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May Brown, Bruce Yorke and chairperson Rosalyn Kunin discussed
City taxation policies Monday, but mayor Jack Volrich refused to

show up for the debate.

—Fred Wilson photo

Yorke wins taxes debate
as Brown blunders facts

COPE mayoralty candidate
Bruce Yorke and TEAM candidate
May Brown debated Vancouver
taxation policies Monday and
Yorke was the easy winner,
clobbering Brown over her
proposal to lower industrial taxes
in the city and raise homeowner
taxes.

Brown’s argument that her
policy would not result in higher
homeowner taxes was discredited
by wrong information about in-
dustrial taxes she used to back up
her position. Brown claimed that
her proposal would not result ina
$36 per year average increase in
homeowner taxes because total
industrial taxes to the city
amounted to only $5 million per
year. The five percent drop in the
assessment base of industrial
property she advocated could not
possibly amount to that much
money, she argued.

“J’m shocked that the chairman
of the finance committee could be
so ignorant of the facts,” Yorke
responded, ‘“She’s out by a factor
of three.” Yorke held up an official

document from the city finance
department which listed industrial
taxes in 1977 at over $15 million. It
was the city finance director, Peter
Leckie, who provided the in-
formation that the proposed
reduction in industry taxes would
cost homeowners an average of
$36, Yorke said, ‘‘and as chairman
of the finance committee, she
should know that.”

The debate was held at a lun-
cheon meeting of the Association of
Professional Economists in the
Hotel Georgia and chaired by
Statistics Canada economist
Rosalyn Kunin. Kunin had invited
mayor Jack Volrich to participate
as well, but received no response
from the mayor.

Volrich’s absence prompted a
blast from Yorke who charged a
“credibility gap” with the mayor.
‘He has refused to debate
anything, with anybody,
anywhere,”’ Yorke said. ‘‘At any
meeting he comes to he always
asks for permission to speak first
saying he has _ pressing
engagements elsewhere — never

Housing crisis rema

In spite of an apparant glut on
B:C.’s housing market and a slight
improvement in the vacancy rate
for rental accomodation, there is
still a drastic shortage of housing
in B.C.’s urban centres, an in-
formation paper released by the
Communist Party maintained this
week.

The position paper, produced by
the party’s municipal affairs
committee, contends that there is
overproduction for only high
priced luxury accomodation while
at the same time there is ‘“‘an in-
creasing shortage of housing for
those most in need of it — the poor
and young working class
families.”

Evidence of the fact that there is
still a drastic shortage of housing is
given by the apartment vacancy
rate in early summer 1978, the
paper said, in which the Greater
Vancouver Real Estate Board put
the vacancy rate at 1.5 percent for
metropolitan Vancouver, at 1.2
percent in the city of Vancouver
and at .09 percent in Burnaby. The
vacancy rate for two and three
bedroom family type ac-
comodation is still well below one

percent anywhere in the region, it
said, “which is not significantly
different from what it was four
years ago at the peak of the
recognized housing crisis.”

The private house market has
large stocks of unsold houses, it
said, but these are exclusively in
the mid to high price luxury
markey ‘‘which developers con-
tinue to think is the only market
that exists to be satisfied.” House
prices increased only a little
during 1977, but there will be larger
increases this year and interest
rates will also approach 12 percent,
making it more difficult for low
income families to enter the
market. :

“The demand for housing has not
subsided since 1974, but has been
frustrated by the decline in the
development of low cost and public
housing,”’ it said. Combined with
the failure of developers to provide
the housing most in demand and
with high unemployment and
reduced real earnings of working
people, a situation has been
created where ‘“‘the housing con-
ditions of those who need new
housing are deteriorating and the

GVRD accreditation fight

scheduled for November

A key battle in the fight to
prevent municipalities in the
Greater Vancouver Regional
District from joining an ac-
creditated employers group which
would bargain with municipal
employees has been scheduled for
November 21 when the matter goes
to Vancouver city council for
consideration.

The Canadian Union of Public
Employees which is opposed to the
scheme and has warned that ac-
creditation would remove
autonomy of local councils to deal
with their employees and lead to

__region wide lockouts, asked council

to defer a decision on the GVRD
task force proposal until next year.

But Tuesday, council voted to
decide on the issue November 21 —
a meeting when alderman Harry
Rankin, the most outspoken
defender of CUPE’s position, will
be on vacation.

“Vancouver is key to the issue,”’
CUPE regional director Len Stair
told the Tribune Wednesday,

“Other municipalities are waiting
to see what happens here.” So far
only Delta and Burnaby have
debated the issue, Stair said, with
Burnaby unanimously rejecting
the idea.

When Vancouver council decides
on the issue some of the aldermen
may be defeated and other elected
aldermen may not be able to
debate the issue, Stair said, “They
have no mandate to hand over
autonomy in bargaining with their
employees to some other groups.’

Stair said that the union will
consider accreditation an open
matter even though mayor Jack
Volich is a member of the GVRD
task force; recommended it. “Tn
Burnaby, councillors from both
sides of the political fence had
enough sense to see that this would
create nothing but trouble and that
their ability to deal with their
employees would be taken away.
They had a unanimous vote and if
sense prevails in Vancouver it will
be the same,” he said.

ins, contends CP

number of families living in
basement suites is rapidly in-
creasing.” :

The nub of the problem, the CP
said, is that there have been no
outstanding public housing
developments in B.C. during the
past four years. Where either
regional districts or municipalities
participated in some form of public
housing or assisted in private
housing development, ‘“‘it was
either insignificantly small or a
dismal failure.”

The federal Central Mortgage
and Housing Corporation still
offers a number of assistance
programs for provinces and
municipalities to engage in public
housing programs, although the
assistance is reduced from what
was available a few years ago.
Assistance is also difficult because

in many cases provincial in-
volvement is necessary, and the
Socreds would be an obstacle even
if the municipalities were eager to
get involved. In fact, the provincial
government is busy divesting itself
of the land banks and public
housing developments already
built up over the past eight years,
the paper pointed out.

In spite of the problems with the
provincial government and_ the
CMHC, the CP said, action at the
municipal level remains one of the
most effective routes to provide
affordable housing. For

municipalities prepared to take
action, it said, “the only practical
solution remains for municipalities
“to establish housing corporations
for public development and con-
struction of low cost, non profit
housing.”’

applications for development permits. SAM is making uncontrolled
development a campaign issue, calling for strict controls on new

developments in Surrey.

stated of course — I submit that
Volrich’s refusal to take part in
this debate shows contempt for the
Association -of Professional
Economists and the public at
large.”

Ironically, Brown chose as the
theme of her address the question
“who pays” while calling for a
reduction in industrial taxes in line
with the controversial recom-
mendations of city finance director
Leckie and supported by the big
business dominated city economic
advisory council. Brown also threw
her support to the proposal of the
Board of Trade to gradually
eliminate the business tax which
she admitted amounted to $20
million per year. ;

Yorke charged that Brown had
been ‘“‘sandbagged’’ by her ad-
visors and ever since making
public statements supporting tax
breaks for industry has been
“desperately trying to regroup.”

“She is now trying to say that her
acquiessence in the Board of
Trade’s proposals will not result in
any increase in homeowner taxes
— and that instead she would cut
services,’ Yorke said, “But I
submit that May Brown knows that
there is no fat at all in the city
budget, and it is simply not
possible to cut services without it
costing the city more in taxes in the
long run.”

If the Board of Trade proposals
were implemented, of which
Brown’s proposals are similar,
homeowner taxes would rise by
about $200 per year per home,
Yorke argued.

Industrial properties in Van-
couver are not being ‘‘hit hard’”’ as
Brown suggested, said Yorke, but
benefit from inequalities in the
property tax system. He cited
underassessment of large in-
dustrial properties, absence of a
machinery tax for general tax
purposes and the ability of
business to deduct property taxes
from federal and provincial in-
come taxes as examples.

Yorke also called for a
graduated business tax such as
that of Winnipeg where small
business is taxed at a low rate of 6
percent and large business at a
high rate of 14.5 percent. The
proposal would benefit Van-
couver’s 11,915 small businesses at
the expense of the remaining 3,287
large businesses with an average
cut of $144 for each small business.

COPE’s tax policies would not
force business out of the city,
Yorke argued, because ‘‘business
and commerce want to locate
here.” If Volrich and Brown’s tax
policies were implemented it
would leave the buying public
“even less disposable income to
purchase the goods and services
produced here,” he said.

Baker may win
in New West.

Carpenters’ Union business
agent and New Westminster and
District Labor Council secretary
Tom Baker is confident that he will
be the first labor spokesman in
some years to win a seat on the
New Westminster city council.

Baker rates his chances as good
in his bid for one of three alder-
manic seats in New Westminster
with only two incumbents running.
In 1977 Baker fell only 31 votes
short of election.

Also running for alderman in
New Westminster is British
Columbia Government Employees
Union labor council delegate Chris
Sargent. It is Sargent’s first crack
at council.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—November 10, 1978—Page 13

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