British Columbia

Residents gouged for education

costs, COPE tax study finds

A study that reveals a five-year property
tax break for Vancouver-based corpora-
tions while residential taxes have skyrock-
eted shows that taxing powers should be
returned to local school boards, the Com-
mittee of Progressive Electors asserts.

COPE candidates for the Vancouver
school board staged a brief demonstration
outside Molson Breweries on Burrard
Street to make that point Wednesday.

Trustee candidate Chris Allnutt authored
the report that shows the giant Canadian
corporation paid 69 per cent less property
tax this year than it did in 1984. The study
identifies five major companies which
received large property tax cuts in the five-
year period.

“The average decline in school taxes in
the five large commercial-industrial proper-
ties studied was over 50 per cent (while) the
average single family homeowner in Van-
couver saw school property taxes rise over
200 per cent,” Allnutt said.

He charged that the dominant Non-
Partisan Association trustees have remained
silent on the issue, and has dropped the
former COPE board’s policy of starting a
province-wide campaign for tax reform.

An attempt by COPE trustee Phil Ran-

Tory Cook

challenged
on FTA

North Vancouver Communist Party
candidate Betty Griffin has chal-
lenged incumbent Tory MP Chuck
Cook to defend his government’s free
trade deal, at a public meeting or on
community TV.

“Obviously, the refusal of (Prime
Minister Brian) Mulroney and his
candidates to debate the issue proves
they are afraid that the truth will come
out — that this is a disaster for our
country,” Griffin charged.

The Conservative leader has agreed
to three-hour televised debates in Eng-
lish and French with Ed Broadbent of
the New Democrats and Liberal
leader John Turner. But he has
refused opposition calls to devote an
hour specifically to the Free Trade
Agreement.

“Because your party’s trade deal
initiative with the United States is the
pivotal issue in this federal election, I
propose that a full and free debate be
held in our North Vancouver consti-
tuency,” Griffin wrote Cook Oct. 10.
At press time, no reply had been
received.

The CP candidate has frequently
tackled Cook on peace issues, and
helped organize a successful seniors’
protest against pension de-indexing
with a demonstration at Cook’s
office.

Griffin said that one section of the
free trade pact proves claims that U.S.
markets will open up for Canadian
goods are false.

Article 1902, Section 1 states that
“Each party reserves the right to
apply its anti-dumping law and coun-
tervailing duty law to goods imported
from the territory of the other party.”

“In other words, our exporters will
still be subject to U.S. trade-remedy
laws and will have no more secure
access to U.S. markets than they have
at present,” Griffin said.

kin to have the board adopt.a recent study
by the Greater Vancouver regional district
study showing the area receives little in pro-
vincial municipal and education grants died
without a seconder.

The return of authority to tax industrial
and commercial properties has been an
issue among progressive trustee candidates
around the province since those powers
were seized from school districts by former
premier Bill Bennett’s Social Credit govern-

‘ment in 1982. The province also seized resi-

dential taxing powers in a move that
accompanied the Socred restraint program
and which drew the wrath of the B.C.
School Trustees Association.

Two years ago the current Socred
government returned residential taxing
powers while retaining the industrial tax
base. The move was widely condemned as it
forced trustees to make up disastrous shor-
tages in provincial education funding by
imposing high taxes on local residents.

While some communities with few indus-
trial sites were not adversely affected, for
several, the presence of a large mill or factory
within the boundaries of school districts
meant a steady source of education revenue.

Retaining industrial and commercial
property taxing authority has also allowed
the Socreds to give corporations hefty tax
breaks. The COPE trustee candidates note
that the 1985 provincial budget reduced
property taxes on corporations by $84 mil-
lion. By 1987, that figure had reached $250

Surrey group hits service sell-offs

Surrey trade unionists and residents plan
to make privatization and free trade the
focus of political debate during the federal
and municipal election campaigns.

The Surrey-White Rock Council for Pub-
lic Services decided at its Oct. 6 meeting to
send speakers to all-candidates meetings,
spokesman Steve Gidora said.

The council, initiated with the approval
of the Surrey Teachers Association, has
placed advertisements in local newspapers
calling for mass opposition to privatization
since its formation last spring. The council
has received some editorial support.

The ads tell readers that “privatization is
not for you” and warn against the takeover
of health, education, public utilities, and
transportation and communication net-

million.

According to the COPE study, five major.
companies received tax breaks as follows: a

@ Molson Breweries, whose Burrard
Street property generated almost $637,000
in tax revenue for school purposes in 1984,
and only $200,000 in 1988, for a reduction
of 69 per cent.

e B.C. Sugar, whose refinery was worth
close to $550,000 in 1984 taxes, arid which
paid slightly less than $240,000 this year, for
a tax break of 56 per cent.

@ Pacific Press, which publishes The
Vancouver Sun and The Province, with
nearly $572,000 in 1984 and only $271,000
in 1987, a 52 per cent reduction.

@ Alberta Wheat Pool, with grain eleva-
tors and other items paying $900,000, now
generating $497,000, or 44 per cent less.

@ Carling O’Keefe Breweries, whose
Kitsilano plant brought in $394,000 then
and $223,000 currently: 43 per cent less.

All companies benefitted from the elimi-
nation of industrial machinery tax for
schools in 1985.

During the same period ‘the average
assessed value on single-family homes rose
to $107,655 from $89,770, the study
reported. The school tax rate was increased
so that, with the homeowner grant sub-
tracted, net school taxes rose to $285 from
$93 — a tax hike of 207 per cent. ~

The provincial government claims it
compensates for the cuts with additional
funding, “but we know different,” Allnutt

works by private, predominantly U.S., cor-
porations.

“We make the link between privatization
and the Free Trade Agreement,” Gidora
said.

“We pledge to make this the issue at all
public candidates’ debates.”

Last summer the group attempted to
address Surrey Municipal Council, but their
delegation was rejected when seven right-
wing aldermen voted against a motion by
Mayor Bob Bose and Ald. Gary Robinson
to hear speakers. Gidora called the refusal
“despotic.”

The more than 20 member organizations
include locals of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees, the Surrey Teachers
Association, Surrey Fire Fighters, B.C.

CHRIS ALLNUTT

said.

The study observed that two months
after the 1985 reduction was implement
the provincial government fired the COPE
run Vancouver school board when !
refused to adopt a tax bylaw implementif
that year’s education cutbacks. (In.a subs
quent by-election which followed months°
demonstrations against the undemocratlé
firing, COPE captured all nine seats on the
board.)

Allnutt said the tax proposal is the “fit
step” in a campaign to press for a complet!
overhaul of the education funding formull
and the tax system.

COPE school trustees will raise the iss!
with other trustees in the province throu,
the BCSTA, he said.

COPE’s school board candidates in tht
Nov. 19 election are Allnutt — formé
chair of the board’s finance committee —
former chairman Pauline Weinstein, ail
former trustees John Church, Sadie Kueh!
and Gary Onstad.

Nurses, the B.C. Government Employ&)

yee
Union, the B.C. Old Age Pensioners, End
Legislated Poverty and several local phys
cians.

Surrey has already been hit by privatiZ#’
tion, Gidora noted, pointing to the recell!
processing of taped records from Surreé}
Memorial Hospital by a Washington stal?
private firm, and the placing of BU
Hydro’s research facility up. for sale. Ht
noted that several municipal and schoo)
board services have been contracted out
although several times public workers ha
had to repair work done by private firms:

BCGEU became involved with the thre!
of privatized liquor stores, he said.
z z

With federal and municipal elec-
tions breathing down our necks, one
might think this is a heck of a time to
launch a subscription drive.

Actually, though, we were here
first.

This is the regular time that the
Pacific Tribune makes its appeal to
readers and supporters to get yet
more readers and supporters to help
spread the news about the dangers of
privatization and the Free Trade
Agreement.

So you see, selling subs at a time of
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When you’re out there on the hust-
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bring a worker and community voice

- While on the election beat

onto municipal council or into Parli-
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across by introducing new readers to
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There are political rewards to be |
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We’re giving away prizes to top
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2 « Pacific Tribune, October 17, 1988