in the world meeting. It will be the first time Vancouver has played host to a UN forum. Although the United Nations’ Habitat conference is not scheduled to begin until May 31, the in Stns, formation office — just off Gaslight Square in Gastown — opened last week and has already indicated a wide interest —Sean Griffin photo Gov't priorities indicted By ALD. HARRY RANKIN If you, or any member of your family, should get sick this sum- mer, you may just have to suffer it out at home. There won’t be any hospital bed for you, thanks to our new government. _—_| The demand for hospital beds is still much greater than the supply, but in spite of this hospital beds are already being closed down. Lion’s Gate hospital in North Vancouver has already closed a 33-bed ward and plans to close down 32 more beds in June. Vancouver General Hospital has announced that it will close down 300 beds this summer — half ofits total. Other hospitals will likely follow suit. Why such irrational action? Well, the Bennett millionaire cabinet has decided to cut down on hospital grants. The new health minister, Bob McClelland, has informed B.C. hospital boards and. administrators that his govern- ment will not follow the procedure in past years ‘when the govern- ment has absorbed part and sometimes all the annual deficits incurred by hospitals.” Actually the hospital deficits have not been all that big. Eight of the largest hospitals in the Lower Mainland had a deficit of only $12.5 million last year. That’s not so much when you consider that the revised provincial budget last year was $2,893 million! You can’t help wondering at this government’s perverted sense of priorities. It’s taking the mining royalty tax off rich foreign-owned mining corporations and then using the excuse of decreased revenues to cut hospital grants. Of course, the members in Bennett’s cabinet won’t suffer; it will be the poor people that will have to wait in line. I’ve yet to see any millionaire wait for a bed in a hospital the way most citizens are forced to do. Cutting hospital grants, health minister McClelland said, is necessary to “restore fiscal order in our economy.” And he piously. and hypocritically expressed the hope that ‘‘our objective of restraining costs can be achieved without impairing services to the sick.”” Anyone who thinks that can be done must himself be sick — in the head. : HOUSING STARTS IN BIG DECLINE Housing starts in Canada were . down almost half, from 43,267 in 1974 to 23,950 for the three months of this year compared to the same period a year ago, according to the Central Mortgage and Housing Corp. Personally I think we should save about 16 or 18 beds in the psychiatric ward for the provincial cabinet. Clearly, if we are to judge by their actions in the first two months in office, some‘of them are seriously mentally deranged, suffering from a political disease called ‘“‘soak-the-poor; help-the- rich.”’ The 12 private hospitals in the Lower Mainland with 800 beds, also claim they need higher grants from the provincial government. I would like to see all of these hospitals taken over by the government; some of them are simply profiteering on the suf- ferings of welfare patients. Fur- thermore the wages they are paying are disgracefullly low. Nurses get only $3.30 an hour, and that’s after six months of service, while cooks get only $4.00 an hour. That’s just a bit better than the minimum wage. The employees of these hospitals are being com- pelled to subsidize the profits of the owners with substandard wages. If the provincial government decides to increase grants to these private hospitals, it should do so with the clear proviso that all health and medical care standards will bestrictly observed and wages substantially raised. The most frequent argument in favor of capital punish- Vendetta cited © in grant denial cont'd from pg. 1 be here tonight and we wouldn’t pushing for enforcement of city have had to, during the past two health, and fire bylaws, the Lan- years, attend numerous committee dlord and Tenant Act, and Liquor and eouncil meetings as ‘watch Control Board regulations in the 4dog,’’ Eriksen said. Skidwtoad beer parlours. COPE alderman Harry Rankin On a number of occasions, said that if council turned down DERA has been in direct op- DERA’s grant request, ‘‘a large position to the majority of right- segment of this city can go away wing TEAM and NPA aldermen in tonight saying ‘‘we are completely demanding that the city take a disenfranchised. And that segment stand against downtown slumlords will be -the poor. and the un- and developers who had con- derprivileged. sistently charged super rents for _ “If we turn this down, then we’ve their deteriorating premises. turned a large part of this city back to the people who want 50 percent of every income tax return, people who 50 percent of every renter’s credit,’ he said in reference to - income tax buyers who operate in the downtown eastside. Rankin pointed out that the DERA grant was the only grant out of ~31 applications which was completely rejected, and that the rejection came despite the fact In presenting DERA’s appeal, that the city’s social planning organization president Bruce department had recommended Eriksen denied that DERA was “a that DERA be granted $22,176. ~ political organization” as charged He asked council “How many of by several aldermen who voted to your friends, the developers and discontinue city funding. Eriksen businessmen of this city, have said that DERA was involved with come here for favours, and how Political issues to the extent ‘that many times have turned them we demand of our elected officials down?”’ : that they keep their election _Among.the many groups and promises, that they respond to the individuals supporting the DERA needs of our community, and that grant was Bruce Yorke, COPE their decisions are in the best in- president who told council that terests*of all the voters and tax ‘COPE unreservedly gives our payers, not just the privileged few. Support to DERA. No other organization in the history of “We consider it our respon- Vancouver has the record which sibility to make sure that our DERA has in servicing the elected representatives listen and residents of this city.” take action on the grievances of | Yorke asked council why, if our community’’ Eriksen said. “If DERA was not providing a service, this is why we are being denied “has there not been a single funds, we are astounded.”’ solitary person come forward in : opposition to this grant?” In his presentation to council, Both Rev. Art Griffin of the First Eriksen gave a brief history of United Church and Patrick DERA’s activities and cited many Graham, president of the 2BiGy of the accomplishments of the Liberal Party, who said he was group. He pointed out that it was speaking on behalf of both Van- DERA who had pressured council couver East MP Art Lee, and to the point that they had to take Liberal leader Gordon Gibson, said action in initiating improvements that they were “appalled that in their community. council would chose to wage a vendetta against Eriksen.” Among the points he listed were Following council’s decision, enforcement of health, fire, and Eriksen saidthat DERA would not lodging house bylaws, introduction die, and would continue its work. of an anti-knife bylaw, which led to “People from all over the city a sharp reduction in beer parlour came here tonight to support us muggings and slayings, and en- and our work, and they saw how forcement of Liquor Control Board council acts. Let them be their own regulations. “Had the mayor and judge, and let them remember in council taken the initiative in next November in the civic elec- things such as these, we would not tions.” DERA’s outspoken criticism of council and its strident demands that the downtown eastside be accorded some of the community services and facilities that other areas of the city have enjoyed for 50 years, are seen as being at root of council’s action, which’ was described by speaker after speaker as “petty vindictiveness.”’ deranged killers, be they policemen, prison guards or just Sa oA ay a Ay TOM — McEWEN eriodically the issue of capital punishment crops up. . The Parliament of this country will be devoting a few weeks to determine once again this barbaric law and already large sections of the press and hotline and TV voices are clamoring for more rope. In order to make this reversion to barbarism more “democratic,’’ MPs will have the opportunity of a free vote. Not bound by party policy, they are to vote ac- cording - “conscience.” The so-called free vote is a hollow sham but it gets the MPs off the hook since they are freed from party rules and, to a certain extent, from public opprobrium. Some MPs would carry this cowardice even further by having their constituents vote on the issue. That their consciences are well conditioned before hand may be seen-in the emotional hysteria whipped up by the media in the hopes of forcing a “yes”’ vote. Ministers of the Crown, MPs and public figures of all sorts who raise a voice against the barbarous act of hanging are scorned, ridiculed and opposed as if they themselves were criminals. The kept press pulls no punches in its cam- paign for legalized murder. ; PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 12, 1976—Page 2 ment is that it serves as a deterrent, as a brake upon the potential actions of others. This is simply not true and all the statistics, even those from official sources, prove that it is not true. An individual motivated only by an emotional blindness to take the life of another human is not deterred one iota by the threat of the gallows. Even in the case of far lesser crimes the whole idea of a deterrent is untenable. It just doesn’t work. Nor can hanging be defended or excused on any grounds of human morality. On the contrary, the crime of hanging is equally as heinous as the one these hangmen condemn. Worse yet, the murder they so tirelessly, even eagerly, organize, is planned with intent, with “malice aforethought,” a planning that may take weeks, months, even years to achieve as far too many state executions verify. No state has the moral, or other right to take the life of another human being — to exact that which it cannot return. In cases where it has been established otherwise and society demanded restitution, there is only the echo of empty words — a poor substitute for’ trying to play God. The state cannot compensate for the life it has taken in revenge, nor do subsequent pardons wash the judicial blood from its hands. The stigma of judicial murder remains for the knowledge and contempt of future generations. A social system which survives only by the violence of war, by pillage, exploitation, profiteering and legalized murder as in Vietnam, Chile, Cyprus, the Middle East and scores of other places, is not destined to survive for long. Nor should distinctions be made as to the victims of ordinary citizens. It is enough that all area tragedy of the first order, the victims ina sick society. Howling for more sickness — for more rope — as an antidote to an already sick state is like a doctor prescribing a shot of arsenic for a victim of arsenic poisoning. = It is not within the scope of this column to suggest all that could be done to lessen the tragic rise in capital crime. For that, one must probe more deeply into the class divisions of society itself. But do not be misled by the hysteria of the press and radio and other agencies of propaganda who clamor for the return to the gallows. It is a deterrent which only breeds the disease it is presumed — to cure. Awaken the conscience of your MP so that he may distinguish between barbarism and human enlighten- ment! ~_ IRiBONE Editor - MAURICE RUSH Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA - Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-8108 Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4.50 for six months; All other countries, $10.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 / soi CN Be a Pc

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