peach Lak

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Rally hits
threat to
abortion

About 800 people marched
and rallied in a labor-sponsored
action Saturday for the right of
women to safe, legal abortions
and the removal of all anti-
abortion laws from the Cana-
dian Criminal Code.

The demonstrators, who
backed that commitment with a
variety of songs and chants,
moved from the Queen
Elizabeth Plaza along Georgia,
Granville and Burrard Streets to
rally at the Hotel Vancouver
Ballroom. The marchers
sported banners from several
women’s groups, local unions
and the B.C. Federation of
Labor.

A key theme of the
demonstration — organized by
18 women’s groups following a
decision at a B.C. Federation of
Women conference last fall —
was the threat to current laws
allowing limited access to legal
abortion by anti-abortionist
Joseph Borowski.

““(What) we are now facing,
is that in 1983, a women obtain-
ing an abortion could be pro-
secuted for murder. . . in 1983
some forms of birth control
could be illegal,’’ warned Marva
Blackmore, a member of the
organizing coalition and the
Concerned Citizens for Choice
on Abortion warned.

Other speakers also em-

i the importance of the
upcoming legal battle over
Borowski’s challenge to Section
251 of the Criminal Code. The
anti-abortionist received a
Supreme Court ruling last
December allowing him to seek
the removal of the 1969 amend-
men allowing legal abortion for
health or psychological con-
siderations.

Speakers Debbie Holland of
the B.C. Federation of Women
and the B.C. Federation of
Labor’s Linda Rolufs said that
poor and working class women
are hit hardest by anti-abortion
legislation. Women are forced
to bear unwanted children while
governments cut back on social
services such as welfare and
ULC maternity benefits, they
charged.

Women must have “‘univer-
sal, free, legal access’’ to abor-
tion and birth control devices,
said Vancouver East NDP MP
Margaret Mitchell. She called
for the establishment of com-
munity health clinics, increased
support services to families and
24-hour daycare.

International abortion rights
activist Megan Ellis gave a
round-up of actions and abor-
tion legislation in European
countries and called for an end
to the forced sterilization of
black, third world and native
women.

Dr. Carol Herbert of Van-
couver’s Reach medical clinic
said her 12 years of practice has
been ‘‘enough time to see wo-

“The alternative is not the
elimination of abortion. The
alternative is illegal and
dangerous abortions. Illegal
abortions have always existed
where legal abortions are. not
available,’’ Blackmore
declared.

men die from a lack of choice.’

The population of our pro-
with it the demand for health care

hospital beds for some years now.
No less than 12,000 people are
waiting for elective surgery. Some
of these cases will become acute,
and some will die. Hundreds are
on the urgent list for operations
they cannot get. Some doctors
estimate that 15 percent of these
will die because their cases have
become acute and they cannot
wait any longer.

So what does the government
do to meet this urgent and grow-
ing need for health and hospital
care? Build more hospitals? Buy
more medical equipment? In-

needed for operations?

Not on your life! It’s doing just
the opposite.

Already 1,114 hospital beds
have been closed down and 2,018

have been laid off.

scheduled. At a time when infla-
tion is running at over 12 percent

vince is steadily increasing and ‘

is growing. We have been short of

crease the size of the support staff

nurses and other hospital staff

More closures and layoffs are

in B.C. and equipment costs have
gone up as much as 30 percent
and more, the provincial govern-
ment is increasing hospital bud-
gets by less than eight percent.

Not only that. It is offering a
bribe of $20,000 cash to hospitals
for every acute bed they close! It is

Harry

Rankin

instructing hospitals to increase
their daily bed rates and emergen-
cy rates, if they want more
money. It has instructed them
that they may transfer funds from
salaries to equipment but they
may not transfer any equipment
funds to hire more staff to take
care of patients.

To say that the provincial
cabinet headed by premier Ben-
nett is heartless and callous would

Socreds are bleeding health care

bean understatement. All citizens
have a right to health care but this
freedom and right is being taken
away from us by the government
in Victoria. «.

And there’s‘no need for these
cuts. The money is there. It’s alla
question of priorities. Premier
Bennett and his cabinet believe it

is more important to build a
stadium, to build B.C. Place, to
build facilities for Expo ’86, to
subsidize the export of coal to
Japan to the tune of $1 billion
than to provide health care for .
our citizens. These corporate
mega-projects will make a lot of
the government’s friends a lot
richer and of course that’s more
important than health care. So
the government is bleeding the

- too good a word to describe their

health system to provide profits
for its corporate backers. In the
process it is destroying medicare,
and that has been its intention all
along.

_ To add insult to injury the
government is going to undertake
an expensive media propaganda
campaign, to ‘‘remind the public
of their responsibility to use

hospital services wisely . . .,’’ to
“‘reduce the public’s expectations
of the health care system.’ _

What an insult. They have the
gall to blame us for the situation
they have created. Hypocrisy is

attitude. :
What can citizens do about it?

Write the government and let
them know how concerned and
angry you are. Take it up in your.
organization, pass a strong
resolution and send it to the
government. Circulate a petition
among your neighbours or the
people you work with.

Medicare and health care
belong to the people. Don’t let
them take it away from you.

City continues push

Vancouver city council decided
Tuesday to press its petition with
Victoria for a ward system despite
the continued opposition of
municipal affairs minister Bill
Vander Zalm.

The 7-4 decision effectively ig-
nores a May 4 letter from Vander
Zalm rejecting an earlier council re-
guest and stipulating that another
civic referendum be held on the
question, even though Vancouver
voters approved a ward system ina
1978 plebiscite.

Councillors Bruce Eriksen and
Bruce Yorke, of the Committee of
Progressive Electors, said that if
the municipal affairs minister and
his fellow cabinet ministers con-
tinue to ignore the wishes of the ci-
ty’s council and voters, it would be
at the peril of the Social Credit in
the next provincial election.

Aldermen from COPE and the
Electors Action Movement
(TEAM), along with mayor
Michael Harcourt formed the ma-
jority at the Apr. 27 council
meeting in voting to request
changes to the city charter allowing
for a ten-ward system in time for
the November civic elections. The
decision followed weeks of public
hearings by a council committee in
which citizens and community
groups overwhelmingly urged an
end to the current ‘‘at large’
system.

But in his letter to council

Vander Zalm said wards would on-
ly be allowed if Vancouver voters
approved it by a three-fifths major-
ity in another referendum. Further,
the referendum wording must be
approved by the minister and ward
boundaries could only be set by
someone appointed by the minister
and council with provisions for
review of the boundaries, Vander
Zalm stated.

Vander Zalm said the stipula-
tions were consistent with re-
quirements in a new version of the
Municipal Act, which the minister
has yet to introduce into the
legislature.

Harcourt responded angrily,
saying the minister’s letter reveal-
ed ‘‘a deliberate plot by the Social
Credit Caucus and their farm
team, the NPA (Non-Partisan
Association) members on
council.’’

In a report to Tuesday’s meeting

ecity legal services director John

Mulberry said Vander Zalm’s posi-
tion is a reversal of 100 years of
practice whereby Vancouver has
sought changes to its charter direct-
ly from the provincial legislature.
The minister is now saying govern-
ment approval is needed, Mulberry
said.
Additionally, the ‘‘logical con-
clusion”’ of Vander Zalm’s letter is
the abolition of the Vancouver
Charter, which would bring the city
under the Municipal Act from
which it has been exempt.

Action on cuts urged

Continued from page 1

throughout the province,” the
motion states.

Yorke’s other motion calls on
the city to monitor the anticipated
effects of budget cuts to the city’s
home care:program. The COPE
alderman points to “‘great anxiety
in the public and among the medi-
cal profession generally regarding
a possible erosion of health carein
the city.” City council is urged to
“direct our medical health officer
to prepare an overview report for
council at the earliest possible
time, such an overview to include

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 14, 1982—Page 2

a set of recommendations for

possible action.”

Yorke submitted his motions
following meetings with hospital
employees unions and health offi-

-cials during the past week.

Action on the part of citizens or
community groups continues to
be an unknown factor at this
date. But the Tribune has received
reports that Tesidents in several
provincial municipalities, who
are members of their local hospi-
tal society, will be pressing their
boards to hold special emergency
membership meetings to discuss
action on the Socred cuts.

Pe ae ee

for ward system

Mulberry warned that this
would be, ‘‘in my opinion, con-
trary to the interests of the city’’
with “‘many far-reaching and
adverse consequences’’,

The decision to forge ahead is
the latest volly fired in a four-year
battle for wards following the 1978
plebiscite which saw 51 percent of
Vancouver voters approve wards.
The NPA dominated council of
that day refused to apply for the
necessary Charter amendments,

and it wasn’t until a more pro
gressive council was elected in 1980,
that this was done.
But the Socred-dominated
Private Bills Committee rejected
the requests last spring on the
grounds that more information|
was needed to indicate elector ap-
proval. The city subsequently spent
thousands of dollars.in city-wide
public hearings only to have the
results rejected by Vander Zalm in
his May 4 letter.

Are you interested in

SCHOOL AFFAIRS
IN VANCOUVER?

If so, why not attend the next meeting of the Vancouver
; School Board?

Monday, May 17, at 7 p.m.
at General Brock Elementary School
4860 Main Street

Public question period at 9 p.m.

COME

May

Swangard Stadium.

VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD

We‘re proud of our Vancouver schools
and invite you to visit them during. . . |

Education Week

Vancouver schools are open to visits anytime during regular school
hours from May 17-21 — with the following exception. Secondary
schools will not be open to visits on Wednesday, May 19, as this is :
the date of the Secondary Schools’ Games being held this year at |

For information about schools in your area, call 731-1131, local
246, or consult your telephone book on page 1046.

ON IN!

—

ee

17-21 |