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Friday, January 23, 1976

VOL. 38, No. 3

-i5UNE

PUBLIC PRESSURE GROWS

Province-wide opposition to any
major hike in ICBC rates continues
to grow, despite the fact that the
government is expected to an-
nounce a softening of their attitude
toward car insurance rates this
week,

Citizen’s groups in virtually
every area of B.C. have taken
some form of action to give voice to
their indignation over the arrogant
Manner in which the minister
responsible for ICBC, Pat McGeer,
Introduced the insurance in-
creases. Petitions, each bearing
thousands of signatures, have been
circulated in Vancouver, Victoria,
Kelowna, Surrey, Nanaimo, Port
Alberni and many other centres.
All call upon the government for
lower ICBC rates.

A spokesman for the B.C.

Federation of Labor said that the
Federation has distributed 4,000
copies of their petition throughout
the province by way of local
unions, and that the response has
been overwhelmingly good, but

that many of the petitions were still

being circulated. The Federation
petition calls for the transfer of
revenue from gasoline taxes to
ICBC to cover expenses not
covered by premium payments, as
was originally planned by the NDP
government.

Additionally,’ the Federation
demanded that the Socred
government keep any increases in
premiums ‘‘to less than 20 per cent
over the 1975 premiums.”

A number of protest meetings
and demonstrations have been held
in the past week, the most

significant being in Victoria where
over 150 people gathered at the
legislature in the face of a
torrential downpour and in White
Rock last Sunday where 300 people

gathered at a protest meeting -

called by the White Rock and
Surrey Concerned Citizens for Fair
ICBC Rates.

The White Rock meeting en-
dorsed a resolution calling for a
limitation of rate increases to a
maximum of 20 per cent over the
1975 increases, and for the con-
tinuation of ICBC’s present policy
of territorial and youth allowances
for drivers. Without these
allowances out-of-town and young
drivers would be faced with
astronomical increases for the
coming year.

Jim Black of White Rock,

chairman of the Concerned
Citizens committee, noted that the
rate increases originally proposed
by McGeer would not only be in-
flationary but would ‘“‘tend to
produce real hardships for the
drivers of B.C.”’

The White Rock meeting heard
from several people, including
NDP MLAs Dennis Cocke and Don
Lockstead, as well as former MLA
Carl Liden, Vancouver and District
Labor Council president Syd
Thompson,. Communist Party
leader Nigel Morgan and Homer
Stevens of the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers Union.

Liden told the meeting that the
proposed increases are ‘‘ab-
solutely unnecessary’’ and that the
Socred government was ‘‘just
carrying out a political promise to

set the stage to bring back private
insurance.”

He said most of the insurance
companies who operated in B.C.
before the election of the NDP
government were American-
based, and that a return to private
insurance would simply open the
door to more “‘profiteering by big
international corporations.”

Speaker after speaker made the
point that the Socreds had
promised to open the door to
private insurance companies after
their election, and that only mass
protest would force the govern-
ment to retreat. Nigel Morgan,
provincial leader of the Com-
munist Party, stated it bluntly
when he said that “‘the people of

See ICBC, pg. 12

x
<-

DERA photo by Richard Schell

Shovels were very much in evidence in Victoria last Thursday as hundreds gathered at the Legislature to
Protest resources minister Bill Vander Zalm’s statement and to demand action on jobs now.

About 300 people, most them
unemployed and receiving welfare
benefits, confronted human
resources minister Bill Vander
Zalm on the steps of the legislature
last week with a demand that he
either produce the jobs which he
Says are available in B.C., or else
apologize for his derogatory
Statements regarding welfare
recipients.

Neither the jobs nor the apology
were forthcoming.

The jobless were in Victoria as
part of a Downtown Eastside
Residents Association demon-
Stration responding to Vander
Zalm’s widely publicized threats to
the province’s welfare recipients
that they ‘‘had better get a shovel,
because if they don’t have one,
we'll give them one.”

Vander Zalm’s so-called ‘get
tough” policy was widely criticized
and his claim that there were
Widespread abuses of the
Province’s social assistance
Programs was .challenged by
DERA president Bruce Eriksen
who denied the charges.

“He has no complaint what-
Soever about welfare abuse,”’
Eriksen declared. ‘‘No single man
anywhere wants to exist on his $160
Per month welfare cheque if he
could find a decent job elsewhere.”

Eriksen presented Vander Zalm

with a brief on behalf of the

demonstrators and demanded that
he apologize for his “outrageous
and irresponsible remarks about
shovels.

“The vast majority of the
unemployed people in B.C. are
unemployed because there is no
decent work available for them,
not because they are lazy,’’
Eriksen stated. “We demand a
public apology.”

Eriksen charged Vander Zalm
with ‘‘either sheer idiocy or
political chicanery”’ over his plan
to provide government funded,
make work projects, and still avoid
budgetary overruns.

He told Vander Zalm that “‘if the
new government is sincere about
alleviating the high unemployment
rate in B.C., you should not be
attempting to implement
programs of meaningless work
aimed at asmall segment of select
unemployed employables.

“All of the unemployed people in
this province need and deserve
worthwhile, secure, decently
paying jobs which will provide
lasting benefits for all the tax-
payers.”

Eriksen called upon. the
government to take immediate
action on a program to provide
such jobs, which he said could be
done through the immediate im-
plementation of the recom-
mendations contained in the

housing brief submitted by the
Vancouver and District Labor
Council.

“Tf this was done,”’ Eriksen said,
“your government would provide
jobs in both the slumping lumber
and construction industries as well

See VICTORIA, pg. 12

BEh WWETT sevs

Be ee

Protest rally against high

The re amalgamation of the two
labor council in the Lower
Mainland — Vancouver and New
Westminster — may be on the
agenda. this year if the appeal for

-merger by Vancouver council

president Syd Thompson is acted
upon.

Thompson, newly re-elected for
his eighth term as president of the
council, told delegates after the
election that he was going to
“everything I can”’ to bring the two
councils together again.

The New Westminster council
was created by the Canadian
Labor Congress in February, 1966
during the cold war years in an
attempt to weaken the militant
stance adopted by the Vancouver
council.

In appealing for the merger,
Thompson told delegates: ‘‘if ever
there was a need for unity — with
what the government in Ottawa is
doing and what the government in
Victoria is doing — it is now.

‘‘A re-united council could
become a decisive force in the
Lower Mainland,” he said.

The same need for

unity

‘RNATIONAL” BOUNDARY |

— ae

Paul Robeson is reported to be in
critical condition in a Philadelphia
hospital following a stroke. The
famed and beloved singer is shown
here at a Peace Arch rally in the
mid ‘50s.

prompted Thompson’s remarks on
municipal politics in the area,
particularly in Vancouver where
TEAM and NPA representatives
continue to dominate city council.

He emphasized that the Van-
couver Labor Council could
become the ‘‘cement’’, bringing

See LABOR, pg. 12

ICBC rates drew 300 people at White Rock elementary school last Sunday. In
centre, carrying placard, is Norm Black, one of the organizers of the protest rally.

Sean Griffin photo