VANCOUVER

COPE, residents
urge ALRT tunnel

The president of Lovat Tun-
nel Equipment is to appear
before Vancouver city council
next week as Cedar Cottage
residents, and COPE members
on Vancouver city council con-

Transit (ALRT) line up Van-
couver’s Commercial Drive.
Richard Lovat of Lovat Tun-
nel Equipment which has
developed the ‘‘supermole’’
tunnelling equipment capable
of drilling at high speed at lower
cost than conventional
technology, is to appear before
a meeting of council July 14.
Residents in the Cedar Cot-
tage area have long demanded a
tunnel as an alternative to the
elevated transit line which, they
argue, would destroy a long-
established neighborhood .-
More than 150 residents
packed a meeting June 28 called
by the Save Our Neighborhood
Committee and vowed to con-
tinue the fight.
They emphasized that the
Lovat equipment, which was
not even considered by transit

tinue to fight for a tunnel to take
the Advanced Light Rapid

engineers who only estimated
the cost using conventional ‘‘cut
and cover’’ tunneling
technology, might even be
cheaper than the elevated line.

Earlier, in a related action,
alderman Bruce Yorke, on
behalf of the three COPE
aldermen, sent a telegram to
senator Ray Perrault with
copies to senator Jack Austin,
supply and services minister
Jean-Jacques Blais, trade
minister Ed Lumley and Lovat,
urging that Perrault come to
Vancouver to meet with city
council July 13.

In the telegram, Yorke press-
ed Perrault to agree, on behalf
of the federal government, to
put pressure on the provincial
government to build a tunnel us-
ing the Lovat equipment.

He also called on him to
“‘commit, if absolutely
necessary, the federal govern-

-Ment to put up one-third, ap-

proximately $5 million extra, to
build the tunnel, with the city
and the province each con-
tributing an additional $5
million.”’

VICTORIA—
Annual Picnic

and beef barbecue

Socred axe to fall — again

The city of Vancouver has a uni-
que service for a segment of our
population in the downtown area
called the Downtown
Homemakers Service. It provides
help to middle-aged, single
unemployed men. Some are
chronic alcoholics, have suffered
brain damage or are senile and con-
fused. The services provided to
these people includes the ad-
ministration of medicines and
checking their health. It is operated
seven days a week. The total
number of clients last May
numbered 136; the number of peo-
ple required to operate the service is
18.

The provincial ministry of health
has served notice that it intends to
close down this service. First it an-
nounced that it would end the ser-
vice on May 31; then after protests
from the city it agreed to postpone
the closure to July 31.

The excuse given by the provin-
cial government for this closure is
that this service costs more to
operate than other homemaker ser-
vices provided by the government.
The analogy is completely false.
Other homemaker services in the
provinces provide a completely dif-
ferent type of service, in the pro-
vince provide a completely dif-
ferent type of service, such as
house-cleaning and shopping and
operate only Monday to Friday. To
compare the Downtown
Homemaker service to the other

homemaker services is like com-
paring apples to oranges.

What will happen if this service
in the downtown area is ter-
minated? :

The first thing will be’ that no
other department can or will pro-
vide this service. These people will
just go without.

What will happen then is that
they will end up being institu-
tionalized in acute care hospitals.
All hospitals in the province
already have a long waiting list for

Harry

Rankin

acute care beds; this will only ag-
gravate the problem.

But that still isn’t the whole
result. To operate the present ser-
vice costs only $8.64 per person per
day, but to send them to an acute
care hospital, St. Paul’s for exam-
ple, would cost $312 per person per
day — in other words 36 times as
much!

What is obviously happening is
that the provincial government is
trying to evade its financial respon-
sibility for these people by shifting
the cost to hospitals. Andit also ob-
viously doesn’t give a damn that
the cost will be 36 times higher, as

long as it doesn’t have to pay
bills.

This is a callous and uncd
cionable act on the part of thep)
vincial government. It mustn’s
allowed to get away with it. Th
people are the victims of socié
and we have a social responsibilll
to take of them. The most efficiefll
humane and economical way !
through a continuation of
Downtown Homemakers Service

When the issue came up in thet
ty’s standing committee on colt

munity services I tried to gé
through a motion that we simply
refuse to accept the termination 0
this service and carry on fol
another year at least. It failed. In
stead the mayor will meet with
government officials to discuss thé
issue further.

Humanity and common sensé
demand that this service be col
tinued.

(This week, the provincial gov
ernment agreed under pressure t0
continue funding till Dec. 31. It
made no commitment beyond thal
date, however, and continued 10
propose a new funding arrange
ment—Ed.)

Sun., July 18, 1—7 p.m. .
_4810 Sooke Rd. (the Knotthole)
Speaker: Freda Knott
“The Peace Movement in the Soviet Union”

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 9, 1982—Page 2

253-1221

S we watched the space shuttle Columbia touch-

ing down on earth, its landing timed to coincide
with the flag-waving for the U.S. July 4 celebrations,
we couldn’t help experiencing a shudder of fear. For
the age-old dream of humanity — to probe the mys-
tery and wonder of space — is being turned into a
grotesque nightmare by the Pentagon and the Rea-
gan administration.

And that nightmare, of which we had just a fleet-
ing preview when the space shuttle program was first
undertaken, is now beginning to take shape. As the
Columbia came down, Reagarannounced that the
program would be used in future to extend the U.S.
“defence capabilities” in space. And that the Penta-
gon and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) would be working together
in future. :

In fact, the joint Pentagon-NASA agency has al-
ready been created. It will be the U.S. Air Force’s
Space Command — Spacecom for short — which is
to be based in Colorado Springs, Colorado and will
be operational by Sept. 1, 1982.

According to the Pentagon the agency will for the
first time give the U.S. armed forces their own cent-
ral authority from which to direct military opera-
tions in space, including responsibility for military
payloads on shuttle launches, anti-satellite weapons
and communications, weather, tactical warning and
surveillance satellites. ;

And any charitable illusions that some might have
as to the Pentagon’s purpose for the new program
must quickly be dispelled by the comments of
Brigadier-General Bernard P. Randolph, U.S. Air
Force director of space systems. He told the New
York Times: ‘“We are now poised to really capitalize
on the advantages that space offers us in the conduct
of defence of our national interest. Space is the mod-
ern equivalent of the ‘high ground’ that military
leaders have for centuries sought out and exploited
to their advantage.”

But lest the public might assume from that the
U.S. was seeking supremacy — as if it would be
possible to assume anything else — the U.S. intelli-
gence agencies immediately began cranking out stor-
ies claiming that the Soviet Union was about to
launch a space station which would be a base for an
anti-missile laser system. Like dozens of other
similar stories which are floated and then disappear,
never substantiated, the reports quoted ‘“‘gnnamed
intelligence sources’ and ‘‘senior defence officials.”

As it has been since the U.S. began its latest mass-
ive arms build-up in 1978, the mythical Soviet threat

Tector of the U.S. Women’s International League

People and Issues

has become the pretext for unprecedented arms de-
velopment — which is now reaching even into space.
Already the new Spacecom agency has been in-
structed to begin work adapting the F-15 fighter to
develop an anti-satellite missile that can be fired into
space off the jet’s wing. :
The comments by Libby Frank, executive di-

for Peace and Freedom were perhaps most apt:
“This administration acts as if the whole world is
our vital interest — the whole universe,”’ she told the
Daily World. ‘‘The outer space Pentagon plans are
part of the whole confrontational nature of the Rea-

gan administration.’’
* ae *

F or those contemplating the preceding item, it’s
worth remembering that it is the very actions of
the Reagan administration that have, in a large part
at least, spurred thousands into joining the cam-
paign for disarmament. For many of them, too,
music, folk music in particular, has always been part
of the movement. And while we can’t say that the
songs of the peace movement will be a major part of
the program for the next weekend’s Fifth Annual
Folk Music Festival, we’re sure that they will be
prominent in the performances of such people as
Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert, Country Joe
McDonald and Stringband among scores of per-
formers that will take the stage — actually five stages
— during the three-day festival. :

Of course, there is much more and this year’s
festival program includes musical groups from every
region“in the country, from the Kwakiut] Hunt
Family from the West Coast to Quebecois perform-
ers La Bottine Souriante and Monique Jutras tO
Newfoundland fiddler Rufus Guinchard.

There are also several international groups —
from Ghana, Sweden and Wales as well as Louisi-
ana and Texas in the U.S.

It all takes place at Jericho Beach park July 16, 17
and 18, and if you’re a pensioner, the admission is
free on production of your Pharmacare card. It’s
also free for children under 12 although they must be
accompanied by an adult and there’s a limit of two
children per adult. For everybody else, the tickets are
$34 for the whole weekend, if you buy them in ad-
vance; $40 at the gate. Advance tickets are on sale at
oS Ticket Centre and Concert Box Office
outlets.

—_—