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Police brutality probe »
demanded on North Shore

A North Vancouver citizen’s

committee is demanding answers
to numerous allegations of police
brutality on the North Shore by the
local RCMP detachment. The
group was formed after the fatal
shooting of 22-year-old William
Hamilton by an off-duty RCMP
officer on July 25.

Spokesman for the committee,
Frank Kennedy of the _ In-
ternational Longshoremen’s and
Warehousemen’s Union, and a
resident of North Vancouver, said
that the formation of the group was
not in direct response to last
month’s shooting, but rather. the
result of numerous allegations of
police brutality over a period of
time. :

He said that most of the police
actions appeared to be directed
against yoting people between the
ages of 16 and 22. “‘It’s bad enough
for young people already with the
shortage of jobs, but when they
have to-be subjected to negative
statements from citizens, it only
serves to stir them up,’’ he said.

Referring directly to the
shooting of Hamilton, Kennedy
said that his committee is cir-
culating a petition throughout
North Vancouver to have the of-
ficer responsible, Const. G. S.
Mydlak, removed from active
duty, at least pending a full
inquiry.

““A number of people are con-
cerned that this officer is still on
active duty, even though there has
been no public inquiry into the
whole affair. The RCMP has had
an inner-departmental inquiry, but
no results have been released to
date.”’

The citizen’s committee is
seeking the replacement of -the
RCMP by a North Vancouver
community police force. ‘‘We feel
that this would better serve the
interests of the community. We’re
going to the attorney-general with
our request, and if we cannot get a
positive response there we will
take the next step, which I imagine
will be an appeal to the Solicitor
General of Canada,” he said.

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

What should council do when
developers appear before it
proposing to demolish reasonably
priced housing accommodation to
make way for expensive high rise
apartments and office buildings?

This issue comes before city.
council again and again. The latest
was an application from a big
realtor and developer, Country and
New Town Properties (Canada)
Ltd., to rezone a property at 1140
West Pender. The building on this
property, Park Plaza Apartments,
has some 48 suites renting for
about $110 a month and occupied
mainly by senior citizens.

The developer wanted to tear it
down and build a 28-storey office

building with 49 new rental units on -

the first five floors that will rent for
$450 or $500 a month.

Council at a public hearing on
August 12, turned down: the
developer’s application despite
strong support for the developer
from aldermen Fritz Bowers,
Warnett Kennedy and Art Cowie. It
was a clear issue. The interests of
senior citizens versus’ the
developers.

The representative for the de-
veloper_ appearing before council
claimed that the building did not
conform to city health and safety
standards; that it is a fire trap and
a’“‘dangerous building.”

I don’t know how true or untrue
this is, although I had a phone call
from a woman resident of the
property who claimed it is a good
and safe residential building and
that there have been no complaints
by fire inspectors.

‘If the developer’s claims are
true, which I doubt, one cannot
help asking: “How come you
suddenly find it’s unsafe now that
you want to demolish it? Wasn’t it
unsafe for all the years that you
have been renting it out? Why
didn’t you take some steps to make
it safe if it was such a “‘dangerous
building?”

The Heritage Advisory Board,
whose responsibility it is to save
old historic buildings in the city,
originally had this building on its
list. But under developer pressure
it finked out; it caved in and
supported the developer.

Some of the letters I received

- Tome these diseased and universally hated species of

| before developer profits :

from the tenants of this building
tell the story better than I can.

“T am another senior citizen that
just can’t finda place to live,”’ said
one. “I have lived at 1140 West
Pender for 14 years and have been
given notice to vacate. Please;
cannot something be done for us?”

“T am a senior citizen and a
World War I veteran with limited
income,”’ wrote another. ‘“‘Owing to
the difficulty of finding ac-
commodation we would be so
thankful if an extension of time
could be arranged.”’

“Please do your best for us,”
wrote still another. ‘‘Owing to the
housing crisis, we would be thank-
ful if an extension could be ob-:
tained until at least March of next
year.” :

Surely elderly citizens who have
contributed to the life of the

.community should be assured of

some peaceful existence towards
the end,”’ wrote another, ‘‘without
being panicked into moving to
quarters with rents that leave
them little on which to exist, or
being turned away because they
are considered ‘too old’.”’

I don’t think the issue is settled
yet. The developers will be back
again with some revised plan and

developers’ greed for profit.

after more pressure has_ be#
brought on council members "
change their stand. ;
The citizen group and Resoult)
Boards that appeared befolt
council in defence of the tenants?
1140 West Pender, or sent in lettel
are to be congratulated for thé!
action. : .
What council needs on such 4
issue is some guidelines to go })} ,,
that will be adhered to. The!) .
starting point should be tht .,
housing needs of the people, not tht!

My stand whenever such an issl 4
comes before council is this: _}
1. Council should as a matter”
policy not permit any demolition®| ~
housing at this time when we hav)
such an acute shortage.

to this rule, the developer must be)
responsible for providing
present tenants with comparall| —
accommodation at comparabl :
prices before any demolition *)
permitted.

3. The city should itself get in!)
the housing business to build lo¥
rental accommodation for thos?)
who need it. We have over 1, i
acres of city-owned land that could Fi
be used for this purpose. —

DERA tells Sun facts
of housing, rent control —

The Downtown Eastide
Residents Association sent the
following letter to the Vancouver
Sun. The Sun refused to print it.
The Tribune is pleased to present
DERA’s point of view. The letter is
signed by secretary, Jean Swan-
son.

Dear Editor, Sun:

Your editorial writers and the
Landlordsman, Barrie Clarke have
consistently and deliberately
ignored and distorted several facts
about the relationship between the
current shortage of rental ac-
commodation and the rent in-
crease limit.

They have ignored the fact that
the vacancy rate has been about

Noting such “‘reviews”’ and faked pictures in a so-call

1% since 1966 when there were
rent controls.
They have ignored the fact th ®
newly rented premises are exem!) ~
from rent control for five yeah
They have ignored the fact th
the vacancy rate in other parts
Canada where there are no Fé
controls is similiar to the vacal
rate in B.C. a
And they have ignored the {8° —
that developers do not want "|
produce more housing because !
would reduce rents and high pro!”
in existing rental accommodatio!|
Rent control does not contribity
to the “horrifying shortage
rental accommodation.” It do@
prevent some landlords fro
ruthlessly bilking victims of ™
housing shortage. -

I: these modern times we have bird watchers, animal
watchers, insect watchers, whale watchers, and so on.
Much of the results of such ‘‘watching” when put on film is
extremely interesting and highly enlightening. Even when
whale watchers, (a la Greenpeace), extend their whale-
watching to anti-Sovieteering, the hobby is not without its
interesting ramifications.

In recent times we too have taken up the hobby of

animal watching and found it highly illuminating. Our

area of studies, of all places, is at the village of Harrison
garbage dump. There the animal population is largely
confined to two species, bears and rats.

The bears, sturdy fellows that they are, symbolize a
tolerant behavior between themselves and homo sapiens.
Much like an unwritten detente based on the general
understanding that if ‘‘you mind your own business and
affairs, we'll mind ours and no one will get hurt.”’

Over the years no one has, of course, except the bears,
and this only when some trigger-happy big game hunter
with a yen for killing, wantonly shot a big fellow for
display to his admiring friends. Thus Bruin has paid
heavily for his trust in mankind — but still gives ample
daily evidence of that trust.

The other species of animal life at the village dump are
rats, much more prolific than the bears, more cunning,

voracious and aggressive as they scurry around the .

garbage pile in search of their favorite offal.

vermin are highly symbolic of the top brainwashed news
hacks of. the capitalist press. Their common deter-

mination is to seize onto the rottenest morsel of garbage,

to hang onto it and fight almost to the death to hold it, or to
sneak up to the other fellow and seize onto what he has un-
earthed and/or worry him in the process. Here in the rat
colony no principles stand in the way, much like the news
hawk schooled in the bourgeois warren of cold war.

Is the comparison farfetched? In a current edition of

. The Vancouver Sun’s ‘‘Leisure and TV Week”’ one of these

rodents surfaced recently with an alleged “review” of a
book entitled ‘The Communist Party in Canada by one
Ivan Avakumovic from a kindred rat colony. A footnote
tells us that the author of this “review” is James Dyer, a
retired newspaperman. Having studied the colony at
Harrison with some little knowledge and a lot of interest, I
can well believe it.

Having surrounded Dyer in its ‘cultural’ magazine

_with a bevy of TV artists and near-artists, the “review”
author adds nothing in his puny efforts to downgrade the

memory and life’s work of Tim Buck; nothing that hasn’t
been spewed around and chewed over by these rat-colony
activists a million times in the past. Adherence to the
“Moscow line,” the ‘“Krushchev’s denunciations of
Stalin,” “revelations of anti-Semitism in the Soviet
Union;”’ the ‘“Moscow god’s feet of clay”’ — all the putrid
bilge that an Avakusomic-Solzhenitsyn-Gouzenko-Dyer et
al could think up or invent. Truly a rat colony of an alleged
“higher order.”

To top it off a rat-infested press brings out its top forger
in the art of photography to fake a picture of Tim drinking
acupof tea and looking like a veritable Machiavelli of the
Mafia breed.

“cultural” magazine, one could even be excused if
were to consider the rat colony at a village dump clean
comparison.

Even the Tory swag-bagger Dalton Camp in TS? 7
Toronto Star of July 28/75, who complains, ‘the Com |
munisty party defies my definition” on the complex issv® |

of “democracy,” makes some effort, even going as far as

Portugal to find an answer suitable to himself and bi |
Tory followers. But compared to Dyer and compaty |

Dalton is lily white.

It might be beneficial to all such elements were they ! |

take astint at ‘animal watching;” to learn from the bea!®
a massive tolerance and strict non-interference in th
own affairs or in the affairs of others. Or to learn from #

rat colony how a vicious social system, including much of |

its prententions of being a democracy, should not be rut:
Especially since capitalism and its rat colonies s
demonstrate much more similarities than. differences:

Man hasstill much to learn from the animal world, if he
only will.

RIiBUNI

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
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