DERA faces cut in staff
as council slashes grant

Vancouver city council this week
developed a new strategy to blunt
the criticism of the Downtown
Eastside Residents’ Association by
voting to reduce DERA’s city grant
from $36,000 to $12,000 for 1978.
The move to cut DERA’s paid

staff from three to one was

sponsored by the TEAM majority
on council over the opposition of
aldermen Rankin, Harcourt and
Marzari.

“They can’t say that their op-
posed to DERA anymore,”’ DERA
vice president Libby Davies ex-
plained to the Tribune Wednesday.
“So they have given us token
support and token financial
backing, which they know will

make it difficult for us to maintain
our activities.”

Council’s refusal to grant funds
for three salaries was motivated
by their fear that DERA president
Bruce Eriksen would be elected in
the 1978 civic election. At one point
alderman Don Bellamy attempted

to make the grant conditional on
the guarantee that Eriksen would
be excluded from the paid salary
positions. When Bellamy’s motion
failed, the TEAM members opted
to reduce the grant to one salary.

The right wing majority on
council are hopeful that the token
support for DERA will make it
difficult to mobilize the community
support that last year won an
appeal for DERA.

DERA will appeal the grant,
Davies said Wednesday, and it is
confident that the same support
will be behind them again this
year.

An ironic twist on the. debate
over DERA funding came in the
evening session of council when
DERA presented its arguments in
favor of cleaning up slum housing
in the downtown ‘eastside. Right
wing alderman Bernice Gerrard,
a vehement opponent of DERA,
lauded the presentation and
suggested that DERA officials —

and COPE candidates — Libby
Davies and Jean Swanson be hired
by the city as social planners.

DERA wants council to enforce
standards of maintenance bylaws
and begin to close slum rooming
houses on a ‘“‘one chance is
enough” basis, where matters of
sanitation and light are involved.

City health inspector Bonham
argued against DERA’s recom-
mendations on the premise that if
the city moved against the
slumlords, a majority of the
housing accommodation would be
lost.

‘“‘We say he’s wrong,’ DERA
secretary Jean Swanson told
council, ‘‘Most of the real filth in
these places could be cleaned up by
one person working for a week or
less. We doubt seriously whether
any owner will allow closure for
failure to comply with this bylaw.
You all remember how the lan-
dlords screamed at the fire bylaw,
but 90 percent of them did com-

ply.”

EUNICE PARKER

HARRY RANKIN

School taxes meet set.

The five mill increases in school
taxes for Vancouver property
owners will be the subject of a
public meeting March 22 sponsored
by the Committee of Progressive
Electors.

‘“What’s Up? School Taxes!”’ is
the title: of the public meeting
aimed at explaining the tax in-
creases and rallying public support
for a demand that the provincial

government back off the tax hike. |

COPE education committee
chairwoman and school board
candidate Dr. Pauline Weinstein
will chair a panel discussion on the

Alternate park sites available

Jobs should be first priority at Granville Island

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

What’s more important — jobs or
grass? That’s one of the issues city
council is faced with in making a
decision on the direction of re-
development of Granville Island.

The federal authorities, through
a body called the Granville Island
Trustees, have come up with plans
for the redevelopment of Granville
Island aimed at making it a tourist
and commercial centre, for the
benefit of business interests, of
course.

City authorities are worried that
any new businesses starting up in
Granville Island will be in com-

businesses in the downtown area.

City manager Fritz Bowers,
reflecting the concerns of these
downtown business interests, on
February 3, presented a report to
city council highly critical of the
plans proposed by the federal
authorities. The feds have
proposed, for example, that

Morrison Steel and Wire which’

occupies an area in the south east
section of the Island, just south of
Cartwright Street, be allowed to
remain and that its lease, which
expires in 1982, be renewed.

On the other hand, others want
Morrison Steel kicked out and want

public park.

The Marine Workers and

Boilermakers Industrial Union,

which represents the ap-
proximately 50 workers in this
plant, has taken a strong exception
to the demand of the city manager.

“Our members don’t want to be
left sitting on a nice grassy lawn

unemployed,’’ said union president -
Jeff Power. We haven’t yet learned’

to live on grass, green or other-
wise. Our jobs are more important
to us than another park, desirable
as that may be.”

The union also points out that for
the authorities to force the closing

comprehensible. It notes that
we’ve been in an economic dep-
ression now for three years and
there is still no sign of an economic
up-turn. “‘What’s the point of
talking about the need for secon-
dary job-intensive manufacturing
industries if we’re going to close
down the ones we already have?’
it asks.

My stand too is that while we all
enjoy parks, jobs at this time are
more important than another park.
Furthermore, there are other
areas on Granville Island than can
be used for park purposes without

tax hike between COPE alderman |

Harry Rankin, Vancouver Labor
Council president Syd Thompson,

Vancouver School Board trustee

David Pratt, Coquitlam School
Board chairwoman _ Eunice
Parker, COPE school board
candidate Wes Knapp and B.C.
Teachers’ Federation represen-
tative Norm Ornes.

The meeting begins at 8:00 p.m.
at the Charles Tupper Secondary
School, 419 East 24th Avenue,
Vancouver,

Tenants backed

The Grandview Tenants’
Association won the backing of
Vancouver city council’s com-
munity services committee last
week in its bid to win continued
funding for its Tenants’ Advisory
Counselling Service (TACS) office.

Both the GTA’s and the West End
Tenants’ TACS offices — the only
tenant advocate services in the
province — will be shut down

March 31 by the Department of |

Human Resources, apparently by
the direct order of minister Bill
Vander Zalm.

If city council agrees with the
community services committee on
March 21 it will make direct
representation to Vander Zalm on
behalf of the tenants.

The GTA has called the closure
“political”? and has appealed to

petition with and hurt existing

month ago, trade unionists in this province were

compelled. to speak out in repudiation of the remarks
made by Canadian Labor Congress secretary Donald.
Montgomery who had suggested during a CLC conference
speech that jobs could not be jeopardized by environmental
concerns. But now, as recent events. have demonstrated, we
have only begun to see how twisted the ‘‘jobs or en-
vironment” question can become when it is posed by those
who have vested business interest to promote.

The latest case involves the Cowichan estuary on
Vancouver Island, an area of immense importance to both
the salmon and herring fisheries and, until the defeat of the
NDP government in 1975, an area protected from increased
industrial development under the recommendations of a
task force.

In recent months, however, Doman Lumber Industries,
which already has industry in the area, has proposed fur-
ther expansion. Inevitably, the rumor has grown that the
company might pull out if environmental demands result in

its plans being thwarted.

In addition, application has been made for a pulp mill
on reclaimed land in the area and for a cedar shake mill —
all plans which would entail extensive dredging and in-
filling.

Yet the campaign to sacrifice the vital estuary in the
interest of industrial development has already begun and
local developers have stopped at little in their bid to get
what they want. Already an “action group”, representing
mainly real estate interests, has launched a phony ‘Jobs
Now” campaign, labelling those concerned with the en-
vironment as ‘“‘emotional” and “standing in the way of
progress.”’

But the tipoff comes with the economic development
committee of the local chamber of commerce which
reportedly has spent $3,000 on a series of ads to publicize a
public meeting, supposedly called to discuss the jobless
situation.

Who is the chairman of the committee? Why, he’s the
local Social Credit party president. And among his business
connections is his association with a 1,200-lot subdivision in _
oe area.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 17, 1978— fae 23

that whole area turned into a

down of this plant in in-

PEOPLE AND ISSUES

ore than once, prime minister Trudeau has accused

Quebec premier Rene Levesque of trying to isolate
French Canada from Canada and from the rest of the world,
but when it comes to international contacts in the interests
of peace and friendship, the Parti Quebecois government is
light years ahead of its counterpart in Ottawa.

Susan Radosevic, publicity committee chairwoman for
the World Youth Festival Committee, tells us that the
Levesque government has lent considerable support to the
Quebec Festival Committee — and really tangible support
at that. The government, in addition to meeting the ex-
penses incurred by the committee in carrying out its
preparatory work, will pay the travel expenses —
estimated at some $500 — for every Quebec delegate at-
tending the World Youth Festival which is slated to take
place in Havana, Cuba from July 28 to August 5.

But from the federal government? Not a penny. After
some delay, the committee received a reply to its requests
for financial assistance — the Trudeau government stated
simply that there would be no money for the committee or
for delegates.

Of course, the PQ government decision in Quebec
probably had a lot to do with the immense popular support
enjoyed by the festival in that province. In addition to the
Quebec Association of Students (ANEQ), all three trade
union centres, the Quebec Federation of Labor, the Con-
federation of National Trade Unions and the Quebec
Teachers’ Corporation, have endorsed the festival com-
mittee. And Quebec expects to send upwards of 80 delegates
to Havana.

se *

‘enote by the latest issue of the Waterfront News, issued

‘by the Canadian Area of the International
Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, that Emil
Bjarnason, whose incisive articles on economic issues are
familiar to Tribune readers, has just had bestowed upon
him an honorary membership in the ILWU — an honor
reserved for a deserving few.

For a number of years, Emil has given considerable
assistance to the ILWU in its pension plans, _Contract
negotiations and many other areas.

r, Emil told the

closing down a plant of this kind. to Vander Zalm.

supporters to write protest letters

convention which accorded him the honors, ‘We find _

ourselves in an economic situation . . . with the indicators
pointing to more inflation, more unemployment and more
debt.

“The only thing you can do about it, as.long as the
present government is there,’’ he said, ‘‘. . . is for the
labor movement to use all of its united ed strength to demand a
change in government policies .

s* &

) eaders may remember from January, 1976, a cartoon in
our pages drawn by cartoonist Linda Chobotuck which
showed staff writer Fred Wilson sitting before his
typewriter with a cobweb-covered dictionary beside him,
The cartoon was one of several Linda drew to mark the
occasion when Wilson left for Toronto to take up the position
of general secretary of the Young Communist League.
Much has taken place since that time: Fred is back at

‘the typewriter, he has a new dictionary — without cobwebs

—and Linda Chobotuck has now compiled several dozen of
her cartoons into a book, just published by the Peak, the
Simon Fraser University newspaper for which most of
them were originally drawn.

Entitled Snafu Review — the ‘“‘Snafu” being the name
with which SFU was dubbed practically from the begining
— the collection is centred on student issues but even those
outside the university can appreciate the wit. For a dollar-
and-a-half you can get a copy from the People’ s—Co-op
Bookstore at 353 West Pender or, if you’re up at the.
university, from the bookstore there.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR -

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. VSL 3X9 Phone 251-1186

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