Sather momentum. over’

Rallies, car cavalcades
swell ICBC rate protest

The largest popular protest in
recent B.C. history continued to
the
weekend as thousands of motorists

Voiced their opposition to Autoplan

increases at various rallies and car
Cavalcades throughout the
province. :

More than 500 cars from the
Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland
Points made their way to Simon
Fraser University Sunday where
Some 2,000 people joined with
Platform speakers in condemning
the Social Credit government for
“perpetuating a financial fraud on
the people of the province.”’

The rally was organized by the
Fraser Valley Concerned Citizens
Committee together with the
Simon Fraser Students Society.
Another rally in Kamloops drew
more than 800 people while similar
Meetings in Nanaimo and Port
Alberni also attracted several
hundred people. A number of
Smaller meetings were held in
other centres.

Participants at all the rallies
endorsed resolutions calling on the
Provincial government to abandon
its proposed rates and hold 1976
premium increases to no more
than 20 percent over previous rates
With any deficit to be made up by a

'. transfer of funds from the gasoline

tax,

Speakers at the rallies urged
Motorists to continue with their
Protest and take part in the Friday
lobby to the Legislature sponsored
Jointly by the B.C. Federation of
Labor and the Concerned Citizens
Association of B.C.

Vancouver alderman Harry
Rankin told the SFU rally that the
ICBC rate increases represented
“a basic cut in the standard of
living for the people of B.C.” He
Said that working women, single
Parents, the unemployed and those
On welfare will be unable to
Maintain their only means of
transportation: their cars. “How
are these people going to get into

€ work force?’ he asked. To
those people cars are not a luxury,
It’s the only way in which they can
Set to work.”

_ Rankin said that the increased

Msurance rates raises a mass of

Social issues concerning unem-

ployment, welfare and_ transit,

Which can only ‘be answered on
€ steps of the legislature.”

He told the crowd not to be fooled

Lining both sides of the road along Wesb
Trudeau Monday as he arrived at the U
Cyclotron. Created by the Pacific Life
Comprises hundreds of plastic strips, eac

by the Socreds apparent lack of
concern. ‘“‘No matter how arrogant
these people are, sitting up on their
high horses, they’re quivering in
their boots.

“There is no government which
is not prepared to reconsider if the
people put enough pressure on
them, and the people of B.C. are in
motion,” he said.

Nigel Morgan, provincial leader
of the Communist Party, had
earlier charged that the ICBC
rates were “only the tip of the
iceberg. Hydro rates, natural gas
charges, transit fares will all be
going up. The hospitals and
education systems are under at-
tack. Z

“This whole situation is com-
pletely out of hand. We are not
prepared to pay $1000 for insurance
and we are not going to accept
increases of up to 300 percent,”’ he
said.

Morgan lashed out at the Socred
government for claiming that they
would not subsidize people. “But
they’re willing to subsidize giant
corporations, giving away tree
farm licenses at one cent per acre
per year,” he said. ‘‘Sure, let’s cut
out the subsidies, but cut out the
subsidies to corporations, not the
subsidies to people.”

He urged a_ continuation of
demonstrations and petitioning
leading up to Friday’s rally in
Victoria. ‘““We’ve got to give the
Social Credit administration an
even stronger answer than the one
we’ve given them to date.

“There’s only one thing to do,”’
he declared, ‘‘and that’s to tell
them that we wanta change; and if
they’re not prepared to change
their policies, then we’re prepared
to change the government.”

Ron Johnson, research director
of the B.C. Federation of Labor
accused the government of
“picking our pockets to pay their
political debts,”’ referring to the
large pro-Socred ads entitled
‘thanks for the memories’ which
were inserted by private insurance
companies prior to the December
11 election.

NDP MLA’s Gary Lauk and
Rosemary Brown both asserted
that ICBC was not in debt. “This
government is trying to perpetrate
a fraud on the people of B.C. with
regard to finances, and we’re going
to prove in the legislature that it’s
a fraud,” Lauk said.

rook Drive, the Tride :
niversity of B.C. to dedicate

Community to symbo
h representing a nuclear warhead.

He said this government doesn’t
care about ordinary people.
They’ ve put a candle in the window
for large. corporations instead.”

Brown told the crowd that,
“Someone, somewhere has decided
that the people will pay for the free
enterprise system, and the people
are finding it very expensive.”

Commenting on reports that
ICBC is surveying downtown
parking lots to determine car
usage, Brown said that she “‘hoped
to see a bumper sticker at the next
rally which reads ‘Spying — B.C.’s
second industry’, because we all
know that ripping off the working
class is B.C.’s number one in-
dustry.”

At the rally in Nanaimo which
drew 600 people, Tribune editor
Maurice Rush told the crowd that
the government is refusing to back
down because ‘‘they want to
establish the principle of not
subsidizing essential services to
people right from the start.

“But it’s the responsibility of
government to collect revenues to
introduce programs to serve the
community, not the corporations,”
he said.

Rush warned the government
that if they “thought they got a
mandate on December 11 to do this
to the people of B.C., they are sadly
mistaken. Large numbers of
people who voted Socred in
December are joining with
working people to roll back these
increases.”

Barbara Wallace, the NDP MLA
for Cowichan-Malahat and a
representative of the Nanaimo
Labor Council also spoke in op-
position to the rate increases.

In: Kamloops, former ICBC
director and NDP cabinet Minister
Carl Liden repeated his charge
that the rate increases were a
sellout to the private insurance
corporations of North America and
emphasized that the Socreds were
misrepresenting the figures in-
volved and that ICBC could have
continued ‘‘within a 19 per cent
increase.”

He was joined:on the platform by
former Kamloops MLA Gerry
Anderson and John Harper of the
Kamloops Labor Council. Harper
warned particularly of “the effect
this will have on poor people,” and
called for the collection of
“thousands of signatures in protest
to these rates.”

nt “monster” greeted prime minister Pierre

the TRIUMF Centre, housing the

lize the Trident submarines, the ““monster”’

Vancouver-Centre NDP MLA Rosemary Brown... ICBC spying on

B.C. motorists?

—Sean Griffin photo

Rankin outlines COPE
stand on civic unity

“Statements in the press about
the upcoming civic elections have
led to some misunderstanding and
confusion about the position of the
Committee of Progressive Elec-
tors (COPE) concerning a
coalition of the left to meet the
coalition of the right that is already
in existence at City Hall,” said
alderman Harry Rankin in a press
release Monday.

“Let me first make absolutely
clear that COPE is not about to
disband or merge with any other
group,”’ Rankin declared.

He pointed out that the Com-
mittee is already lining up can-
didates for the November election
and is working on its election
platform which, along with elec-
tion plans, will be elaborated at the
annual meeting February 25.

-“Qur position on the need for
unity of all reform forces remains
unchanged,’’ Rankin emphasized.
“We have always urged such unity
around one program and behind
one slate of candidates and in-
dicated our willingness to par-
ticipate in any such broad coalition
of the centre and left.”’

He added, however, that COPE
has not been engaged in any
discussions or negotiations with
any individuals or groups on the
possibility of such unity for 1976.

Asked about COPE’s attitude to
the new civic party apparently
under consideration by prominent
members of the NDP who were
expected to meet this week,.
Rankin reiterated ‘‘our position
hasn’t changed.

“‘We consistently advocated
unity when the NDP was running
candidates under its own name and
the Vancouver Area Council of the
NDP just as consistently turned
down all our unity overtures and
pursued a go-it-alone policy.

“The inevitable result was
victory for the right wing groups
such as TEAM and the NPA,” he
said.

“Tf any new NDP group running
another name follows the same
policy, then we’ll get the same
result. Disunity on the left is just
what TEAM and the NPA and the
business interests they represent
would like to see.”

Public support urged
in DERA grant appeal

Bruce Eriksen, president of the
threatened Downtown Eastside
Residents’ Association, said this
week that DERA will appeal city
council’s decision to cancel the
organization’s 1976 grant.

He urged organizations and
individuals to support DERA in
appealing the denial of the grant
which, if upheld, will threaten
other programs sponsored by the
Association.

Last week council voted 5 to 5 to
reverse the recommendation of the
city’s social planning department
that DERA be given $22,176 to
operate in 1976. Grants must
receive eight affirmative votes to
secure endorsement.

Eriksen pointed out that DERA’s
application was unchanged from
previous years and noted that
council gave no reason for the
refusal. In addition, 15 letters of
support submitted by various
people, including B.C. Liberal
Party president, Patrick Graham,
NDP MLA, Emery Barnes and
Liberal MP, Art Lee, were ignored.

In his letter to council, Lee
pointed out that DERA
represented much more than skid
road residents and has consistently
worked for “‘the poor, the disad-
vantaged, low income people, new
Canadians, single parents and
senior citizens.

“To represent these people
adequately,” he stated, “DERA

has had to be extremely outspoken,
not only against the city of Van-
couver but also against provincial
and federal governments.”’

Responding to suggestions that
DERA has been cut from city
funding on the basis that they have
been critical of city council, Lee
wrote that if that was the reason
“then this city council will have
once more demonstrated its
narrow-mindedness to the people
living in the downtown eastside of
our city.”

In his letter of support Graham :
also referred to the fact that DERA
has found it necessary to apply
political pressure to council. “In
the society we live in, demon-
strating is most times the only way
to obtain action from legislators,’’.
he-said.

Over the past three years; DERA
has provided a number of services
for the downtown eastside, ranging
from the operating of a day-care
centre to the enforcement of city
health, fire and lodging house by-
laws. It has been in the latter area
that DERA has raised the ire of a
number of TEAM and NPA
aldermen through their consistent
demand that the city enforce their
own by-laws in order to offer some
protection for residents of the area.
As well, DERA has been very vocal
in demanding both public housing
and strengthened rent control
legislation. : :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 13, 1976—Page 3