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ALDERMAN HARRY RANKIN, whose fight on city council has won many
victories for tenants, labor, homeowners and small business people, is
spearheading COPE’s campaign in the December 9 civic election.

COPE program
meets needs
of city’s people

COPE, the Committee of
Progressive Electors, is cam-
paigning on a strong program in
the civic election, with candi-
dates who represent a cross-
section of the majority in the
community. ‘

The candidates for city
council, school and parks boards
live in all sections of the city,
and include in their ranks people
from the trade unions,
professions and small business.

They have a wide knowledge of
city affairs because they have
participated in a variety of
programs and organizations
working to benefit the majority
of citizens — from union activity
to community halls and parks,

ratepayers groups, New Citizens .

groups and tenant rights.

COPE’s program reflects the
needs of the majority. A priority
is the reduction of taxes on
homes and small business by
requiring big commercial and
industrial concerns to pay their
fair share. Alderman Rankin has
exposed over and over again the
unfair assessment system
which favors big business.

Twenty-five hundred new
public low rental housing units
per year, which COPE candi-
dates put forward as necessary,
are possible through federal
funds for such projects. The
landlord class in city hall has
done nothing to take advantage
of the grants.

COPE candidates fight for a
start on a low fare rapid transit
system to move people, not cars.
They are firmly against
freeways through the downtown
area, pointing out the only people
who would benefit would be the
downtown big business concerns,
gas and construction compa
nies.

Included in COPE’s program
is the establishment of a
Pollution Control Board with
citizen representation; the
setting up of day care centres for
working parents; hostels for
homeless and unemployed youth,
and an end to the provincial

.

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government construction freeze
on schools and hospitals.

An end to the construction
freeze and the building of low-
cost housing would do much to
provide jobs and cut welfare
costs. Recognizing the
dependence of one upon the
other, COPE puts forward the
need for provincial-city action
in these fields.

COPE’s aldermanic
candidates are Harry Rankin,
lawyer and alderman for the
past four years; Bruce Yorke,
economist; Ron Gomez, super-
visory letter carrier; Paul
Sabatino, lawyer, and Muriel
Pandia, retired school teacher.

School Board. candidates are
Peggy Chunn, bookkeeper, Paul
Mitchell, nursing orderly, and
Russell Pedersen, architect.

Parks Board candidates are
Donald (Dusty) Greenwell,
electrical werker; Sid Shelton,
pharmacist, Edward Leong,
electrical worker, and Karl.
Zuker, jeweller.

COPE headquarters are at
Room 202, 307 West Broadway,
phone 876-8118.

BRUCE YORKE, COPE candidate
for council, who has led the fight
to defend tenants’ rights. this
week he threatened landlords
with court action for violating the
tenants act in refusing election
workers the right to canvass in
apartment blocks: a

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Pere IN SAYS:
Tax on hotels will help
keep down taxes on homes

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The powers of Vancouver City
Council to licence businesses and
to levy taxes are clearly laid out
in the City Charter, an Act
passed by the provincial legisla-
ture. Council has been exercising
these rights for years. _

Yet when City Council decided
recently to introduce a by-law to
place a license fee or tax on hotel
rooms, we received a threaten-
ing letter from municipal affairs
minister- Dan Campbell. The
minister told us that if we dared
to tax hotel rooms, he-would cut
off the $1.00 per capita grant the
city gets for tourist promotion.
This grant amounts to $410,000 a
year. .

The tax which Council
proposes to levy on hotel rooms
is actually very low — ranging
from $25.00 a year on rooms
renting for $10.00 a day to $100.00
a year for rooms costing $30.00
or more a day.

This amounts to a tax of only
7¢ a day ona $10.00 a day room if
it is rented 365 days a year, or
10¢ a day if it is occupied 250
days a year or two thirds of the
time.

For a $30.00 a day room the tax
would be only 28¢ a day if the
room is occupied the year round
or 40¢ a day if the room is vacant
one third of the time.

Yet municipal affairs minister
Campbell and even Premier
Bennett tell us that this minute
tax will hurt the tourist industry!
What they are saying is that if a
tourist has to pay $10.10 a day
instead of $10.00 for a room or
$30.40 instead of $30.00 he won’t
come to Vancouver and will go
somewhere else. No matter how
thin you slice it, that’s still
baloney. :

This tax won’t hurt the tourist
industry one bit. Hotels and
motels have a booming business
and can easily afford the tax. But
of course they’ll just pass it on to
the customer in any case.

Furthermore this tax on hotel
rooms will only bring the level of
their fees up to those of other
businesses in the city. Until now
their contributions have been
lower.

It must also be stressed that
the tourist industry costs the
citizens millions of dollars
yearly for wear and tear on city
streets, police and fire

protection, upkeep of parks and »

museums, and grants for tourist
promotion. It’s only fair that the
hotels and motels who gain the
most from tourism should help
to pay some of the expenses.

The tax which the city
proposes to levy on hotel and
motel rooms will bring in a
revenue of $500,000 a year. It will
help to keep down taxes on the
homeowner.

But this doesn’t seem to-

interest Premier Bennett or
municipal affairs minister

Campbell. They are more’

interested in saving American
tourists a few cents in hotel
rooms than saving dollars for
our homeowners.

This time the provincial
government is going just a bit
too far in meddling in
Vancouver's business and in
waving the big stick at us.

__ Vancouver, City, Council,has the; ; he,

12290SH O19

PACIFIC TRIBUNE FRIDAY, DECEMBER. 4, 1970-—PAGE Qc os vin!

} nan} 2ieq YEQUTIOSY

legal right to levy this.tax and
the tourists and the tourist
industry can afford to pay it a lot
more than our homeowners.

backing of all citizens in telling
the provincial government to
mind its own business and let
Vancouver City Council mind

City Council deserves the _ ours.

“cabal. got away with it!

any years ago a good friend of mine made a decision.
M His thinking was that if ‘“‘democracy” was to be
preserved at all, the late Liberal chieftain William Lyon
Mackenzie King should not be permitted to contest the federal
riding of Prince Albert, Sask. unopposed. For the foxy old
chieftain and his following PA was considered a “‘safe seat”
for the Liberals. Hence the reluctance of the Tories and others
to both about it.

But my friend Alfred Cowie Campbell (no relative of
Mayor Tom ‘“‘Terrific’’ Campbell of Vancouver) demonstrated
no such reluctance, so packing his bag with a few well chosen
gripes against liberalism per se and adinfinitum, he hi-tailed it
for Prince Albert, announced his candidacy in and for the seat,
and began the distribution of his bag of literary bon mots
having to do with the ‘‘state of the nation’’ etc., etc., under a
protracted Liberal regime holding down the show in Ottawa.

Across Mr. Campbell’s biting headlines on his platform
was the flaming words, ‘‘Campbell Or Chaos.”’ It was said the
Liberal incumbent himself was impressed, but not to the point
of losing his aplomb — or his ‘‘safe”’ seat. (It may be recalled,
just for the record, that the good old Ontario riding of Grey
County, which W. L. McKenzie King had represented for many
moons, could-no longer be trusted to assure him a nice cosy
seat, hence his migration (with the advice of his colleagues of
course) to the much ‘‘safer”’ locals of Prince Albert.)

And, since at that early date the Liberal chief was wont to
call a seance with the Spooks in the outer world when things got
troublesome, doubtless, these spirits gave him much the same
advice. ‘‘Go West old man, and stay with the country” so to
speak? :
Undoubtedly these and other factors inspired my friend
Campbell in his choice of such a scintillating and yet down-to-
earths slogan— ’’ Campbell or Chaos.”

Of course being such a “‘safe seat’’, Campbell did not win
the election — but the country got ‘‘chaos’’ — and we’ve been
getting it ever since, from the time of McKenzie King and
before, down to the latest Trudeau ‘‘explanation”’ on the FLQ.~

I cite the above events mainly because they help to point
up the incongruous situation which had rapidly developed over
the years in all elections, federal, provincial and civic. At all
levels the ‘‘safe’’ seat idea — a contradiction of the democratic
principle; at all levels the bourgeois nonentity, motivated by
opportunism, hole-in-corner politicking, visions of grandeur or
potential grandeur, with little or no concern for the needs and
welfare of the people, should he (or she) accidentally get
elected.

In the Vancouver civic arena there are now some 104
assorted candidates running for office, NPA ‘‘safe seaters”’
and all. And on this occasion the dangers to democracy are
much greater than in the ‘“‘Campbell Or Chaos”’ era. Now it
could be a continuation of both,— Campbell And Chaos! During
his past regime we have had ample evidence of both, and in the
present set-up there is nothing much to indicate that any
improvement is in sight. y

The lass featured in the picture on the front page of the
current Georgia Straight brandishing an old Ross Rifle, (a

relic of the war scandals of World War 1) in which many young —

Canadians died because their Ross rifle proved useless in
combat, is not going to be very effective in curing what ails
Vancouver, nor is her 20-point ‘program’ featured in the same
paper. But it is no better nor no worse than the programs ofa
good eight-percent of the other aspirants to aldermanic, park
board and /or the mayorality chair.

Since it is now a known fact — or should be, that civic
politics are no longer an entity in themselves: that federal and
provincial issues press in on all municipal affairs, and vice
versa, the urgency of a greater peoples’ unity was never more
apparent than NOW. To elect people who have shown the desire

- — and ability to serve people— the common ordinary people, on

every issue. To date. Big Business has set the stage. called the
shots at City Hall. and with the aid of a pliant aldermanic

The choice is now a City Council dedicated to the peoples’
interests — or more “Campbell And Chaos”! It is just as
simple as that!

Peta ah yo.

brsgwoul

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