BRITISH COLUMBIA

THINK THAT I

SHALL NEVER SEE...

A POEM
MONEEEEEEY

VICTORIA — Lower Main-
land school trustees pressured the
Socred government Monday to
take immediate action to relieve
school taxes on homeowners in
1981, but the stories of dramatic,
unjust tax increases because of the
Socred education finance formula
fell on deaf ears.

The lobby was organized by the
Vancouver school board and in-
cluded Vancouver mayor Mike
Harcourt, alderman Bruce Yorke,
several parent representatives and
school trustees from Burnaby,
Richmond, North Vancouver,
Delta, Surrey, New Westminster,
Coquitlam and West Vancouver.

VSB chairperson Pauline Wein-

. stein placed two demands before

Socred education minister Brian

Smith, municipal affairs. minister

Bill Vander Zalm and a group of
senior bureaucrats previously ap-
pointed by Smith to study the edu-
cation finance formula.

The long-range solution to rising

COPE and VDLC reaffirm unity stand

“The unity of the Vancouver '
and District Labor Council, the
Committee of Progressive Electors
and the New Democratic Party
made the Vancouver municipal
elections the success they were,”
Frank Kennedy, president of the
VDLC told 150 people at COPE’s
14th annual general meeting last
Sunday. egress

“Without the involvement of

“any of them, we would still just

have Harry (Rankin) on council,””
he said, adding it was ‘“‘extremely
important that the lines be tighten-
ed up”’ between the three groups in
preparation for the next election.
The membership meeting, the
first since COPE swept to a five-
seat majority on school board,
elected two COPE candidates to
parks board and saw former lone
COPE alderman Harry Rankin
joined by two other COPE
aldermen on council, heard Ken-
nedy pledge greater trade union
participation in upcoming election
and municipal affairs.
Outgoing COPE president

Bruce Yorke underscored Ken-
nedy’s remarks, noting that the
unity between COPE and the
VDLC was instrumental in ‘‘bring-
ing about victories at the polls.’’

Reports to the meeting from

- COPE’s elected representatives on.

school and parks boards and city
council, stressed their intention of
keeping close ties with the
organization and with the com-
munity groups they were working
with around a variety of issues.
“It’s that interplay between the

community, COPE and COPE’s

elected members that makes us uni-
que as a political party,”’ alderman
Harry Rankin said.

Rankin warned the meeting that
the campaign-to implement the
ward system ‘had reached .a critical
stage.

‘*We have to develop a tremen-
dous campaign, focusing on Vic-
toria, that will make the govern-
ment change Vancouver’s charter
in this sitting of the legislature so
that wards can be in place by next

election,’’ he sai
Another campaign requiring the
mobilization of the COPE

‘membership — a campaign to

enact demolition controls — was
outlined by COPE alderman Bruce
Eriksen, who has put a number of
inter-related motions around the
issue before city council.

He noted that 27 organizations
had requested to speak for stronger
demolition controls, although he
added that triple that number
might be needed to give TEAM
aldermen Marguerite Ford and
May Brown the ‘‘backbone’’ to
vote the right way.

The public hearing, re-scheduled :

yet again, has been set for Tuesday,
Mar. 31 at 7:30 at either city hall or
across the street at the Sheraton
Plaza 500.

In executive elections, lawyer
and aldermanic candidate Jim
Quail was acclaimed as COPE’s
new president, while Atiba
Saunders assumed the post of
treasurer; David Schreck,
secretary; and Libby Davies, Jean

JIM QUAIL...
of COPE.

Swanson and Bruce Yorke first, se-
cond and third vice-presidents
respectively. ‘Wes Knapp, Pat
_ Wilson and Harry Rankin are table
officers-at-large. Eighteen others

new president

‘were elected to COPE’s executive

board, including the VDLC’s Ken-
nedy.

Trustees demand
ow LOVELY AS, tax help for 198]

school taxes is the implementation
of the McMath formula which
would about double the provincial
government’s share of education
costs to 75 percent.

But for this year school districts —

require grants from the province to
ensure that the maximum tax in-
crease for homeowners is no larger
than the increase in the local school
board budget, said Weinstein. _
In Vancouver, the VSB budget —
increased only 15 percent, but taxes

_will rise by 126 percent. In New

Westminster, trustee Anita Hagen
reported, the budget has increased
15 percent and taxes by 37 percent.
In Surrey, the budget increased 28
percent, but taxes will soar by 400

percent.

Richmond trustee Lorraine —

Hocking told Smith that five years —

ago wheri the Socreds took office
the province paid 85 percent of
Richmond education costs and
local taxes covered 15 percent. This
year those figures have reversed.

- Burnaby trustee Elsie Dean
pointed out that the Socreds will,
pay five percent less towards school
costs in Burnaby this year and at
the present rate the provincial con-
tribution will be completely elimin-
ated within three years.

Three representatives from Van-
- couver parent consultative

committees presented Smith with
1,700 letters demanding an immed-
iate change in the school tax system
“which places an unfair burden on
Vancouver homeowners.”’

Smith listened politely to the de-
mands, but later ruled out substan-
tial grants to deal with the 1981 tax
situation. He said he would con-

sider some grants earmarked for

handicapped and English as a sec-

ond language programs. That was ~ :

more than could be said for Vander
Zalm who repeatedly interrupted
speakers with badgering, hostile
comments.

Lobby organizers later said that
even if substantial grants were-not
won at the Monday meeting, the
lobby did bring together and unite
all Lower Mainland school trust-
ees, and that should lay the basis
for mounting greater pressure on
the Socreds.

= F eteae taken from a heap of a and the

story that went with it from one of our readers reveale-
ed.to us graphically what kind of people, often from the
twisted edges of society, that find their way to the Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan...

Last week, the reader ho’ related the events to us was
asked by a friend to help in cleaning up the basement suite
in her house. Apparently the place was particularly dirty
after the tenant — a man who had lived there for about a
year — vacated the premises.

The owner of the house commented that she was glad to
see the tenant leave because there had been a problem with
noise — apparently from the succession of small boys

coming in and out of the suite at various times. Among the ©

rubbish was the explanation: a whole box of pictures, each
of them a waist-up photograph of a different boy—nude.
_ Inanother pile of rubbish that the man had left behind
were various pieces of hate literature — — including a call to
“all white people of Canada”’ to “‘stop all colored im-
n’”’ — and an introduction to the Ku Klux Klan.”

Together with all the material was a personal letter,
reprinted below, from the ‘“den commander’’ of the Van-
couver unit of the KKK, David Cooke.

The incident itself is indicative, as we noted at the outset,
but there is also a disturbing irony. Certainly, the first of-
fence of which the man was evidently guilty — child por-
nography — is recognized by the authorities as a crime. As
such, it would be liable to prosecution. But the second of-
fence that was committed — the advocacy of racism —
although just a degrading to its victims and to society, and
seen internationally as a crime, is not viewed offically as
criminal activity. And attorney-general Allan Williams
still refuses to. allow prosecution of the very organization

I eSAUDC Nc, Su oI wat eT Ds aC PEDRSES TSA PIAS Od Sem Re ee REET TL 5 TEEN ag ON OD aA ee RO
which distributed that hate literature and wrote the letter

— the organization which exists for only one purpose, to
forment racial discrimination — the Ku Klux Klan.
be * *

e have a sad note from Rita Tanche telling us of the
Woassing March 1 of Alex Huculak, a long time reader
and supporter of the Tribune, in Hedley. -

He had been a veteran of World War I and in fact it was

Kuights of the Ku Klux Klan

Publishing Offices - 1214 old Lee Hwy. Tuscumbia, Al. 35674
Vancouver Unit, P.0. box 69623 Station K Van. B.C. V5K 47

Dear Sir Dec. 41980

Sorry that I did not answer your letter sooner but I did not gee
down to the post office till last night. We have not been getting much
response so where glad to hear from you, please read all enclosed lit-
erature then give me a call if you are still interested in the Klan.
You must realize that there is a lot more to being a Klansman than
you may think at this time we are coming under surveillance by the R.C.
M.P. as well most of us have had problems vith friends and relatives as
well as with the non-whites.If you want to become a member we will come
out and visit with you, hope to hear from you soon.

David Cooke ©
PP EERT

S asd Ske

Sd Femme 7 SP

Vancouver Unit
Knights of the ku Klux Klan.
255-4772

KKK. LETTER . . . half-literate invitation to racism.

in the army that he first learned the trade that he followed
for most of his working life — shoemaking. Following his
retirement, he joined the volunteer crew of Tribune
mailers, helping out for several years before moving to

_ Hedley some 15 years ago.

Funeral services were heldi in Hedley earlier this month.

nd from Ernie Dalskog i in Fanny Bay comes a note

informing us that Ted Gunnerud — known as Ted
Gunrud among the loggers whiose union he helped to build
d— died Mar. 5.

‘Emie tells us that he was ; the chief organizer ‘from

1928-35 for the Lumber Workers Industrial Union and led
the organizing drive in the Menzies Bay camp run by
Bloedel, Stewart and Welsh, then-notorious for union-
busting. - : :

A Canadian volunteer during the Spanish Civil War,
Ted was an ambulance driver. After his return in 1938, he
went back to organizing in the woods, joining such people
as Al Parkin and John McCuish in what was now the In-

ternational Woodworkers of America. In later years, he

worked in a lumberyard in Port Alberni.
; * * *
f readers, looking at the front page photo in last
week’s edition, wondered whether their eyesight,
or that of the photographer, Tribune editor Sean Griffin,
was in bad shape, rest assured — you can see well enough.
Actually the photo submitted for reproduction was sharp,
but when the camera operator screened it for a half-tone,
he neglected to focus — and the front page blur was the
result. The print shop apologized for the error — and we
now pass their apologies on to you. -- :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— MARCH 27, 1981—Page 2