed plebiscite, calling instead for a full evening session of council to decide the question, with adequate advance notice to all interested groups. Mayor Gordon =Gampbell, who sup- ported Vander Zalm’s successful bid for leadership of the Social Credit party, has claimed he is pro-wards. 2 e Pacific Tribune, September 21, 1988 “He’s set it up to look like he’s in favour of wards, but I think he wants it defeated,” Eriksen says. Eriksen points out that it was Campbell and the NPA who insisted on the 60-per- cent majority. And he notes it was the right- wingers on council who, in commissioning the electoral boundaries hearings last Feb- ruary, limited the commission to consider- ing only 10-ward options. The commission’s hearings were poorly attended, an indication of the “‘no-choice” feeling on the part of the community, COPE says. COPE, community representatives and urban geographers have argued that a 12- ward system would most accurately reflect the natural boundaries of Vancouver’s tra- ditional neighbourhoods. COPE favours a report by University of B.C. professor George Gray to the Eckhardt Commission in 1979. (That commission, appointed by NPA mayor Jack Volrich following the rejected 1978 plebiscite vote, produced a report that offered the discredited option of a five-ward system based on provincial elec- toral boundaries.) When Harcourt and three COPE alder- men were elected with a pro-wards position in 1980, council appointed COPE alderman Harry Rankin to chair hearings on a ward system. At six meetings more than 80 per cent of the interveners backed a 12-ward system. . What voters will decide on Nov. 19 is the fourth of four 10-ward options considered by the boundaries commission. In terms of accurately representing Vancouver’s dis- tinct communities, it is the poorest option, Quail says. A look at Ward 5, which Quail terms ‘“‘a monstrosity,” shows an area reminiscent of the old “strip ward” system overturned by. voters in the 1930s. With 16th Avenue as its northern boundary and the Fraser River to the south, it weds slices of two different neighbourhoods: Mount Pleasant and Fra- serview. Ward 6 has similar boundaries. Ward 4 has a western boundary that pushes deep into the Fraserview area, which gave the NPA a majority in the 1986 elec- tion and which could turn the tide in Ward 4, the rest of which has traditionally favoured COPE and other civic progres- sives, in 1988. Other options studied by the commission kept the ward within the sou- theast neighbourhood known as Cham- plain Heights. COPE also challenges Campbell’s alleged pro-wards stance by noting that the mayor tried, unsuccessfully, to set the plebiscite in an off-year, which would have ensured a low voter turnout and possible defeat for the ward system. Despite the mayor’s alleged support, a ward system is still opposed by most of the traditionally anti-wards NPA. The NPA- dominated Vancouver school board attacks it on the grounds that the boundaries do not reflect school catchment areas. Hoskins calls that argument specious, noting that catchment areas reflect school administrative divisions which have nothing to do with neighbourhoods. Vancouver Technical Secondary School’s area, for example, runs from Boundary Road in the east to False Creek, cutting across several neighbourhoods. He notes that Ward 9 in the proposed 10-ward system has no high schools, a result he says of a power-broker system that ensured schools were placed in the more affluent neighbourhoods. “Maybe if they had local (ward) representation, they’d have a high school,” he observes of the ward which contains 43,330 people. Commissioners on the totally NPA parks board oppose a ward system for the board, and have called for the parks question to be separated from the council question. Potential division lurks within NPA, with some alderman — most notably long- 4 42,010 —) Ward boundaries (including 1986 population figures) to go before Vancouver votels in Nov. 19 plebiscite. standing wards opponent George Puil — promising to campaign strongly for a “no” vote. But such divisions may be superficial, with the supposed pro-ward stance adopted by other NPA hopefuls highly suspect. Eriksen says the current wards proposal, faulty as it is, must be supported because if approved it will finally give Vancouver resi- dents the system they have already voted for twice before. “We can always change the boundati® later,” he notes, adding that “boundati (on the ballot) are not really the questio! The ward system is for people, not polll! cians.” Despite some reservations, COPE is suf porting the question “because it represef an overall advance,” Quail says. | Welfare News last week that the government plans to cut $50 from the cheques of “some 20,000 GAIN recipients; and refuse to continue covering their medical plan payments, has been slammed as a callous cost-cutting measure that hurts those who have no job prospects in a low- employment province. “It’s taking money that could be used to buy new clothes, get a haircut or go for a job interview,” End Legislated Poverty co-ordinator Jean Swanson charged. The $50-cut — actually announced. last April, when a demonstration com- posed mainly of single parents protested at the Social Credit government’s Rob- son Square offices — comes through the Social Service and Housing Ministry’s redefinition of the “unemployable” clas- sification. Unemployable recipients get paid medical benefits and $50 extra per month. Some 40,000 British Columbians have been classified as unable to seek employment or hold a job, largely at the discretion of government social workers. The change which takes effect Nov. 1 requires unemployed persons to produce a doctor’s slip stating they are perman- ently or temporarily unable to procure employment. The statement must list the expected duration of the patient’s illness and the length of treatment required. The policy change was sent in a letter to Lower Mainland recipients who were told that “your income assistance will be reduced. Unless you are a single parent, your medical coverage will also be can- celled.” Social Services Minister Claude Rich- mond subsequently made an attempt at damage control, denouncing the notice as insensitive and promising a new letter would be drafted. But whatever the wording, the fact remains that approximately half of the recipients currently considered unem- ployable will lose $50 and paid medical coverage by November, critics pointed out, “Your plan to reclassify up to 20,000 purposeful: harm: and’ revenge,” Rich- | . mond was told in’a letter, © = 75>." cuts hit people from the ‘unemployable’ to the ‘employable’ category is a heartless act of Kim Zander, former co-ordinator of Vancouver’s unemployment action cen- tre, accused the minister of trying to cut © costs after the government was found guilty of discrimination by paying lower rates to younger recipients. (The ministry chopped $7 from the cheques of all employable recipients after the B.C. Supreme Court found that paying $25 less to those under 25 contravened the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.) Not only is the policy change “theart- less” in denying recipients rates that are already below poverty levels, but it con- travenes the GAIN Act’s stated purpose of “relieving poverty, neglect and suffer- ing,” Zander said in quoting the Act. “Creating employment should be the focus of your ministry, and not the increased abuse of people already in an unfortunate position,” she wrote in a Sept. 21 letter. Zander said denial of medical cover- age is the “thorny crown” of the cutback. “Is the purpose of cutting more people off of this service to force people to be ill and unemployable before they can receive medical attention again?” she asked the minister. Zander, a Communist Party candi- date for the anticipated federal election, said she will raise the issue of federal responsibility for monitoring the funds it earmarks for social assistance. Federal transfers for social services, education | and health are based on 50 per cent of | estimated provincial expenditures, but |. provinces are no longer required to spend the money on the services for which the funds are earmarked. The policy exempts from the employ- able classification single parents with one child under seven months of age, or two children under six years, and those with disabled children — providing they have a physician’s statement. ee