ee

Right-wing
vote axes
DERA grant

The Downtown Eastside Residents
Association fell victim to a right-wing at-
tack Tuesday when aldermen from The
Electors Action Movement and the civic
Non-Partisan Association ganged up to
defeat two funding motions for the nine-
year-old community organization.

A motion to grant the organization
$19,800 to pay the organizer’s salary for
one year, following the recommendation
of the Social Planning department and
the community services committee, was
defeated when TEAM aldermen
Margueritte Ford and May Brown, and
the NPA’s Warnett Kennedy, George
Puil and Don Bellamy voted against it.

A subsequent motion from Brown for
a $10,000 grant also failed. The four
aldermen from the Committee of Pro-
gressive Electors combined with mayor
Mike Harcourt and independent alder-
man Bill Yee to approve both motions,
but grants to community organizations
require a minimum eight-vote majority.

Harcourt described debate around the
grant for DERA — one of 96 organiza-
tions applying for funding — as a “‘low-
blow session’’ following a vitrolic attack
on the organization by Ford.

She accused DERA. of
“undemocratic”? methods and of ‘‘in-
timidation and harrassment’? of other
community groups, using a recent letter
of resignation by Carnegie Community
Centre head Jim McDowell as a basis for
her charges.

COPE alderman Harry Rankin
retored that McDowell’s letter did not
| refer to DERA specifically. McDowell,

who was in the visitors’ gallery, declined
Rankin’s invitation to confirm Ford’s
charges.

“You’ve bad-mouthed DERA for
years,”’ Rankin told Ford in a heated ex-
change.

DERA worker Sue Harris said later
that the organization is considering ap-
pealing the decision, adding that the
G3 had been ‘‘used as a political foot-

Battles over funding for DERA have
been an annual event for the last several
years, an indication, in its organizers’
opinion, of the successes it has scored
against Downtown Eastside slumlords
and hotel owners.

allowances.

Thousands of people lost their homes
through non-payment of mortgages or

Action is lesson from the Thirti

The statement is often made today that
our current economic recession is the worst
since the Hungry Thirties. But little is being
said about how bad things actually were then
for people, what government programs were
introduced to deal with the decade-long
depression or how people had to fight for
even such elementary necessities as food,
clothing and shelter.

First of all, in spite of the fact that
unemployment rose as high as 25 to 30 per-
cent (no accurate statistics were kept so only
estimates were made). The federal govern-
ment and the provincial governments failed
to come up with any job creation programs.
Their solutions were soup kitchens for single
unemployed men, where twice a day they got
a bowl of soup and a few slices of bread.
Later when the young men began ‘“‘rioting”’
and smashing up a few soup kitchens, the
federal government’ put them into work
camps, under the direction of the depart-
ment of national defence, where they work-
ed building roads and air strips for 20 cents a
day. These were called “‘relief camps’’.
(Those who say it can’t happen again should
be reminded that right now Ottawa is
discussing the establishment of army Camps
for single unemployed, where they can be
kept under control, denied all civil rights and
brainwashed).

Married men in the Hungry Thirties were
given small bags of groceries once a week
(beans, soup bones, bread), and small
allowances for rent and clothes. Only later
were the authorities compelled by pressure
of the unemployed to give out vouchers, so
people could at least choose the kind of food
they wanted to get for their pitifully small

inability to pay rent.

were deported.

Harry

Rankin

and ‘‘reds’’.

taxes, and thousands more were evicted for

When people began protesting this shab-
by treatment, the government stepped in
with repressive measures. The Communist
Party was banned and its leaders sent to
prison. Strike leaders were arrested under
Section 98 of the Criminal Code (dealing
with the use of force to overthrow govern-
ments), and Section 87 (unlawful assembly),
and picket lines viciously attacked by police.
Thousands of destitute immigrant workers

There was no unemployment insurance in
the Hungry Thirties, no medicare, no

welfare programs. The relief (welfare) that
was granted was done so only under pressure
and after you put up a fight for it.
Education grants were cut by govern-
ments at all levels. Relief rates were cut time
and again. When the Workers’ Unity
League launched a nation wide petition cam-
paign for unemployment insurance in 1931
and gathered 100,000 signatures, the reply of
prime minister Iron Heel Bennett (a former
CPR corporation lawyer), was: ‘‘I will not
put a premium on idleness!’’ He got the
name ‘‘Iron Heel’’ Bennett, when he public-
ly threatened to use ‘‘the iron heel of
ruthlessness’’, against those who protested,
whom he invariably labelled as ‘‘agitators’’

But people did fight back. There was no

’ pornography

About 300 picketers marched out

side the Red Hot Video outlet on Mail

Street in Vancouver in one of several
| co-ordinated demonstrations acros®
| the province Saturday. The store’
| have been cited by women’s groups
as one of the worst offenders in th!
promotion of sexual exploitation 4M
violence by the multi-million-doll
pornography trade.

=, TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON

other way. The choice was to lay dow
die or fight to live. And people soon
that struggle paid off too in better
rates, in getting a few job-creation pro. val
going, in abolishing the 20 cents a day ic
camps, in lifting the ban on poll i
organizations and forcing the governme™
repeal Section 98. a 40
The tactics people used were effectiv€ z
— hunger marches, sit-ins, demonstrat 3
parades, occupation of public buileite
petition campaigns and the On-To-Otl@®
Trek. ae
Although there was no legislation fore
employers to recognize or bargall a
unions, under the leadership of the Work?
Unity League, thousands of workers JOP”
unions, engaged in strikes and proved ©
even in the midst of a depression, labor “
win wage increases and make gains. |
The main lesson of the Hungry Thirtl!
that there is no limit to the attemp>,
employers and governments to cut the i 3
i

standards of working people. They will
away as much as they can. There is only
way to stop them and that is to organizee”
fight with all the means available includ!
both economic and political action. _
Finally, we must be aware that in times!
economic crisis, those who have power $
suppression of democracy and preparali0!
for war as the way out of the crisis. 1
what happened in the Hungry Thirties whe
fascist groups sprang up at home and B®
was encouraged abroad through a policy”
appeasement. Somewhat the same thi,
happening today with U.S. support fore
wing dictatorships all through Central 2
Latin America, and Reagan’s intensifica®
of the arms race and preparation for as
first nuclear war. The movement for peat
now becomes a priority for all-of us.

f he were asked, Liberal finance minister Marc

Lalonde would no doubt claim with characteristic
cynicism that the unduly long wait for income tax refunds
is really part of a government job creation scheme in the
private sector — since, according to the federal consumer
and corporate affairs department, the wait for refunds will
result in a tripling of business for tax discounters.

In fact, it has become a national scandal. The various
tax discounters, who buy income tax refunds for a 15 per-
cent cut, are vying to cash in on the increased business
which is expected to push the number of returns going to
them from 60,000 to 180,000.

And most of the increase in their business has been pro-
mpted by the federal government which tells people they
will have to wait upwards of nine to 12 weeks to receive
their return from Revenue Canada.

According to the Financial Post, the assistant tax direc-
tor for one of the biggest discount firms, Beneficial
Finance, the majority of those going to discounters are low
income people and the unemployed.

The main reason they’re going is that they need the
money—tright now, not three months or more from now
as Revenue Canada has indicated.

Single mothers, particularly, are hurt by the wait since

they depend on getting the lump sum from the child tax
credit to get children’s clothes and other things that mon-
thly income won’t stretch to provide. (The child tax credit,
you'll recall, was created by the Liberal government for
low and middle income families in return for a cut in mon-
thly family allowance payments.)

__PEOPLE AND ISSUES

‘What makes it all the more criminal is that the excessive
wait for tax refunds is nothing more than a ploy by govern-
ment to make working people subsidize the federal deficit.

Just look at the figures. In 1979, the last year for which
income tax statistics are available, there were more than 11
million people claiming a total in tax refunds of
$4,876,033,000.

The amount for 1982 would undoubtedly be con-
siderably more.

But even using the 1979 figure, the interest that the
government could obtain by hanging on is astronomical.
Even at a conservative 10 percent interest rate, the govern-
ment gets $40,633,608 for every month that it holds on to
the money that should go out for tax refunds. Over a three
month period — and that’s how long people are being told
they may have to wait on an average — the total grows toa
whopping $122 million.

The unemployed and low income families are the ones
paying the price. And the tax discounters, among which
are big financial institutions are reaping the benefits.

* *

hose who remember the all-too-frequent abuse that
a they took from Royal Canadian Legion members
during the days of peace petitiorting in the ’50s and ’60s will
be heartened to sée that the issue of disarmament has sud-
denly assumed centre stage in the February issue of Legion
magazine.
It has been a long time coming, since veterans’ organiza-
tions in Europe, for example, have long given prominence

to the campaign for disarmament — a point which c.G.
Gifford makes emphatically in his article ““We Have On®
Choice” which appears in the magazine. a

That choice, for a secure future for Canada, is disarm
ment and Gifford, who is a distinguished RCAF vetera#
and the chairman of the recently-founded Veterans fof
Multilateral Disarmament, argues that veterans’ organiZ@
tions “should press for multilateral nuclear disarmament
and for ending Canada’s contributions to aggravating th¢
nuclear arms race such as allowing the U.S. to test the
curise missile on our soil.”’ os

Thereis, of course, the obligatory ‘con side” article but

_ even its author, Legion columnist Douglas Fishet

acknowledges that his views are somewhat outdated and Js
prepared to assert — unlike the Reagans and Weinberge!S
who accuse disarmament advocates of treason — thal
those who advocate a nuclear freeze and oppose cruls¢
testing “‘are fighting for peace.’

a Bs SATE a
t is not one of the historical events that Canadiall
Tribune columnist Alf Dewhurst has touched on if
his columns over the years. But these days, a 50th wedding
anniversary is almost a historical event initself and Alf and
Vi will mark theirs on Mar. 18. There are some plans for 4
big celebration of the occasion but they’ll be put off for@
couple of months until some timein May.
Alf is still recuperating after having been hospitalized
last month. ————

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 18, 1983—Page 2

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