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Airport controversy

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

City Council on May 18, 1976
recommended to Ottawa that a
decision on expansion of Van-
couver International Airport put
off for two years. It should have
recommended that the proposed
expansion be scrapped.

Those favoring the expansion
include the federal government,
the aircraft industry and of course
all the contractors and other in-
dustries that would benefit from
government projects which are
always good for a few extra per-
centage points in profits.

Those opposing it are citizens
who live in the area and would be
affected (the new runway would be
within a mile of Vancouver);
people and groups concerned with
the environment (noise pollution,
the harmful effects a runway built
out into the sea could have on all
the surrounding area); and all
those, including me, who don’t see
any need for or any sense in ex-
panding the airport.

One of the main reasons given

— im

COURTENAY — The Union of
British Columbia Indian Chiefs,
meeting here in conference May
19, took a giant step forward on the
issue of Indian land claims when
they adopted a land claims action
declaration setting out their
demands on the emotion-charged
issue.

The declaration, when presented
to the government, will contain a
deadline for an answer on the
demands contained in the paper. It
was suggested the deadline be July
1 Dominion Day — or June 25,
the 100th anniversary of Custer’s
Last Stand. Both dates, it was
suggested, were historic and had
strong significance.

The document outlines the
principles of recognition of native
title and aboriginal rights and
provides the basis for districts,
tribes and bands to state their
specific claims in their traditional
territories. It was stressed that the
document was _ not designed to
outline research material on the
land claims issue — but for land
claiinss action. :
Winle the Socred government,
shortly after its election, said it
was going to consult the native
peoples in discussions with Ottawa

for a solution of the land claims
issue, it has failed to do anything
about the issue since. It has also
bypassed the native peoples in
talks with Ottawa on the issue. This
has brought severe criticism of the
provincial government from In-
dian leaders.

During the Union of B.C. Indian
Chiefs conference, which
represents some 50,000 registered
(status) Indians, it was stressed by
speakers that in the past the issue
of aboriginal rights and land
claims had been presented as an
obscure, legal issue that is not
related to the present needs of
Indian people.

This presentation of the issue
was rejected. Delegates were told
that land claims are directly
related to the everyday needs of
housing, employment op-
portunities and education. A
successful land claim can provide
Indian communities with the
economic base to meet these
needs.

Delegates were told they must
fight for recognition of native title
and must fight to have native title
and aboriginal rights put into
practice.

The Union’s three-man executive

Press land claims issue

was instructed to present the
document to federal and provincial
governments as the Indian’s
position paper.

The parley also agreed to hold
workshops at three different
locations to study the land claims
issue, Indian Act changes,
economic development, com-
pensation, hunting and trapping
rights as well as a proposal for an
exclusive fishery for Indians.

So MUCH FOR THE
WAGE GUIDELINES!

MW A

TT
Pp tpion VW

New runway not needed

for expansion is that of forecasts
about the increases in air traffic
that will occur in the next 10 to 20
years. The figures are dubious to
say the least, and are discounted
by experts;as well as laymen.

Another reason given for ex-
pansion is that if we don’t expand,
the average four minute delay
factor may be increased. So What?
Do we have to spend another $20
million just so that businessmen
will reach their destination five
minutes later?

Illustrating that we don’t need
expansion is also the fact that
planes are flying with a load factor
of 63 per cent and don’t appear to
be interested in evening out their
loads so as to be near-full all the
time. Again their main concern
seems to be that it will in- ~
convenience a few businessmen.

It seems to me that the ex-
pansion of our airport right from
the beginning has been carried
through piecemeal and certainly
without any view to economy or
efficiency.

We were told that the Arthur
Lang Bridge for example, had to be
built to expedite car traffic to and
from the airport, and that the
parking lot at the airport had to be
expanded to handle the many more
cars now coming to the airport.

do much about it unless compel™®

“there are clear indications t

What we are seeing is really
freeway philosophy at work. Hal
the federal government been it
terested in moving people
saving money, it would have buill§ —
rapid transit system from
centre of the city to the airp
That would have relieved
traffic congestion and would h
made travel a lot cheaper
faster.
City Council has now recd
mended that such a rapid tram)
system be built to the airp
However our present Council,
the ones before it, has ne
distinguished itself as an expon®
of rapid transit, so it is not likely’

to move by public opinion.

In the meantime, however, W
have to keep up the camp
against airport expansion,-bec

Ottawa intends to go ahead
matter what the citizens of
couver want. Preparation of
site for the runway is under ac
consideration right now and un
a strong protest movement sto
the runway site will be prep:
while Ottawa pretends to?
studying the matter some M&
Our Ottawa politicians are no
sneaky than some of the hol
grown variety. ;

Phone rates,

B.C. Tel last week announced
another boost in telephone rates to
take effect on June 11 despite the
huge profits made by the. utility
company in the first quarter of
1976.

A financial statement released
one week before the latest rate
boost showed that the U.S.-owned
utility company’s profits had
jumped 79 per cent compared with
the same three months period the
year before. : :

This latest increase will mean
another five to 20 cents per month
added to the phone bills of B.C.
customers, making them among
the highest in Canada. Vancouver
phone users face a 20 cents per
month boost bringing their phone
bill to $8.10 for a private line.

The latest increase is the
remainder of the amount applied
for last March. The B.C. Tel ap-
plication was granted by the
Canadian Transport Commission
after a hearing last fall at which
strong pposition was voiced to the
increase. At the time, the CTC

_ March.

profits up
rolled back the increase by 2.3
cent because of the Anti-Infl
Board guidelines. The latest
crease granted by the CTC m
that B.C. Tel has now been gral!”
the full amount it asked for. It 4
means that the AIB has allow
full increase to the utility c
pany. ;

It remains a mystery how
Anti-Inflation Board could j
granting B.C. Tel the full am
of the increase it sought after’
utility company reported its ht
increase in profits. But AIB di
block the increase, the res
that the public is saddled with
phone rate boosts at a time
B.C. Tel is reporting one of |
sharpest rises in profits in ©
company’s history. :

Instead. of granting the 1a"
boost in rates the CTC should
ordered B.C. Tel to roll back fr)
and to give the publica refund)
phone rates to return some of
profits made from exorb
charges in January, February

ie

SN

TOM
McEWEN

Were the Pierre Elliot Trudeau government faced with a
general cie¢tion now or in the near future, it would be
faced witii the certainty of defeat. Scandal, arrogance,
ministerial ineptitude, graft and corruption, lying and
deceit : they've all taken the erstwhile sheen off the early
charisma and transformed Trudeau and most, if not all, of
his ministerial yes-men into persons totally remote from
the great mass of the Canadian people, into shameless
servitors of big monopoly capital.

They have become power mad, literally drunk with
power. Should one slip up in his stewardship as did a
popular minister of finance in recent times, and have to
step down to appease the rabble, he is promptly picked up
by one or other of a powerful financial oligarchy to con-
tinue his scheming against the basic interests of the
people. his errors conveniently forgotten, and his services
to his new bosses rated at top-notch price. Among other
things this confirms the close affinity between the
government in power and the monopoly plunderbund,
which stands as a sinister invisible government behind the
regime which the people fondly thought they had elected.
The real power behind the throne!

Today the time of parliament is largely taken up with

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 28, 1976—Page 2

ae

scandal or rumors of scandal; long debates over the in
terference with the due process of law as in the Quebec
case in which a minister of the crown is alleged to have
suggested to a trial judge to mitigate or withhold sen-
tence. The courts as we have been taught are in-
corruptible, but if sufficient finances and pull are
available, a deal can always be arranged.

Then there is the Lockheed aircraft deal involving
billions of dollars of Canadian taxpayers’ money, in which
a powerful U.S. monopoly was to build a dozen or more
Orion planes to watch for non-existent subs in Canadian
waters. Trudeau blandly insisted “NATO needs them
badly,” with much more emphasis than he’ ever urged
jobs, health facilities, better education standards, or
shelter for the Canadian people. Like the present U.S.
presidential merry-go-round of the Fords-Reagans et al,”
Trudeau argues for ‘‘peace through strength,” if indeed a
little more hypocritically. The ‘charisma’ of yesteryear

has become the big stick against the Canadian people, -

with an AIB club to drive the lesson home. Wage-and-
price controls, with full emphasis on wages, and nothing
but excuses on prices. 3

In the event of a general election, however, how does the
situation stack up for any drastic change or possible
betterment of the situation? As this scribe sees it, damn
little if anv. Now we have a new Tory ‘charisma’ all set
and rarin’ to go, with one Joe Clark, catapulted out of
nowhere, with ambition to be prime minister but little
else, now avidly preening his feathers for the fray.

Shades of R. B. “Iron Heel’’ Bennett and all the Tory
prime ministers before and since. Each of these tub-
thumpers spoke of Canada as their particular preserve;

‘least be painfully obvious to all Canadians that

each served the interests of a monopoly Mammon w!
unexcelled devotion. Their differences with the Liber
Social Credit or whatever were purely fictional.
they were on the outside it was largely a deluge of &
and when they were in office, they took their orders
the same monopoly sources, as have the Kings, Pea
St. Laurents and Trudeaus. It is a condition of econt
freedom that Canadians should not be ruled Bb.
authority which they cannot control, and it should no

government in power, or one of Tory vintage, has ne
the will or desire to effect any basic change in this r
For a Trudeau in power or a Joe Clark itching to get
a just society means one and the same thing, to le)
monopoly free enterprise undisturbed in its robbery ‘)
exploitation of the people. The only alternative W’
seem to be — socialism. Then you would hear ©
scream — while a new society was a-building!

PACIFIC
| #
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Editor — MAURICE RUSH.

Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA

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