Se Tg eee

——

I

‘

Effie presses

Little Mountain housing

STORY ON THIS PAGE

PUBLIC
BETRAYED
IN PHONE

t

Phone rates are high, too

X

/
/

These BCTelephone workers are really high up — but if the Board
of Transport Commissioners grants the company’s latest application for
an increase, the cost of a phone will soon be out of their reach and that
of thousands of other British Columbia workers.

Citizens’ turnout .
for city hall meet

next Monday urged —

In their: continued buck-passing
On the contentious Little °Moun-
tain housing project, Vancouver
aldermen learned this week that
they must reckon with the deter-
Mination of Effie Jones, backed
Y a large body of public opinion,
to press for construction of low-
rental homes.

Encouraged by the big turnout
of citizens at city hall Monday this
Week, Mrs. Jones appealed for an
€ven bigger turnout this coming

Onday, December 1, at 10 a.m.
When a special meeting, of the

©using and Town Planning Com-
mittee in No. 1 committee room
Will consider the Little Mountain
Project,

__ A letter to city council from
the Associate Council of Vancou-
Ver South, signed by Mrs. Jones
§8 council secretary, this week put
°rward the strong views held by
lat organization on the question
of housing. It read:

“T am submitting this statement
to the city council as being the
©Onsidered opinion of the Associ-
ate Council of Vancouver South

Continued on page 7
See PROJECT

The§last
best West
by John Stewart

page 9

Phe Dads so
A short story by
Norman Bethune

page 10

While phone rate hearings are just getting
under way before the Board of Transport Com-
missioners at Ottawa, BCTelephone mpany
is calmly putting up signs over all public tele-
phones in Vancouver in readiness to increase
charges from five to ten cents. So far the cellu-
loid-front signs are blank, but there’s no doubt
that the. dime charge announcements are also
ready.

How phoney can the phone hearings get?

This question was posed by Effie Jones this
week when she lodged a strong protest with
Mayor Fred Hume against the handling of the
“opposition” case by Alfred Bull, QC, of Van-
couver. Mrs. Jones demanded that the city dis-
sociate itself from Bull’s proposal that the inter-
im increase should amount to $800,000 instead.
of the $2,959,000 a year sought by BCTelephone.

Bull, who is counsel for the B.C. government
and 66 communities which have expressed strong
‘opposition to the proposed increase in rates, has

HEARINGS

agreed at the hearing that BCTelephone should
be allowed to boost long-distance charges by 12.2
percent and double the pay phone tariff.

Senator J. W. de B. Farris, company counsel,
pleaded that an interim increase of at least
$2,451,000 should be granted immediately to
“take the BCTelephone out of the red.”

In her protest to Mayor Hume this week,
Mrs. Jones urged ‘that Vancouver City Council
take these steps immediately:

1. To dissociate itself from Bull’s proposal
that BCTelephone Company be allowed

an $800,000 interim increase, and to ‘take a firm

stand. against any increase whatsoever.”

2. To ask the Board of Transport Commis-
sioners not to grant any interim increase
and to demand that “the present hearings be
transferred to Vancouver so that a full public
hearing” can be held here.
Pointing out that BCTelephone “has re-
Continued on back page — See PHONE