Delegations denied right to speak

Continued from page 1
Warnett Kennedy, Helen Boyce and
Doug Little all got up to state that
the 51.7 percent majority that voted
for wards in the plebiscite was ‘‘not
a big enough majority.’’ At one
point a near hysterical Kennedy
waved his finger at Marzari and
Rankin shouting, ‘‘you cheated,
you cheated’? to win the ward
plebiscite.

After voting down Rankin’s mo-
tion, council then approved mayor
Volrich’s governmental review
commission which will be charged
with the responsibility to:

@give ‘‘consideration’’ to the
merits of some form of a ward
system. 5

@consider the size of city coun-
cil.

e@ consider the length of the terms
for councils and the frequency of
elections. :

@ consider qualifications for can-
didates.

@ consider the role and powers of
the mayor. ¢

“‘Nothing but a cheap attempt to
sabotage the ward plebiscite,’’ Har-
court termed the commission.
“There is no such thing as an in-
dependent commission.”’

Vietnam aid
rally Mar 25

The Vietnamese ambassador to
Canada, Tran Tuan Anh, will be
the feature speaker at a giant rally
to raise financial and material aid
for Vietnam, Sunday March 25,
2:00 p.m. at the Queen Elizabeth
Playhouse Theatre.

_ The rally has been called by the
Canadian Aid for Vietnam Civilians
who have called for donations at
the rally.

The ‘‘other issues’’ added by the
mayor are ‘‘nonsense’’, Rankin ad-
ded. ‘‘The only point at issue is the
structure of government—and that
has already been studied and decid-
ed by the voters.’ If the result of
the plebiscite had been reversed, the
NPA’ers would be righteously pro-
claiming, ‘‘the people have
spoken,’’ Rankin said. ‘‘Well, the
people have spoken.”’

The appointees to the ‘‘govern-
mental review commission’”’ are to
be decided later in camera, but a
suggested list of 10 people supplied
by the mayor came under heavy at-
tack from Rankin and Harcourt
who charged that seven out of eight
likely to accept are committed sup-
porters of the at large system.

Volrich’s proposed list of names,
five of which are to be chosen, in-
cluded two senior provincial court
judges, chief justice Alan
McEachern, provincial court judge
Darrell Jones, neither of
whom ‘‘could possibly serve’’ said
Rankin, three former NPA
aldermen, Brian Calder, Halford
Wilson and Marianne Linnell, two
former senior city officials, John
Oliver and Ron Thompson, current
city director of social planning
Maurice Egan, SFU professor and
former Tory candidate Edward
McWhinney and UBC professor
Robert Clarke who has published
papers supporting the at large
system.

“Don’t expect anybody to have
confidence in that list,’? Rankin
said as he described the supposedly
“secret list’? of names.

A later motion by Darlene Mar-
zari that the members of the com-
mission also include representatives
of public interest groups such as the
Board of Trade, the Vancouver
Labor Council and Neighborhood
Services Association was also
defeated by an eight to three vote.

PEOPLE AND ISSUES

In addition to refusing to hear
delegations on the ward issue, coun-
cil also voted not to hear represen-
tation from the Hastings Sunrise
Action Council on the PNE
multiplex and to limit the number
of delegations that can be heard on
appeals for civic grants to six. The
latter decision will effectively block
mass mobilizations such as those of
the past three years in support of
the Downtown Eastside Residents
Association’s appeal.

In yet another controversial and
dictatorial decision, council also
voted to take over the services of
the Downtown Community Health
Society as requested by Socred
health minister Bob McClelland.
Council’s abrupt decision occasion-
ed a scolding from Rankin who lec-
tured the NPA’ers on ‘‘the basics of
democracy.’’ Rankin charged that
the council was ‘“‘taking over’’ a
democratically based community
service for narrow, political reasons
on the strength of a letter from the
province and without any
knowledge of the real issues.
Rankin charged that the allegations
against the Health Society were ‘‘a
tissue of lies’’ that could not be
substantiated.

Council would not miss the op-
portunity to take over the Society,
however, in an attempt to score
political points on DERA and voted

.seven to four to defeat Rankin’s

motion to defer the matter to com-
mittee for investigation, and then
eight to three to take over the ser-
vices.

“One of the blackest days for
democracy in Vancouver’s
history,’” COPE president Bruce
Yorke described council’s actions

after a COPE executive meeting -

'. Wednesday morning. The executive

decided ‘‘that the widest possible
publicity be given to the specific ac-
tions taken by the NPA council.

hey were incredible enough at the time, but in

light of the reports last week about RCMP inter-
rogation of members of the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, the statements last month by Burnaby
RCMP sergeant Paul Starek are even more astoun-
ding. He told a press wire reporter that the policy of
the RCMP “‘is to lessen labor tension, not to en-
courage it”’ and added “‘We are tryng to end the 1930’s
distrust of the police ...”’ :

Readers will be forgiven if they find it difficult to
reconcile those comments with the fact that more than
a year ago, the chief of RCMP intelligence admitted
that various union leaders had been made targets of
surveillance. Those who were involved in the Lenkurt
strike who saw the RCMP activities right in Starek’s
own bailiwick will also be less than convinced. But
what is perhaps more ominous is the increasing ap-
pearance — both overtly and covertly according to in-
telligence parlance — of the RCMP around the labor
movement.

Starek’s remarks, in fact, were in response to a
directive issued to CUPE staff members from Grace
Hartman, president of the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, instructing them to avoid any contacts
with the RCMP, especially where such contacts ‘‘could
be used as a source of information for the RCMP.’’

Hartman’s directive was, in turn, prompted by
reports from the union office in Toronto where the
RCMP paid a visit, and from a union Christmas party
where, we’ve since learned, the RCMP showed up with
officers from two public employees’ unions.

Just what kind of a role the RCMP continues to play
in relation to the labor movement can be seen in the
post office. There, employees have often been con-
fronted by the post offices own Security and Investiga-
tion Brartch officers with information about their past
records — based on details that could only come from
sophisticated files, such as those kept by the RCMP.
And S and I information seems to have been involved,
according to postal workers, in the RCMP decision as
to what people would be ‘“‘visited’’ and questioned
about the CUPW strike last October.

In issuing her directive, Hartman said, ‘‘I don’t feel
that with their past record and history, the RCMP is
compatible with a trade union.”’

That record hasn’t changed — in fact, given the list
of illegal entries and other surreptitious activities ad-
mitted by the RCMP before the McDonald Commis-

sion, there’s more reason fo: distrust than in the

1930’s. At least then the Mounties didn’t have elec-

tronic bugs.
* * *

| ee Fishermen and Allied Workers Union secre-

tary George Hewison is very likely as well known
around the labor movement as a singer as he is a trade
union spokesman, but it may soon be that his and his
wife Janet’s three children will upstage him.

The three — twin sons Ross and Tim and daughter
Leah aged ten and eight respectively — have already
had a number of appearances, with their father George
as back-up, performing, among other places, at the
Christmas party for the B.C. Government Employees
Union. And last Sunday, they stole the show at the an-
nual Congress of Canadian Women’s International
Women’s Day celebration at the PNE B.C. Building
theatre. ;

Their picture appears on page 10.

* * *

Iso on page 10, readers will find a new feature—

Economic Facts — which comes to us from the
economists at the Trade Union Research Bureau, Emil
Bjarnason and David Fairey. The first piece, exposing
the real purpose of Bennett’s free share program,
begins the series and we will carry it as a weekly
feature. Other labor papers will also be receiving the
articles regularly.

There has long been a need for popular material
reflecting the Bureau’s research work and we hope
readers will find it informative — and useful.

* * *

j\or those subscribers to whom the late-arriving
Tribune was becoming more of an historical docu-
ment than a newspaper, we hope that the scheduling
changes which we instituted last week will bring some
results.

Problems with press scheduling and congestion in
the post office at week’s end created much of the pro-
blem and, in an effort to overcome it, we’ve moved
our editorial deadline back several hours. We hope
that by printing and mailing half a day earlier, readers
will get their paper a day or more earlier — perhaps as
soon as Friday in the Vancouver area.

Reports so far have been encouraging but if your
paper isn’t coming any earlier — or if it’s later than
usual — give us a call. And our thanks for your pa-
tience.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 16, 1979—Page 2

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An artists conception of what the Trade and Convention Centre

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may look like, for as yet there are no real plans. The CPR presently

holds a 20 year lease on Pier BC,

site of the centre, and is deman-

ding $10 million from the city just to give up the lease. Its nothing
short of a hold up, however, as the Pier’s full assessed value is only

$6 million.

City subsidizing CPR
on convention centre

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

When the present NPA
dominated city council reversed the
decisions of last year’s council
regarding the building of a Trade
and Convention Centre on .Pier
B.C., it didn’t tell the citizens that
this was only the first phase of a
much larger development plan for
the whole central waterfront area
stretching from the Bayshore Inn to
Burrard Street.

Business interests and their NPA
spokesmen in Council not only
want the three levels of government
to build a $26 million tax free Trade
and Convention Centre for them, to
which they won’t contribute a
nickel, not even for taxes or
operating expenses. They also want
the National Harbours Board to
build a Cruise Ship facility for them
free of charge.

On top of that private developers
want to build a big hotel next to the
Trade and Convention Centre,
while the CPR (Marathon Realty)
wants to build a big commercial

facility over its tracks that will in-

clude a hotel, office space and other
commercial buildings. The whole
development would cost upwards of
over $130,000,000.

But that still isn’t all. The private
developers, with the CPR in the
lead, are demanding that. public’
money be used to subsidize these
private developments by providing
parking space. and other public
space and facilities.

Furthermore these private
developers are now demanding that
density rates for the area be doubl-
ed, which would enable them to
build a wall of high rises on the
waterfront. z

This plan was endorsed in princi-
ple by city council on March 6. On-
ly Darlene Marzari and I voted
against it.

I made my opposition clear on at
least two grounds.

The first was that public money is
being used to subsidize rich private
developers at a time when the NPA
city council is claiming that it stands
for fiscal responsibility. These sub-
sidies. to the CPR are completely
unjustified and completely ir-
responsible. .The CPR, which has
lived like a leech on Vancouver ever

since its birth, wants still more of
our financial life-blood. And this
NPA-CPR dominated council is
quite willing to act as a collection
agency for the CPR, transferring
your tax. dollars from your pockets.
to the CPR. ro
(On the other hand city council at"
the same meeting after agreeing to
subsidize the CPR by several
millions of dollars turned down my
motion to give the Downtown
Eastside Residents Association
(DERA) a grant of a few thousand

' dollars to carry on its work among ~

the poor and handicapped in the
downtown area.) :
The second reason I opposed this
plan, and especially the increase in
the permissible density, is that it will
result in a wall of buildings that will
completely shut off the view of the
waterfront. That view would be
restricted to the business people
who use the hotels and the Trade
and Convention Centre. As for the
public, the CPR couldn’t care less.
It’s another case of the same old

con game. When developers first
present their plans, they portray
them as making all sorts of wonder-
ful views and facilities available to
the public. But when they get down
to the nitty-gritty of development,
these public amenities are quickly
eliminated.

COPE raps VSB
scab contracts —

The education committee of the
‘Committee of Progressive Electors
this week blasted the Vancouver
School Board for awarding con-
tracts to non union cartage com-
panies and breaking long standing
practice of using union labor for
VSB work.

The VSB action ‘‘supports
Socred right to work initiatives’
and can only lead to confrontation
with employees, COPE education
committee chairperson Dr. Pauline
Weinstein said.

COPE. called on the VSB to
reconsider its decision ‘‘and not risk.
jeopardizing even more its relation-
ship with the labor movement.”’

i he Cee ee