eT

+

Twenty years of Social Credit government in Alberta finds the municipalities staggering
Under a burden of debt while the province boasts of its debt reduction. Will that be Van-
Couver’s fate under the Social Credit govern meni of Premier W. A. C. Bennett, shown here
with Solon Low, Socred rational leader, and Premier E. C. Manning of Alberta (right)?

Oe

yt cost of Edmonton’s eight-

year boom is now up for pay-
ment. And the burden of it is
being loaded on the backs of Ed-
MOonton home-owners with a
Vengeance. The wild ballyhoo
bout Edmonton's prosperity and
its. tremendous development and

Wealth is now being seen for
What it is,

Edmonton's city assessor, J.
Pollock, announced in Febru-
ary, that a reassessment of land
Within the city had been com-
Pleted. Now home-owners are
“eceiving their new assessment
NOtices, Land assessment in the
“tty is being increased by as much
4S 54 percent. Characteristically,
ySsessments in the downtown
eee, Section have not been
the es to the same extent ee
cent, Se increase is 25 per

so thouncement of the new as-
of a followed on: the heels
Public 1955 city budget ‘made
allitire earlier last month. An
mug ¢, igh of — $22,800,000
mane be raised to meet the de-
“an ‘be of construction projects

e a dinary expenditures for
hi Boritent year. This sum is

Sher than the total provincial

qvemment budget for Alberta
_ ~~ Years ago,

sgiltereasing costs of city admin-
ner y admin
Stration, and increasing taxes on
the piton People — these are
boom. Y lasting results of the oil
berta’ he exploitation of Al-
flect, A natural resources is re-
hemes oe the stock exchanges of
at Ra ntinent but not in receipts
““monton city hall.

hee city has had to provide
“corporace’. required by the U.S.
t ations that have establish-
quart. T refineries, pipeline head-
md semi-finished pro-

in the city en-
<1. ¢cmonton hasn’t even
Dp Sites them for civil

% mon ‘

haq to p ‘ eee people have
erity» ssi years of such “pros-
financial a = is in a serious

é

By WILLIAM TUOMI

In 1947, when the oil boom be-
gan, Edmnton’s total debt stood
at $20 million. At the end of 1954
it had risen to over $80 million.

This vear the city is seeking
another $13. million loan from
the provincial government. It is
also asking for a further one-
year loan of $2 million in April.

The debt burden cost the city
nearly $7 million in interest and
principal payments in 1954 and
this will increase by another mil-
lion in’ 1955.

Edmonton’s debt gives it an
unenviable “first.” The city now
leads the country in the highest
per capita debt — $405 for every
man, woman and child. Seven
years ago the per capita debt
was $175.

J. Hodgson, the city’s retired

Boom no boon
_ to Edmonton

financial commissioner,  testify-
ing before the McNally Commis-
sion studying problems of metro-
politan growth of Edmonton and
Calgary, made the statement that
Edmonton’s bonded debt is now
greater than that of the Alberta
government itself, if proyincial
treasury bills are excluded. This,
when the city has only 19 percent

of the provincial population.

Premier E. C. Manning, -who
heads the Social Credit govern-
ment, ,makes the boast, that
Alberta municipalities no longer
go out of the province to borrow
money. i

If other cities are like Edmon-
ton the reason is obvious: Ed-

monton has no place to go. Its
bonds are not bought on the
money market any more.

The last sale was in 1949 in

the New York market, and it
stretched _Edmonton’s credit to
the last limit. That year, Yankee
money-lenders in New York de-
cided that Edmonton school] chil-
dren could do with less in the
way of an education and © they
pared $2 million off school de-
bentures.

Costs run hign in a city where
population zoomed from 83,000
in 1939 to 200,000. fifteen years
later. Last year’s population
growth alone was 15,000.

The city launched a building
program to extend its water and
power facilities to meet the ex-
pected demand in 1958, and $8
¢million is needed for that. An-
other $19 million has been ear-
marked for streets, sidewalks and
curbs. A new sewage disposal unit
will cost the city $8 million—the
‘old ones are inadequate.

Last year schools took 35 of a
tax rate of 54 mills. School en-
rollment is increasing at the rate
of 4,500 a year. To provide “a
roof over their heads,’ some
$7,700,000 will be spent on a
building program this year.

Edmonton’s growth — phenom-
enal as it has been — has been
serviced from two sources: taxes
and loans.

The _ provincial government,
with its huge treasury, has not
contributed to ease the burden
of the home-owners who are the
victims of the boom.

Provincial grants in 1954
amounted to a little over one
million. In the first nine months
of last year the province raked
in millions from the sale of oil
lands, from royalties and leases,
$5 million alone in profits from
liquor stores in Edmonton. And
the city had to borrow money
for civic administration costs —
at 3% percent interest from the
provincial government.

The tax burden falls heavily
on the home-owner.

Before the oilboom, city as-
sessment was divided 55 percent

on industrial and commercial
property and 45 percent on
homes.

Now home-owners bear the as-
sessment burden. In 1954 the
ratio was 65 percent on home-
owners and 35 percent on indus-
trial and commercial property.

The 1955 re-assessmenf widens

_the . gap. Land. assessment in
- working-class’
- rises by as much as 54 percent
_in ‘the Ritchie area in Edmon-

residential areas

ton’s south side and 48 percent,
in Calder where railroad work-
ers live. :

The land re-assessment is only
the first move to an increasing

mill rate. Edmonton home-own-

ers (and this city has one of the __

highest proportions of home-
owners in Canada) are being
Presented with the bill for the
cost of the boom. i

In effect, the U.S. trusts which
already have the province’s na-
tural resources in their posses-
sion are now presenting the bill
for maintaining and servicing
their refineries, plants and pipe-
line terminals in the city.

The cause of the city’s financial
difficulties ‘lies. on its \ eastern
boundary.

U.S. corporations, establishing
themselves in the area, located’
all of their plants in a single
rural municipality outside of Ed-
monton. They: created a high-
assessment, low-mill rate area
where their taxes now are prac-
tically nothing. They are near
enough to the city to take ad-
vaniage of it, to use its services,
to Mouse its employees, but far
enough to escape contributing
a penny.

In the. first nine months of
1954, building permits for indus-
trial and commercial establish-
ments in the city (mostly ware-
houses) amounted to a little over
$6 million.

In the “refinery area” build-
ing permits in the same period
amounted to over $21 million.
The larger part of Edmonton's
construction is home-building.
industry goes to the “Yankee
preserve’ outside the city.

Deliberately or not, Edmonton
is becoming a “dormitory city”
— even as the hard-pressed sub-
urban towns of Beverly and Jas-
per Place are now “dormitory
towns,” incapable of financing
the smallest services to make
living convenient and bearable
there.

What is happening to Edmon-
ton is a direct consequence of the
U.S. domination of this country.
Had the wealth from oil and na-
tural gas, now piped to the U.S.
been used first to develop this
country, Edmonton’s growth
would have been a boon not a
burden to its people. :

What has been done with small
resources and borrowed money
affords a glimpse of what could
have been done with the wealth
that caused the boom.

Edmonton is also a warning.
Yankee domination is a dead

_hand that destroys the thing it

touches. Canada’s ultimate fate
unless the people compel a radi-
cal chance in policy, is spelled
out in the plight of this one city.
Ht isn’t too late to change. it, but
time is running out.

Here’s that council with the bylaw again

By JACK PHILLIPS

EFEATED three times in the
courts, Vancouver City Coun-
cil is planning once more to pro-
hibit distribution of handbills on
the streets of Vancouver. Rus-
sell Baker, city corporation coun-
sel, has announced that he will
submit an amendment “to restore
the city’s power to prosecute per-
sons who distribute handbills on
the streets.”

* No alderman will admit that he
has any idea of restricting free-
dom of expression, but that is
precisely what the new bylaw is
designed to accomplish. | :

Under the old city charter, in
effect from 1921-51, the police
could and frequently did prevent
citizens from distributing hand-
bills. Some were prosecuted and
fined for the “offense.” j

In every case where there was
a conviction, the handbills dealt.
with political questions or con-
tained arguments designed to
convince the reader that he should
do something to prevent another
world war. There is no record
of any police interference with
street photographers, tourist
agencies or business firms. |

On the contrary! In December,

1953, uniformed police officers
joined with the Junior Chamber

of Commerce, Vancouver Active
Club and the Kinsmen to distri-
bute 6,000 traffic safety pamph-
lets on the: streets of Vancouver.

Now if the police department’
can spare men to give out pamph-
lets in a campaign designed to
save citizens from being knocked
down-‘by automobiles, the least
they can do when other people
give out handbills designed to

save citizens from the H-bomb is_

to mind ‘their own business.

From the point of view of civil
liberties, no one group should
be denied liberties accorded to
another.

e r
The section of the old city
charter under Which prosecutions
took place read:

Section 81, Street and Traffic
Bylaw (2349)

“No person shall give or cause
to be given to any other person
in or upon any street any hand-
bill, dodger, circular, card or
other. advertising matter or thing
of such a nature or character
that the person to whom same
is given will probably throw or
deposit the same so as to litter
any part of any. street or other-
wise be or become a_ nuisance
thereon.”

The city derives all its law-
making power from ‘its charter,

granted by the provincial legis-
lature. The section in the old
charter on which the anti-litter
bylaw was based read:
163 (75) ;

“The council may from time
to time pass, alter and repeal by-
laws for the following purposes:
for prohibiting persons from de-
positing or throwing dirt, ashes,
filth, garbage, refuse, carcasses
of animals, sweepings from
stores, litter or rubbish, on any
road, lane, street or highway in
the city or on the foreshore of
its harbors.”

In shori, the council used its

Street cleaning powers to pre-

vent citizens from circulating the
printed word.
In May 1954, Judge Boyd quash-

the conviction of an LPP election

worker, who had been prosecuted
for distributing election mater-
ial. One month later, Mrs. Sylvia
Lowe was charged under Section

81 for distributing. literature
printed by Vancouver Peace
-Council. The charge was dis-
missed, after defense counsel

pointed out that Section 81 had
not been re-adopted under the
new charter. y

The city prosecutor’s appeal
was argued before Judge Lord,
formerly city corporation coun-
sel, who ruled against the prose-

cutor, upholding the lower court’s
verdict. True, he based his de-
cision on a technical point, but
he included this observation on
the principle involved.

“The proper interpretation of
the section under the ‘pith and
substance’ rule means that the
city council was interfering with
the freedom of press and free-
dom of expression. These are
matier of federal jurisdiction.”
Now, the council is preparing

to pass a similar, undemocratic
bylaw under the new city charter,
which reads: :

“For regulating the distribu-
tion of advertising matter to per-
sons or vehicles on any street
and for prohibiting any such mat-
ter if it is likely to be thrown or
left on the street.” oe

This new bylaw is obviously
designed for the same purpose
as the old bylaw, to enforce a
degree of thought control. :

Already, many organizations

and private citizens have sent
their. protests ; fo council. If suf-
ficient pressufe is exerted, there
is no doubt that aldermen will
retreat. If they were not afraid
of public opinion, they would not
be disguising their actions, pre-
tending that it is only a question
of street cleaning, not freedom
of expression. - ate:

PACIFIC TRIBUNE & MARCH 18, 1955 — PAGE 9