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This ballot, clearly worded for or against a ward system for Van-
couver, will put to Vancouver voters in a special plebiscite
November 15. The ballot was approved by city council this week.

Ward plebiscite backed

As plans took shape this week for
a massive campaign in Vancouver
to win a ward system in the special
November 15 plebiscite, delegates
to the Greater Vancouver regional

convention of the Communist

Party pledged “the maximum

amount of time and effort to go all .

out to ensure an overwhelming
majority vote in favor of the ward
system.”’

A special resolution before the
CP convention said that a ward
system “would afford better op-
portunities for the election of
democratic, reform minded

citizens’’ while defeat of the
referendum ‘‘would represent a
victory for the right wing big
business, real estate gang that
presently controls city council.”

Also last week, AREA an-
nounced that it would launch its
campaign for the ward system
with a public meeting October 15 at
St. Andrews Wesley Church at
Burrard and Nelson Streets,
Vancouver. AREA will open an
office next week in Vancouver and
plans a series of public meetings
and distribution of a large leaflet

B.C. Government Employees
general secretary John Fryer
charged this week that the
premiers of the western provinces
have held several confidential

meetings to establish a co- -

ordinated campaign to limit wage
nd benefit increases for public
employees.

Fryer based his charges on a
confidential Alberta government
report which confirmed that the
governments in the four western
provinces had established a
combined approach to public
sector bargaining.

“I have in my possession a
document that clearly indicates a
number of confidential meetings
have been held in Manitoba and
Alberta at which cabinet ministers
and pay research staff from the
western provinces have developed
a co-ordinated pay and benefit

approach to limit public employee.

compensation for the coming
bargaining year,” Fryer said.
He noted that the idea of holding

Provincial gov'ts colluding
to limit pay hikes — Fryer

public employees to predeter-
mined increases was initiated at a
western premiers’; meeting in
Brandon, Manitoba, in August,
1977 and that subsequent meetings
had been held in September, Oc-
tober and November to set up the
administrative machinery.

The Social Credit government in
this province and the two Con-
servative governments in
Manitoba and Alberta were in-
volved in the meetings as was the
New Democratic Party govern-
ment in Saskatchewan. Ap-
parently, NDP cabinet ministers in
former Manitoba premier Ed
Schreyer’s government also
participated in the initial meetings
before the Oct. 11, 1977 election
which returned Tory Sterling
Lyon.

According to the formula
established at the meetings, public
employees’ wage increases would
be based on a model similar to that
sought by the federal government,
termed the ‘‘average com-

throughout the city.

UBCM meet political battleground over taxes

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

I’ve just come back from the
annual convention of the Union of
B.C. Municipalites (UBCM) held in
Penticton this year from Sep-
tember 19 to 22. It was such a
mixed bag and to describe it in a
few words or to sum it up in a few
words is beyond me. It was a sort
of political battle-ground for
municipal and _ provincial
politicians over the issues of taxes.

One thing that did stand out was
that cabinet ministers from
premier Bennett down were using
the convention as a propaganda
platform for the next provincial
election.

Premier Bennett said his
government will take some steps
to reduce taxes, to be revealed in
next year’s budget.

Municipal affairs minister Hugh
Curtis blasted mayors and
aldermen responsible for some
municipal councils accumulating a
surplus to put away for some
future contingency. What he was
mad about, of course, was that
perhaps some of the provincial
grants to municipalities were
being saved and not used to reduce
taxes, with the provincial govern-
ment getting credit:for such
reductions.

And education minister Pat
McGeer, who is still on his
economy kick of putting dollars
before children,warned delegates
that he would be instituting a new
system of education grants in
which those school boards that cut
education costs would be  rewar-
ded. Those school districts which
have what he termed ‘“‘excessive
costs’’, presumably would be.
punished by having their grants
cut still more. He also warned that
his government is considering
ceilings and freezes on school
board budgets as another means of
cutting down the amount of money
spent on education.

How municipal affairs minister
Curtis could justify his demand
that municipal councils avoid
having any surplus when the
provincial government announced
at the same time that it had a
surplus of $140 million from last
year’s operations is something that
only Social Credit politicians can
reconcile.

But even though a large per-
centage of the delegates were
Social Crediters, they didn’t like
being blamed for high taxes. They
know those high taxes are the
direct result of the provincial

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 29, 1978—Page 2

government keeping ail the
lucrative forms of taxation for

itself and leaving the
municipalities only with the right
to tax property.

So the convention endorsed a
number of resolutions which were
critical of the government, in-
cluding a demand for “‘an entirely
different system of financing
education costs’, and a denun-
ciation of that section of the new
Urban Transit Authority Act which
would place new taxes on property
to meet transit deficits.

But I musn’t forget to mention
our worthy major Jack Volrich,
who was up there too, beating his
gums with the demand for cut-
backs in spending and posing as
the champion of the harassed
taxpayer. Cuddling up to the Social

Credit, he joined with McGeer in
blaming high taxes on education
costs. (He didn’t mention the
$250,000 tax exemption he gave to
two highly profitable businesses at
the PNE, exemptions that helped
to raise the taxes of Vancouver
property owners). Now in mayor
Volrich we have a man of prin-
ciple, his principle being to say
anything and do anything that will
get him elected.

I’ve come to the conclusion that
if UBCM conventions were held in
January, after newly elected
mayors and aldermen have been
sworn in, we might get a lot less
electioneering and a lot more at-
tention to the business of the people
at these conventions.

The basic cause of high
municipal taxes is that the

provincial government has kept all
the lucrative forms of taxation for
itself, leaving municipal govern-
ments only the right to tax
property. At the same time it has
cut its grants for education, again
forcing school boards to increase
taxes on property.

UBCM conventions won’t get
anywhere until they tackle this
basic problem. Provincial grants
to municipalities should be in-
creased. The province should pay
at least 75% of education costs. The
objective must be a more equitable
sharing of revenues now collected
by the province.

I was elected to the executive as
a member at large and will cer-
tainly do my best to turn the at-
tention of the UBCM to these basic
issues.

document
shows co-ordinated campaign"
among western Proving
governments.

JOHN FRYER...

parability of total compensation.”

In the model, a system would be
established to devise comparisons —
between jobs in the public and
private sector and the average —
compensation paid for those jobs.
The formula would determine
wage increases.

“They have based their ap
proach on the 13 points contained in
the federal government’s average —
comparability of total com-
pensation model . and have -
added another 13 elements making
a total of 26,” Fryer said.

“What this means is an end-rul
around meaningful negotiations 4!
the bargaining table because 2
clear pre-determination on wages
and benefits will already have beet
made no matter what the economic —
climate in our province may be
next year.” i

The co-ordination among the
four western provincial govern
ments and the close affinity with —
the federal government’s plans tO
limit public employee’s wages and —
benefits has demonstrated the
intensity of the campaign against
public employees and theif
collective bargaining rights.

f ever there was a glimpse of the game of

statistical chicanery being played out using
official jobless figures, it came this week at the
news conference held by federal employment
minister Bud Cullen. After a departmental
memorandum: had already been released in-
dicating the policy, he confirmed that regional
officials had been instructed to stop compiling
figures on the local unemployment rate
because the figures they were coming up with
were often out of whack with Ottawa’s con-
servative tally — a fact which was causing him
some “‘embarrassment.”’

Federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent had.

earlier released the copy of the departmental
memorandum he had obtained which noted
that local estimates of unemployment and
labor surplus rates ‘“thave been a source of
some embarrassment for the minister because
of their potential conflict with labor surplus
rates in the Canada Works program.”

Of course, Cullen suggested immediately
that the local figures ‘‘are sometimes inac-
curate” leaving the broad implication that
official Statistics Canada were womehow
beyond reproach or error. But since the local
figures — now suppressed — were based on
actual unemployment insurance claims and the
actual numbers of persons registered at
manpower centres, we’ll bet they’re a damn
sight more reliable than the figures available
on the gaming tables at Stats Canada.

Certainly we’re not alone in saying that
Ottawa has been grossly underestimating the
actual numbers of unemployed for a long time.

The worst part of it is that, by the rules of the
game set by Cullen, jobless workers pay a price
for even minor changes in the unemployed
rate. At this moment, hundreds of unemployed

in this province, in Quebec and in Nova Scotia

have been ordered to pay back UI benefits
which they received previously — all because
of a computer “error” which increased the

=PEOPLE AND ISSUES:

official jobless rate by a miniscule one-tenth of
one percent.

But Cullen’s admission now confirms that the.

figures punched into the. computer were
suspect in the first place — just as they have
been suspect all along. The least he can do is
cancel the repayment orders immediately.
The statistical mix-up may have caused
Cullen some embarrassment but for hundreds
of jobless, it has already cost them their

unemployment insurance benefits.
* *

e understand that September is a popular .

month for travelling among Soviets but
clearly it is much more than just that that has
brought a significant number of Soviet tourist
groups to this country in recent weeks. Seven
major delegations will be visiting Vancouver
and other cities over the next month — a
remarkable number considering the fact that
Ottawa has hardly encouraged contacts bet-
ween the people of the two countries.

Some 26 tourists from the steel town of
Kemerova in Siberia came through Vancouver
last week on their way to Los Angeles and other
centres in the U.S. At the end of this week, a
three-member group will be completing a five-
city tour of the country. Among them is Soviet
author Rasul Gamzatov, a member of the
presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,
whose well-known book My Daghestan has
been translated into several languages in-
cluding English.

More than 100 tourists from several republics
and including many leading artists, Sculptors,
dancers and musicians as well as trade unions
will be following the first two groups in the

weeks between the beginning of October and

November 3. The Canada-USSR Association
will be hosting a reception for at least one of the
groups — a delegation of 25 tourists from nine
different republics — on October 4 at 7 p.m. in
the Hotel Georgia in Vancouver.

‘Joe with donations earmarked for both the |

then — and after.

But if many Soviet organizations, notable
friendship groups and trade unions, are —
striving to overcome the problems associated —
with travel to North America (not the least of —
which is the excessive cost of travelling in both —
Canada and the U.S.), the cold war forces are —
still seeking to put a freeze on further contacts. _
When the visitors for Kemerova, most.of whom _
are members of the trade union in the steel —
works, applied in Montreal for visas to visit the _
U.S., they were compelled to fulfil certain
conditions before their request was granted. —

Each of the 26 visitors had to sign a document
affirming that he or she was aware that any —
meetings with U.S. trade unionists ‘‘would
obstruct the purpose of this visit’? and could —
therefore lead to forfeiture of visas. Obviously
the state department — not to mention George —
Meany — doesn’t like the idea of U.S. workers —
hearing about the Soviet experience of full: ie
employment, stable prices — and workers’
control. “ * #

or most people, locating Bentley, Alberta

would require some searching on a detail
map but for us, the name has become
familiar one over the years. So has the name of
Joe Maister who hails from the central Alberta
town and whose financial support has been a4
mainstay of the Tribune.

This years was no exception. A couple of —
weeks ago, we received a money order from —

paper and Canadian Aid for Vietnam Civilians. —
There was also an additional $100, ‘‘to renew ‘|
my subscription”, Joe told us. And since a sub
renewal is the least we can give in return for
the much-needed support over the years, we —
extended his subscription to 1999 — the farthest —
into the future the computer is prepared to g0
when it’s asked to issue a lifetime sub.

As long as working people continue to keep us
going as Joe has done, we'll still be around