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Civic elections held last Satur-
day in B.C.’s cities, district
municipalities, towns and villages,
returned most incumbents who
represent old line party forces, and
if anything, sawa Strengthening of
their grip on civic governments.

However, in a number of areas
progressive labor, tenants and
ratepayer candidates, running for
the first time as independents or in
newly-formed alliances, polled
Substantial votes. In ‘some cases
they came close to election.

In Port Alberni, where the
newly-formed Citizens First
Committee (CFC) entered a slate
of candidates for the first time,
Alderman Mark Iverzich was re-
elected. Other candidates for
council failed to get elected, but the
CFC elected Marie Joseph to
school board for the first time.
Alderman George McKnight was
not up for re-election this year, nor
was school trustee Mark Mosher.

North Vancouver District saw
independent candidate Ernie Crist,
running for the first time for

What's behind Mayor Art
demand PNE pay city $900,000?

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Mayor Art Phillips and his
TEAM associates in City Council
are suddenly demanding that the
PNE pay $900,000 a year to the city
in lieu of taxes. Under the present
lease, which expires next May, the
PNE pays only $1 a year.

It has been suggested that the
mayor insisted on this demand ina
fit of petulance following his defeat
last month for the presidency of the
PNE board of directors, The
mayor, the story goes, now wants
to get even with the board for
daring to replace His Worship with
a lesser person.

There may be something to that,
but the actual causes: for the
mayor’s $900,000 demand go much
deeper than that.

Before the provincial govern-
ment stepped in and took over the
board of the PNE, it was
dominated by businessmen and
sports promoters who were using
the publicly owned facilities of the
PNE to serve their private in-
terests. Mayor Phillips and his
TEAM Council opposed and
defeated every attempt I made in
Council to bring about reforms in

the PNE to restore control of the
PNE to the city, and to make the
sports and other promoters pay a
fair price for the facilities they

. were using.

But now that some reforms are
being made by the new board and!
some of the commercial interests
are being compelled to pay a bit
more for the use of PNE facilities,
Mayor Phillips would like to
hamstring the PNE financially.

As far as I’m concerned long
overdue reforms of the PNE have
only just begun.

The parking problem has to be
solved and there is no reason why
underground parking can’t be built
on the grounds.

Bus routes should be redesigned
so that buses can take their patrons
right into the grounds.

The leases signed with the B.C.
Lions, Vancouver Canucks,
Blazers and the racing promoters
should be improved so that the
PNE receives rental and lease
fees. The Playlarid facilities should
be owned and operated by the PNE
board itself, not by an American
outfit. And the whole annual PNE
should be made an educational and

But still,

Comparisons, some say,
at times, they are but som
change history.

Consider for a momen

Phillips’

entertainment feature built around
the industrial, agricultural and
cultural life of our province.

The PNE will need funds to do
these things and Should use its
surpluses for this purpose.

It will take some time for the
PNE to get back on the track and
overcome the years of
mismanagement and abuse by the
old board, for which the Mayor and
his TEAM Council have to take
their share of blame.

When that time comes, it will be
Soon enough to discuss whether or
not the city is entitled to tax the
PNE.

Few changes in civic elections
but progressives poll good vote

council with tenant, labor and
community support, polled 1,134
votes — only 160 votes below the
vote cast for elected council
member James Ball. Earlier,
progressive school trustee Dorothy
Lynas had been returned by ac-
clamation in North Vancouver.

Victoria tenants leader Ann
Tarasoff, running for council for
the first time, polled 1,408 votes.

In the sharply contested civic
election in Burnaby most. in-
cumbent aldermen were re-elected
representing the Liberal, Tory and
Socred forces. The Burnaby
Citizens Association (BCA) which
ran candidates for council, school
board, polled substantial votes,
with incumbent Brian Gunn re-
elected to council, and Ann Blakey
returned to school board. All BCA
council candidates polled over
4,000 votes, but fell a few hundred
short of election.

In Richmond, where another
Sharp fight took place between
right wing civic forces and the

Eunice Parker of Coquitlam failed
to win re-election to school board
by only 70 votes, polling 2,166
votes.

Richmoll}

newly emerging (READ ’

Electors Action League

: jeved #
and the NDP, which achleY i!

W
calf
wa d

pill)

measure of unity between
failed to oust the rigs
machine. However, ND
didate Dave Williams
returned to council. ee
didates for  counclt
Procopation polled 2,213 vole
Margaret DeWees, 2,173 jor te
Running for school board

wing

first time, Lorraine Hocking P }
oquitla” 0

1,448 votes.

The Association of ©
Electors (ACE) succeedet
electing John Gilmore t0 ol
but progressive fore

dine

failed to get re-elected ‘iid
board by only 70 votes, pollin
ae was an off-year cal
Saturday with few may at
candidates running. var nest)
holds its civic election W

of this week.

af

first time, was within 1 ‘
winning candidate, polll
votes.

B.C. peace parley meets on Nov. 30

“The response to the call for the
B.C. Peace Conference set for
Saturday, Nov. 30 at the
Coronation Room of the YWCA has
been very good and a large turnout
is expected,” B.C. Peace Council
officers told the PT this week.

Hundreds of invitations have
gone out to organizations and
peace workers all over the
province and delegates as well as
observers are expected to take

many voices murmur, ‘‘i

t can’t happen here.”
are unfair and misleading. And
e of the stuff by which we can

part in the one day session which
opens at 9:30 a.m. Registration will
commence at 9 a.m. Delegates will
pay a $4.00 delegate’s fee, ob-
servers $2.00.

The B.C. Peace Council office
has received a special one half
hour film on last year’s World
Congress of Peace Forces held in
Moscow. There will be a special

showing of the film at the Nov. 30
conf

«silent Pai
funds. But who knows? It may also be a = de min
in this monopoly anti-NDP tirade — U.S.

being what it is in Canada.

of
The mining magnates don’t want the people tra

ye ;
Prominent speakers ha oat W;

invited to take part 10 i
discussion on Canada an@ © 4 ii!
for peace. The discussion
place at the morning sess! pot
afternoon there will be ye : ra
the fight for peace in B. ‘al, :
the events of the past vf pe
projecting a program af wil
action for 1975. The rep” gpl
presented by.B.C. Peacé
chairman John Beechin

cH
Boy

votes)!

t
oust

it

 — i Ae — a ee —

uring the years when Hitler and his Brownshirts were
smashing up Communist meetings, wrecking union
organizations, terrorizing Jewish businesses and clubbing

and murdering the owners, in Canada and other areas of °

the ‘‘free world,’’ many people were assuaging their fears
and salving their consciences that the Nazi reign of terror
“could not happen here.” Many learned to recite it,
almost like a litany — ‘‘it can’t happen here.”’ And not
only did it ease many troubled consciences but it also
confirmed the false opinion that “I am not my brother’s
keeper.”’ :

But it can, and did happen — in many parts of the
civilized world. And it is still happening. :

Chile is perhaps the latest and most terrible example.

Yet it took an “‘official”” Canada only a matter of hours to’

grant recognition to the fascist junta which has sought to
strangle every last breath of democracy in the country,
which murdered the elected president Salvador Allende,
killed or exiled the elected goverriment members and
brought its thousands of workers under the whip of op-
pression. The face of murder and fascist terror is the
insignia of this junta.

BER 22, 1974—Page 2

’ direct and indirect ben

Province. Two years a
pledging itself to a new or

Pro-monopoly — Social Credit rule of which the people had
had more than enough —- and stated so clearly on their
ballots.

While this NDP s0vernment, like a host of other social-
democratic governments, was far more generous with its
pre-election promises than with actual legislation, it
nevertheless has done much which has been of great

efit to the people.
Of course, big business and its many friends in the
media don’t like it. So now we have a galaxy of powerful

mine Corporations, building cont: organized
landlords, real estate s i

another unless the ND
will and insatiable greed for

be missin

be €& from the reactionary
with its co;

clamor is the CIA nspiracies and limitless

3 is ex! 7
havea greater share of the lavish wealth that - = hes
from the earth in the form of mineral resource

: . 12.
the vociferous opposition to the NDP in Victor y

a UJ
“Free enterprise” car insurance agents, Ties l
larger cut of the ICBC pie and put on so-called aise i /
get it. But what is behind it all is something to?
schemes aimed at wrecking the whole ian + be
machinery and turning the long-overtaxed mo coats.
over to the tender mercies of the private init ai J f
And they threaten that they won’t be satisfied "|

It bearsa remarkable similarity to what was salt el
business in Chile, just before they conspired W}
to oust the Allende government by force. — t tne My

These numerous and varied attacks agains ni)
government, coincident as they are we 1» gh
nouncements of Liberal, Tory and Socred “‘un! ; ‘i m?
serve to warn the NDP that it cannot play at so (hide
Satisfy monopoly greed at the same time. sor ince ya
got to give and the working people of this pr' i

i enough. : a
eee Fae between the situation he sat
Chile on the eve of the murder of democracy, e onl if
somewhat farfetched, but the similarity ee nd
ignored at the peril of the NDP governmé
working people.

1

Coquitlam suffered a setbatt io) tt
the defeat of Eunice Par sei k

K

ya
North Vancouver District Ww
candidate Ernie Crist, © ot