BRITISH COLUMBIA

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B.C. Place used to smuggle
in freeway plan for region

‘If B.C. Place, Premier Ben-
nett’s grandiose monument to
himself, goes ahead as planned,
Vancouver will become a city of
freeways. That much is already
clear.

Present plans for this
developement on the north
shore of False Creek include a
60,000 seat stadium (already
under construction) 6% million
square feet of office and com-
mercial space, a huge high den-
sity 10,0000 unit luxury housing
project and a new bridge across
False Creek. There could be
much more. Because provincial
government projects within the
city ‘do not, by law, require the

city’s approval, the detailed
oe for the whole. develop-
ment are being kept a close
secret by the provincial
cabinet. And this is done in
spite of the fact that the project
will have a profound effect on
the city’s future.

If these plans for B.C. Place
go through, the population of
the already overcrowded
downtown peninsula area will
increase by several tens of
thousands, as will the number of
cars using downtown streets. It
is already estimated that an ad-
ditional 30,000 people a day will
commute to the downtown
area.

The only solution, we are
already being told, is to build a
freeway system in the
downtown area. Only they’re
not calling. it..that.
feeeways has Decome:.a~dirty
eight letter word, they’re now
being called a ‘‘roadway

system”.
Then the NPA will get what it

~ Since..

has always wanted — a freeway
system criss-crossing our city.
That’s what it tried to introduce
10 years ago. But the opposition
of citizens, led by COPE, was so
strong that the NPA went down
to defeat in 1972, replaced at
that time by TEAM. The NPA
is today a minority on council
but it is in cahoots with the pro-
vincial government in its plans

- Harry
Rankin.

to smuggle in freeways once
more. :

No one can argue that the
north shore of False Creek
shouldn’t be developed. But

Vancouver needs the kind of —

project planned by Victoria like
it needs a hole in the head.

For one thing the stadium is
in the wrong place. There
couldn’t bea worse possible site.
‘Building this stadium in an area
without the necessary roads and
parking to handle the traffic is
the height of stupidity. A
stadium of this kind should be a
regional responsibility, located
somewhere else that the
downtown or the PNE. The
stadium imperils the whole con-
cept of keeping our city free of a
disastrous and ugly freeway
system:..:

e Vancouver doesn’t need the.

additional office space either.
The downtown area today has
more than enough vacancies.

And we certainly don’t need.

Indian woman
had hip broken

any more luxury high priced
housing — there’s no shortage
of that either. The high density
we will get on the North Shore
of False Creek, if present plans

during eviction

go through, will make our over-
crowded West End look like ur-

ban sprawl.

This collosal 200 acre
development, the largest inner
city development ever under-

taken by any major Canadian
city, will be a nightmare for
Nancouver. It is all wrong. We
should bring all the pressure we
can on Victoria to stop it before
it is too late. At this stage, the
only solution is some ruthless
- cutbacks and some drastic

modifications.

The office and commercial
space should be cut by at least
two thirds. The luxury housing
idea should be scrapped and
replaced by affordable housing
for the people who work
downtown. A big forty acre

Marceline Manuel, one of the 53
“Concerned Aboriginal. Women’’
forcibly removed from an eight-
day peaceful occupation of the
department of Indian affairs of-
fices in Vancouver, announced she
was contemplating taking legal ac-
tion Tues.

her wheelchair in St. Paul’s
hospital, Manuel, 50, charged that
the pin in her hip - placed there
from previous hip operations - had
been broken when four of the 60
Vancouver police officers present
“rough handled’’ her out of the
DIA offices.

When asked who she was con-—
sidering laying a suit against, she in-
dicated that she ‘‘held DIA
regional director Fred Walchli
responsible because we were on our
way to negotiations with the DIA
and he blocked them.”’

(Prior to their eviction, the

* women had spent a six hour session
with liberal Senator Ray Perrault,
listing a whole range of grievances
about corruption in the department
and the adverse affect it was having

park should be established in the on the reserves, expressing their
area to serve the people who live hope that he would relay their
in or shop in our already over- message on to federal Indian af-
crowded downtown area. fairs minister John Munro.)

We mustn’t allow any
freeways to be built. The em-
phasis must be on rapid poke

transit. -“~

The danger signals are up.
We must act and act fast if we’re
to save our city from the

freeway promoters.

Terri Williams, spokesperson
for ‘‘Concerned Aboriginal
- Women,”’ added that the ‘‘direc-
tion for the removal of unarmed
aboriginal women, children and
elders by a $60,000 law enforce-
ment team came from the DIA.
‘‘However, we are dealing not
only with Walchli but with the

Bruce Yorke is deputy mayor of Van-
couver and among
his special duties this month will be as host,
with mayor Mike Harcourt and the rest of
Vancouver city council, to the week long visit
to Vancouver by three representatives of Van-
couver’s Soviet sister city of Odessa.

The Odessa delegation, headed by the

Odessa city council, that is, the mayor,

worker who is also a member of the Supreme
Soviet of the USSR, Tamara Dudnik, and a
— at the meas sage of Oke, Ivan

~'Raeir visit, here beainning August 17 is in
response to the Vancouver delegation headed
by then mayor Jack Volrich to Odessa three
years ago, and it raises to a new level the sister
city relationship between Vancouver and
Odessa forged during the second world war.

Contrary to the suggestion of some in the
media that the delegation will bé a controver-
sial one, fraught with problems, there has
been, so far, an overwhelming response to the
visit and city officials haven’t been able to ac-
comodate in the jammed itinerary all of the
groups who wanted to share in hosting the
Soviets. :

City council was near unanimous in agree-
ing to the preparations; the sole exception be-
ing a — Warnett Kennedy who
mumbled about Afghanistan only
sharply reprimanded by his fellow NPA’ers
Helen Boyce and George Puil.

Tuesday, Aug. 18 the visit will be officially
kicked off at a reception at city hall when the

tour city facilities and cruise the waterfront,

Se oe

chairman of the executive committee of the ,
Anatoliy Malykhin, will also include a factory

Library Board.
The following days will have the delegation —

and travel to Victoria where they will be
received by the provincial government and the
NDP. They will be back in Vancouver Satur-
day Aug. 22 to help officiate the annual PNE
parade before being sent off at an official civic
dinner. During the visit the group will be
hosted by the PNE, Transpo, Britannia Com-
munity Services Centre, Vancouver Indian
Centre and the B.C. Federation of Labor.
Sunday, Aug. 23 the delegation will be
hosted by the Canada-USSR Friendship
Association which is sponsoring a banquet
that evening advertised elsewhere in this
Tribune. If any of our readers would like to

meet the Soviets, the Friendship Association

banquet is the best place to be introduced.
** *

| Rate ip ihe ates Jelicich
Lahti walked out of the People’s Co-Op
Bookstore last Saturday to begin a vacation
on Vancouver Island, for the beginning of a
well deserved rest marked the end of a 15 year

term as manager of the bookstore which’

B.C.’s progressive movement considers its
own.

The life of a progressive bookstore in North
America is always problem filled, and it is

all kinds have been forced to bow before
economic pressures.

Ozzie is leaving the store not because of its
health, but for his own. Several years ago he

underwent a massive open heart surgery and

has since operated with the help of a pacer.
For many years he threw himself into his
work, against all better advice, and carried a
workload that would tire the healthiest of
men. But in recent months it has become clear
to Ozzie and his doctors that it could not con-
tinue.

. or $1.08 per share, compared with

in providing the feature material on pages 3-6.

The new team at the bookstore is headed by
Ozzie’s former assistant Dan Keaton who has
taken over managerial duties.Dan, 34 years
old, is joined by 24 year old Ray Viaud, who
began working at the store this week. As
always, there is more work than enough at the
store and the first utterances heard from the
new manager was a call for volunteers to help
out in the store’s annual clean up and at the
PNE where the Co-Op plans to sell a pile of
progressive titles.

As for Ozzie, he is resting with no im-
mediate plans for the future.

* * &

ithout the pages usually provided to us by

the Canadian Tribune this week we are
without our regular report on business, ‘“‘pro-
fiteer of the week.”’

Nevertheless, the timely publication: of the
profit figures of B.C. Telephone Co. for the
first six months of 1981 deserve wide atten-
tion. Remember, this is the company which is
demanding a second rate increase in six mon-
ths of 15percent for residential phones, and 20
percent on business phones. And they want
further increases next May-of 25 percent and
35 percent.

The official figures, borrowed from that.
other ‘‘Report on Business”, are: profit for the
*six months ended June 30, 1981, $32,940,000

$24,281,000 or 80 cents a share a year earlier.
The profit increase is attributed to the higher
telephone rates implemented in February.

he reason for the absence of our national.
and international news pages from the
Canadian Tribune this week is not due to the
postal strike. Like us, the Canadian Tribune
shuts down for two weeks each summer. Ac-
cordingly, weare grateful to the San Francisco
based People’s World for their assistance to us

At a press conference held from-

- Native Womens’

‘ only to create jobs for themselves.

Vancouver police. We are still
discussing the details of the suit
with our lawyers,’’ she said.

Manuel called the incident which
resulted in her undergoing a painful _
hip operation, ‘‘a prime example of
the oppressive treatment shown to
my people through the department
of Indian affairs.

“‘We came as a group of con-
cerned aboriginal women, on our
own, at our own expense to express
our grievances to the department of
Indian affairs and to attempt to —
negotiate possible solutions with
the federal minister of Indian af-
fairs, John Munro. @

‘‘And this is the disrespect that
they show to our elders, to our
women and children, by arresting
us and charging us with mischief.’’

Separate trial dates for the 53
women are being set over the next »
two week period. It is estimated
that the trials willast a day each, -
and because of the backlog in pro-
vincial courts, they won’t get under
way until another six months.

Manuel noted that the group had —
been receiving support from many
groups and organizations across —
the province including the Union of ©
B.C. Indian Chiefs, the United —
Native Nations, the Professional —
Society and
others.

Supporters are also being asked
to send telexes to Munro and prime —
minister Trudeau asking that the
charges against the women be
dropped, because, according to —
Williams, ‘‘it’s a political not a-
criminal matter.”’

Frustration with the DIA spilled
over into much of what Manuel
said. She accused the civil servants
in the department ‘‘of being there

“They are not servicing our peo-
ple, they arenot helping with the in-
dependence of our people, an
therefore they are creating the op-
pression of our people.

‘“What we are saying now is that
we want control over our own
lives.”” She went on: ‘‘The system
today treats us as criminals and yet
the courts cannot solve the pro-
blems that we are forced to live —
with.’ Manuel reiterated the
group’s demands for the dismissal
of Fred Walchli and a meeting
with Munro, “here, i in B.C. where
the problem is.’

She also repeated their call for an
independent, public inquiry into
the department of Indian affairs.

Contrary to last week’s article in
the Tribune, the decision to carry
through with a sit-in of the DIA of-
fices did not stem from a ‘‘pow-
wow’’ held in Lillooet after people —
had returned from the Constitution

Express.

“JRIBUNE

Editor:

SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor:
FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation
Manager:

PAT O'CONNOR
Published weekly at Suite 101— 1416
Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C.
VEL 3X9. Phone 251-1186
Subscription Rate: Canada $12 one
yr.; $7 for six months. All other
countries, $15 one year.

Second class mail registration
number 1560.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUG. 7, 1981—Page 2

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