BRITISH COLUMBIA

‘Yes’ vote on cruise plebiscite

Can inspire wo

Vancouver residents have a great oppor-
tunity to voice their concern over the sprial-
ling arms race by voting “tyes” on the
plebiscite on cruise missile testing in Can-
ada, a recently retired Canadian major-
general declared last week.

“Certainly the peace movement in this
part of the world is doing a valuable thing,
not only for themselves, but for the whole
world,” Maj.-Gen. Leonard Johnson told a

_ press conference Nov. 6.

“If this (kind of peace initiative) was to
spread throughout the whole world, this
whole thing could be turned around in a
month,” Johnson, in town at the invitation
of End the Arms, declared.

Johnson, former commandant of the
National Defence College in Kingston,
repeated those remarks and added several
other comments regarding Canada’s mem-
bership in NATO and the rise of militarism
in the western world, to some 200 people in
the Robson Square Theatre Nov. 7.

Johnson made headlines last month fol-
lowing his retirement when he said that pub-
lic consideration should be given to ending
Canada’s membership in NATO. As a
member of the Generals for Peace, a group
of former NATO military men that includes
Italian senator Nino Pasti; he has become
the latest in a series of military leaders to
question the West’s approach to arms and
arms negotiations.

To the audience, which included several
civic candidates from the Committee of
Progressive Electors, Mayor Mike Har-
court’s Civic Independents and The Elec-
tors Action Movement, Johnson urged a
strong “tyes” vote to the plebiscite, which
urges the federal government to cancel the
cruise testing agreement with the U.S.
government.

The retired general added his voice to
those who say there is no need for the cruise
and its companion missile, the Pershing 2,
which, he said, are destabilizing weapons
that tip the world closer to nuclear disaster.

“Most people now realize that the cruise
missile was not required to counter ‘Soviet
military superiority,’...it's a destabilizing

TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON

MAJ.-GEN. LEONARD JOHNSON...
membership in NATO often means poli-
cies at odds with Canadians’ wishes.

element, a nightmare in the arms control
field,” he told the press conference.

Johnson criticized the negotiating pro-
cess surrounding the installation of the
cruise and pershing 2 Euromissiles. “Those
negotiations were probably never intended
to succeed,” he said.

‘He noted U.S. negotiator Paul Nitze is a
member of the Committee on the Present
Danger, a group whose influence expired
during the Vietnam War days, but which
rose again during the Carter administration
and “helped to bring detente to an end.”

_ Johnson took issue with those who claim
“that the USSR is engaged in a drive for
world hegemony. . they would assert that
the Soviets, unhampered by human
decency, will pursue their aims by force if
necessary, that they possess military powers
far in excess of their defensive needs, and
they they can be contained only.by counter-
vailing force. . .

“They would then assert that nuclear
weapons and the North Altantic Treaty
Organization have kept the pace for 35
years, and will continue to do so as long as
there is political unity and the spending con-
tinues.

“Although the view I’ve described is gen-

rid, says Johnson

erally held in military circles, I’ve lost faith
in it,” said Johnson.

“T fervently belive that democracy and its
freedoms can and must save us, but that
democracy itself is threatened by the rise of
militarism, a drift towards fascism and an
ultra-consevative political right-wing,” he
asserted.

The retired major-general praised recent
peace initiatives, such as the USSR’s no-first
use declaration and its four-point proposal
for disaramment to the western. powers.
And he chided the Canadian government
for not signing the “five-continent” prop-

osal calling for a nuclear-weapons freeze. -

“In the short term, I think Canada’s
membership in NATO forces our leaders to
support positions which are not necessarily
in accord with the wishes of Canadians,” he
said. 3
“Now it is widely recognized that the
cruise missiles were never required to offset
any Soviet advantage, and that they’re
opening the door to a new round of techno-
logical competition that may well make
arms control impossible. Unity ‘behind a
bad decision (by which NATO members in
1979 agreed to deploy the cruise) that
worsen the prospect for survival is simply
irrational,” Johnson asserted.

In Johnson’s opinion, Canada could be
both militarily secure, and contribute its
soldiers to efforts such as UN peacekeeping
forces, without being part of any alliance,
although he suggested withdrawal from
NATO or NORAD would likely be grad-
ual.

“If our government is between a rock and
a hard place — between NATO and its
citizens — it isn’t up to the citizens to yield
and make the dilemma painless,” he said.

For our peace-making diplomacy to be
effective, we need integrity, not expedience;
we need independence, not subservience to
the will of others, even if they are allies; and
we need policies that Canadians are com-
fortable with,” Johnson declared.

“For these reason, I urge the citizens of
Vancouver, I urge you, to vote ‘yes’ to the
question on the plebiscite Nov. 17,” he said.

election.

Gibsons, Coquitlam and Surrey.

on employment, services and peace.

Try our
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The chances are strong that, when the polls close at 8 p.m.
this Saturday, Nov. 17, that the incumbents with the ;
Committee of Progressive Electors may be returned with some
company on city council and school and parks board.

And that performance could be repeated around the
province. with more progressive candidates emerging
victorious in communities such as Prince Rupert, Nanaimo,

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COPE andthe Trib — a winning pair

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Victory spurs
call for city
rental board

The time is ripe for Vancouver city
council to press Victoria for legisla-
tion allowing the city to set rent and
accommodation standards, Ald. Bruce
Yorke told tenants whose united
effort wrung major concessions from
the city’s worst landlord.

The tenants, residents of three
Mount Pleasant area buildings owned
by Giovanni Zen and Luigi Aquilini,
ratified at a special meeting Nov. 6 an
earlier vote to accept a 10 per cent rent
hike on the condition that all suites
are brought up to city standards
before Jan. 1.

The buildings, described as pest-
infested and in varying states of disre-
pair by several local newspapers,
became the centre of attention when
several of the 450 tenants rebelled
against rent hikes of between 35 and
50 per cent last month.

They enlisted the aid of the Tenants
Rights Action Centre which with the
local tenant committees, succeeded in
bargaining down the hike to 10 per
cent in meetings with Zen and Aqui-
lini property manager Gene Bonan.

“A huge victory has been won
here,” declared TRAC co-ordinator
David Lane, “Without rent controls,
you’ve managed to impose that vic-
tory on one of the worse landlords in
town.”

The tenants, many of them on wel-
fare, had voted earlier by 67 per cent
to accept the negotiated proposal. At
the meeting they also resolved to send
a letter to Consumer Affairs Minister
Jim Hewitt demanding rent controls
be reinstated.

For the next few weeks forms
detailing needed repairs will be filled
out by tenants, and city inspectors will
be called in to verify that the repairs
have been done.

Tenant committee member Barb.
Gudbarnson said pickets of the build-
ings will be mounted if Zen and Aqui-
lini renege on the repairs.

Yorke, a member of the Committee
of Progressive Electors who is seeking
a third term in the civic election Nov.
17, told the tenants COPE aldermen
will move that city council meet with
the provincial government and press
for the reinstatement of city-run rental
boards similar to those abolished in
1974.

The Rental Accommodation Grie-
vance Board enforced regulations
that later appeared in the NDP
government’s Residential Tenancy
Act, including three months notice for
evictions and guarantees for the
refunding of security deposits, said

Yorke, a former tenant activist.

Yorke said later such boards, com-
posed of tenant, landlord and city
representatives, would be an improve-
ment over rent controls because the
board’s mandate would involve “set-
ting fair rents based on. objective
standards of costs and income.”

With the imminent arrival of Expo
86, the pressures are mounting on Vic-
toria to ensure some form of control
Over gouging for the necessary
accommodation, said Yorke,

The city currently has a standards-
of-maintenance bylaw, “but it’s only
enforced to the extent that there’s
some political agitation, and it’s only
a rearguard action without some
powers accorded to the city to set
rents and standards,” he said.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 14, 1984 e 3