ALD. HARRY RANKIN
Coquitlam trustee
‘supports teacher
demand for talks

Eunice Parker, Coquitlam
school trustee since 1971 seeking
reelection Nov. 16, said in a press
statement this week that she
supports local contract bargaining
with teachers.

“Giving this authority to the B.C.
School Trustees Association as 68
boards in the province have done
has eroded local autonomy and
seriously affected the relationship
between the teachers and the
Board.”

Her statement came = as
Coquitlam teachers’ staged
rotating withdrawals of their
services to protest the refusal of
the local school board to negoitate
with them. Teachers throughout
B.C. have been opposed to forced
province-wide negotiations.

Mrs. Parker is supported by
ACE and the New Westminster
Labor Council.

sae &

Bert Ogden, Nanaimo community
worker and Vancouver Island
organizer for the UFAWU, is
running for alderman as a
candidate of Nanaimo Civic
Affairs Committee. Ogden polled
an impressive vote in last year’s
election.

ALD. HARRY RANKIN ASKS:

Why were ‘Mr. Bigs’ not name
in report on crime in B.C.?

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN
The findings of the Co-ordinated
Law Enforcement Unit (CLEU)
established by attorney general
Alex MacDonald, have aroused
both apprehension and fear among
our citizens. They have confirmed

what most people have long

suspected that crime -is
mushrooming in Vancouver.

to half a billion dollars a year in
B.C. Half of all the drugs from Asia
destined for the North America

market come in through Van--

couver. We have 10,000 heroin
addicts in B.C., (two thirds of the
Canadian total), with 6,500 in
Vancouver alone. Eight crime
syndicates control the drug traffic.

Seventy percent of all crime in
Vancouver is drug related. This
includes murder, hold-ups,
burglary, muggings and beatings.

Other activities in which
criminal elements are actively

‘engaged include, loan sharking,

wholesale stealing on the water-
front (not the petty pilfering by
longshoremen, which the
longshoremen’s union has ef-
fectively halted by policing its own
members, but large scale thefts
organized by companies); gam-
bling, prostitution and stock ex-
change frauds. The CLEU

estimated that approximately a:

quarter of all mining and local
industrial companies listed on the
Vancouver Stock Exchange, are
manipulated by criminally
oriented promoters.

The attorney general said that
the crime situated in Vancouver
isn’t nearly as bad as in New
Jersey where criminal elements
have corrupted politics and in-
filtrated the police and judiciary.
He might have given Montreal as
another example. But that’s a
small comfort. At the present rate
of crime increase, how long will it
be before things are just as bad in
Vancouver?

It is a conviction held by most
citizens, that crime is well
organized, that it’s big business
and that top circles of the crime
syndicate involve so-called
respectable wealthy citizens and
corporations. The CLEU report
draws somewhat the same con-
clusion. Why then, are these top
people never arrested? Why do the
law enforcement agencies content

themselves with arresting the
pushers and the smaller fry?
And why did the CLEU remove

the list of suspected individuals, '

businesses and organizations from
the report it gave out to the public?

And why doesn’t the Vancouver
Stock Exchange take action in the
obvious fraud that permeates the

_ dealings in stocks and bonds?
_ Theillicit drug business amounts.

The CLEU report says the names
of the suspected Mr. Bigs were
omitted from the public report for
“security reasons’. I can’t buy
that. Security, for whom?

The attorney general says that
the names can’t be released
because of our laws about ‘‘libel
and slander”’. He can get around
that one quite easy by naming
them in the Legislative Assembly,
where he has immunity against

_libel or slander. The public will

then be able to see them in the
provincial Hansard and we’ll know
who we are dealing with.

The report will no doubt be
followed by demands for an in-
crease in the police force and for
more funds. The fact remains,
however, that in no city in Canada,
have the top organizers of crime
ever been arrested, no matter how
much the police forces have been
increased.

Citizens have the uneasy feeling
that the reason such arrests are not
made is because some of our
wealthiest citizens and cor-
porations, the pillars of our
respectable society are involved.
They are so rich, powerful and
influential and have such im-
portant political connections that
everyone is afraid to touch them.
That suspicion was _ recently
strengthened when the judiciary
agreed with the RCMP that a
report on crime infiltration into the

. RCMP should be suppressed.

The list of criminal activities .
covered by the CLUE is not nearly -
broad enough, in my opinion. What -
What ~
about the profiteers in sugar today,

about income tax fraud?

or in the food industry? What about
price fixing which has become a
way of life among big cor-
porations? What about the rent
gouging landlords, developer rip-
offs? The exploitation of labor?
What about the slum landlords who
refuse to install fire protection
facilities-with the result that people
burn to death? What about cor-
porations who manipulate political
parties to have laws passed for
their own enrichment? Is a holdup
in the market place any less

reprehensible than a hold-up in
bank?
The difference between
practices and between what r
call criminal practices 1s 4
line. What is illegal in law,
what is ‘‘Good Business.
decided by the corporations,
today control our society.
Crime has become big bus
in Canada as in the United ae
It has become an integral p@ a
our way of life, of the privale™,

terprise system. The only Way

will be curbed is the same a
other abuses are curbed and thal
when aroused citizens 10 ©
ficiently large numbers dem
some action. Law enforcem
agencies are governe
governments and governments
composed of elected politic
That’s where citizens have to aF
the pressure.

The attorney general’s actio®
setting up the Co-ordinate f t
Enforcement Unit is a g00° 1
step, provided it is followed UP 4
action to get at the roots of CO
The attorney general’s hand Wi
immeasurably strengthen dent?
takes the public into his confl
and lets us know exactly Wee. oi
fighting and what progress 18
made from month to month. =}

City voters now have chance
to elect full reform slate

“The voters of Vancouver now
have the opportunity of voting for a
full reform slate and of electing a
majority of progressive candidates
to city council, the school board
and parks board,” says a colorful

election brochure being distributed

to Vancouver homes by COPE.

Election day is Wednesday, Nov.
20

Calling for the election of the
COPE slate as a strong alternative
to “developer control of city hall
now exercised through TEAM,”’’
the brochure points out that COPE
has consistently fought to establish
unity of progressive and reform
minded groups around one
program and slate of candidates.

. In September COPE nominated

only a half slate of candidates and
appealed to the NDP to do likewise.
The Vancouver Area Council of the
NDP rejected this appeal, but the
membership convention
nominated only a half slate. Then,
the Vancouver Labor Council
endorsed both the COPE and-NDP
slates.

Because of these circumstances,
says COPE, Vancouver voters now
have the opportunity to cast a
united vote for change.

COPE candidates for council are
incumbent. alderman Harry

Rankin, Bruce Yorke, Lorne ~

Robson, Irene Cavaliero and Bruce
Eriksen; and NDP candidates are.
Marilyn Sarti, Jim Le Maistre,
Fred Miller, Amy Dalgeish, and
Marg Livingstone

COPE school candidates I
Betty Greenwell, Frank H
David Manning, Phil Ranki?,
Fred Lowther; and NDP sil
didates are Henry Arthur, pave
Thomas, Lorraine Vernon, B ;
Empey and Martin Thomps

COPE park board candidat
Donald Greenwell, Mike W@
Sid Shelton and Sam Vin
NDP candidates aré
Gallagher, Peter Marcus
Harry Singh.

For information about
Vancouver civic election, 0
transportation on electio® f
phone COPE headquarters 4
5271 or come to 1308 Comme
Dr.

hy

former colleagues as “subversive”, “communist” or
similar epithets designed to discredit. From there on a
well-subsidized “news” media carries on with its well-
rehearsed innuendo, inference and open slander.

Yet, aside from the cynic and doubter’s negative ideas’
on demonstrations and the like, such mass movements
have and do change government policies, whether such be
foreign or domestic. The U.S. unequalled aggression upon
the Vietnamese people and country, (with Canada’s
covert aid) was largely halted because of wide public
demonstrations and protests upon the streets of the world.
Similar demonstrations have also curbed (if not halted)
imperialism’s depredations against the peoples of Latin

America, Africa and Asia. Such demonstrations and
protest will ultimately and inevitably restore democratic
freedom to the sorely persecuted and tortured people of
ae at the hands he fascist-military junta, which now

rves as a runnin for U.S. imperialsin in wi
Canada’s aid and etetteo. serena: aes

it is also characteristic of our ca italist-imperiali
society, that its foreign wars of seein ee
Ploitation, must also and always be accompanied by a
fascist-geared oppression upon i

: ts own working people at
home, be in enforced unemployment, the lack of a fone:
woefully inadequate health services, or what.

Thus the gigantic demonstrations and
: rotests of
American workers in su i Black

: Americans for freedom a
specious excuses, racist
meagre gains already m

em ov

few, still go to prove that such demonstrations can i
mountains” — can crumble the walls of a misrule™
neglected class-encrusted ‘‘Jericho”’. sb of

Of course, we come by our quota of cynics and doU ss
of the efficacy of demonstrations, protests and
quite honestly. Not so long ago, only a few short dh.
had all kinds of these elements in the higher ech@” og
labor; the bureaucrats who didn’t want any ssi!
strations in Victoria or Ottawa on any issue of opP!

- legislation, since such demonstration ‘might em f
the government’’. Who better or more worthy 0
barrassment? Of course times have changed and
have a lot of these “‘non-embarrassment cera

1

TOM |

Il these demonstrations, protests, petitions, etc., don’t
do no good,” a confirmed cynic told us the other day.
“The authorities pay no attention, so what’s the use?”’

Don’t they ??? It may appear sometimes that some of
the top brass in government give the point at issue scant
attention, designating all such protests, demonstrations,

_ ete., to the actions of “‘subversives”, “communists”
“trouble-makers” and so forth, relying on their para-
military police, press hawks, courts and sundry other
appendages to find ‘“‘solutions” to the problem.

But there were and are other elements among the
powers-to-be who do pay attention to such demon-
strations, and with good reason; to them at least an ac-
cumulation of these mass demonstrations and protests, be
it for peace, enough to eat to survive, or a roof over their
heads, iS the equivalent of the “handwriting on the wall”

. —the forerunner of a long-frustrated peoples’ anger at the
-- criminal misrule and neglect of a decadent, corrupt and

- double-standard society.

Even those among the upper crust who seriously at-
tempt the partial amelioration of any of these inherent
evils in capitalist society are themselves branded by their

“Never trifle with your rights,” declared williay’
Mackenzie of the Upper Canada Rebellion ? ete
“otherwise these will soon be whittled away.”” But i ost
to forget that the right to demonstrate and Pent
inherent in the Great Charter of England — the rig! 4e
the need of the all-powerful parliament outs!
Parliament to be heard. It can, and has “‘mové
tains” on the road to a peoples’ democracy. That $
German worker meant when he wrote the stirrin’
Dei Strasse Frei (The Streets are Free). 3
Hence the best way for the cynic and doubter to e
of his (or her) doubts on false opposition he é
demonstrations or protest marches, is to get 19
hikes that lead to better tomorrows, and if it
barrassing” to any government — so what? Thi
barrassment” may produce beneficial results —
— ‘ people
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1974—Page 2