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A welfare bum Vander

Zalm doesn’t mind at all

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

This is the story of a welfare
bum, one that the minister of
inhuman resources, Bill Vander
Zalm, didn’t get indignant about
(and tell it to go back where it
came from) and didn’t send his
fraud squad to investigate.

This welfare bum is a corporate
welfare bum and of course that
puts it in a different category.

Westcoast Transmission last
year made a clear profit of $43
million. It was supposed to pay $5
million in income tax. That’s little
enough, that’s a rate of 11.6 per
cent.

But it didn’t have to pay this $5

Series of repressive measures
from DHR hits youth, veterans

Human resources minister Bill
Vander Zalm was greeted by a
picket line when he arrived to
speak at an open house for a new
office of the human _ resources
department in east Vancouver
Thursday as the Tribune went to

press.

The protesters were reacting toa
series of repressive measures from
Vander Zalm’s office in recent
weeks aimed at cutting .govern-
ment social service expenditures.

Two weeks ago Vander Zalm was
blasted by: Native leaders
throughout B.C. for his racist
remarks that young Natives were
coming to Vancouver because of
the ‘‘excitement and bright
lights.” He warned that young
Natives in Vancouver would be cut
off of welfare benefits this summer
unless they moved back to
reservations.

Last week Vander Zalm con-
tinued his attack on young people
with a declaration that assistance
would no longer be granted to
youth 16 to 18 years without special
approval from Victoria.
Previously youth could be granted
assistance under the age of 18 if a
social worker judged ex-
circumstances

traordinary
warranted it.

The minister’s statements to the
media, however, presented a false
picture of hundreds of young

W: have stated more than once in recent weeks that it is
~~

people leaving home and collecting
welfare on a lark. The false im-
pression was corrected only after
B.C. Association of Social
Workers president Hugh Miller
and former Vancouver Resoureces
Board administrator «David
Schreck pointed out that
regulations had always required
special circumstances to exist
before assistance was granted to
juveniles. “Vander Zalm is just
getting his weekly by-line,”’ Miller
said, ‘There is no evidence of
abuse, just a lot of hot air.”

The change in the «procedure,
however, reflects a new hard line
by Vander Zalms’s ministry
against youth. As the picket line hit
Vander Zalm Thursday, the
Tribune learned, a couple of 17
year olds in Kamloops were being
evicted from their home after
Vander Zalm refused the local
social worker to grant the youths
social assistance. The young
couple, expecting their first child,
had requested assistance to pay
only July’s rent, but were refused.

World War II veterans also came
under Vander Zalm’s knife last
week when he instructed his
department to deduct the modest
cost of living increase that the
federal government granted to war
verterans July 1 from GAIN
cheques. The veterans had long
been after the government to raise

pensions in line with cost of living
increases, but it will go for nought
for those. on welfare.

The heartless move by the
ministry prompted a reply from a
Vancouver Sun editorial writer
who termed it a ‘‘parsimonious
impulse to deprive the vets of an
additional small comfort
allowance. .
characteristic of the human
resources department which ap-
pears to view people only as debit
figures in its ledger.”

Since the Socreds assumed office
in 1975, rates have been increased
only $15 per month for single men
and are among the lowest in
Canada.

. an impulse all too.

million. By some arrangement
with the Ottawa tax authorities it
was permitted to reduce this
amount to $317,000. The rest was
deferred to some time in the
future. This brought the rate down
to 7/10 of 1 per cent.

How would you like to pay. your
income tax at a rate of less than 1
per cent. 2

(This sort of thing has been going
on year after year. Westcoast now
owes a total of $20 million in
deferred income tax, that is, tax
which it may (or may not) pay at
some time in the future; in the
meantime this can be considered
an interest-free loan courtesy of
the federal government).

But don’t become indignant yet.
There’s still more to come. The
amount that Westcoast actually
ended up paying in income tax was
$45,000.

That’s how corporate welfare
bums are draining the public
treasury and escaping payment of
income tax. You pay more because
they pay less.

But there is still more to come.

The company expects that
beginning in 1982-83 (when its
generous depreciation allowances
of plant and equipment will have
been exhausted) it may have to
start paying a higher rate of in-
come tax. Therefore it applied to
the National Energy Board for
permission to increase the price of
natural gas for the next eleven
years (and also to increase its
depreciation allowance) so that it
will get an additional $66.5 million
a year, over and above what it is
raking in now.

Some people have accused the

National Energy Board of being
just a rubber stamp for the big gas
and oil corporations. Surely that
can’t be true, if we are to judge
from this case, because although
Westcoast asked for $66.5 million 4
year for the eleven year period, the
National Energy Board granted it
only $64.5 million a year for the
eleven year period.

No wonder John Anderson, the
executive vice-president — of
Westcoast told the press: ‘“We are
obviously very pleased. We got
everything we asked for’. How

would you like to have the right to”

ask for a wage increase now that
will cover all the income tax you
will have to pay for the next eleven
years? And have it granted?

The result of all this is that your
gas rates will immediately be
raised so that you will pay an extra
$100 or so a year, to help out poor
Westcoast.

But this still isn’t the whole
story.

Westcoast is now applying for
permission to increase its rates
still further. They see the oil
companies raking it in at an evel
greater rate than they are so they
want the price of natural gas 1

equal the price of oil.

If and when the increase is
granted it will add another couple
of hundred dollars a year to your
natural gas bill.

Being on welfare can be very

profitable — if you are a corporate _

welfare bum.

This is one, more example of how
the big corporations use the
government and its agencies

redistribute the national wealth in

favor of the big corporations..

Tenants map campaign

Tenants organizations in Van-
couver have united in a city wide
organization to fight the removal of
rent controls.

Grandview Tenants Association
president and secretary of the new
Vancouver Tenant Federation
Allen Doolan told the Tribune this
week that delegates from the
Grandview Tenants, the West End
Tenants association, Kitislano
Tenants Association and from the
Downtown Eastside Residents’

=PEOPLE AND ISSUES

been closed and 938 teachers fired. Also fired are 77 publics

Association came together to re-
form the Vancouver Tenant
Federation to map out a campaign
against the decontrol program. _

Legislation enabling the
provincial government to remove
rent controls was passed last fall
but the Socreds have only recently

begun the program of decontrols.

In an attempt to circumvent
protest from the tenant movement,
the government has been removing
rent controls on a piecemeal basis

on controls

according to _ district and

classification of apartments.

tA

}

|

The VIF plans to conduct a#

information leaflet, poster and
bumper sticker campaign against
the decontrol program and a publi¢
meeting is being organized, de
of which will soon be announcee-
The VTF has asked those who
would like to assist in the cal
paigning to maintain rent controls
to contact Allen Doolan at 251-3068
or Libby Davies at 682-0931.

hose who remember the outstanding performance &

right wing, corporate interests who are the main push
behind the current campaign to cut property taxes.

As if to back up our contention, a new organization sur-
faced last week in Toronto. It has assumed the commanding
title of the “Canadian Taxpayers Association,” and it is
dedicated to fighting government spending in the name of
lower taxes.

But on whose behalf the new organization will campaign,
is revealed by the list of founding directors. They’re not
your average, beleagured taxpayer that the tax revolt
crowd would have us believe they are.

The main organizer is George McLean, whom the
Financial Post describes as ‘‘a public relations consultant
‘who has worked for-federal and provincial government
departments, as well as in several Progressive Con-
servative campaigns.”’ :

Others include Leo Schotte, ‘“‘entrepreneur and owner of
Bond Engineering Works, Toronto, and Bond Metal
Powders Ltd., Oakville, a manufacturing company with
strong export sales.”

Then there is James Ramsay, “vice-president and
general manager of property company Genstar Eastern
Development.”’

These “ordinary taxpayers” are asking $20 annually
from individuals and $50 from businesses to join their
crusade. Their first objective is legislation requiring all
major government programs to be approved by referen-
dum, a process they are confident will put a stop to
“wasteful government spending.”

The anti-social nature of the Canadian Taxpayers
Association’s campaign is becoming clearer and clearer as
the results of California’s proposition 13 become known.

In San Francisco, for example, where the cost of living
has risen by 14.5 percent in

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—July 14, 1978—Page 2

continue to do the job that city hall has long ignored.

works employees and 49 health board workers.

Across the bay in Oakland, the school budget has been cut
by $16 million and 307 teachers were laid off. One third of
the city’s 20 day care centres are about to close and bus
service will be cut back by 40 percent, while fares will be
increased from 25 to 35 cents. Meanwhile, taxes from
business and landlords in Oakland was cut via Proposition
13 from $23 million to $5.5 million. .

We can be sure that that is just about how George McLean
and his group would go about stopping ‘‘wasteful govern-
ment spending”’ in this country.

* * *
he measure of commitment that the people of Van-
couver’s downtown eastside have for their organization
was vividly demonstrated last Sunday by the 200 local
residents that turned out to a fund raising banquet in
Chinatown for the Downtown Eastside Residents’
Association.

Organized by the Chinese members of DERA’S Senior
Citizen’s Club, the banquet also drew a number of friends
from across the city. But most were DERA’s own members
who dug deep and contributed $12 each to keep DERA
working for them.

Since Vancouver city council voted earlier this year to cut
DERA’s funding, president Bruce Eriksen, vice-president
Libby Davies and secretary Jean Swanson have applied for
unemployment insurance, and DERA has moved: to
smaller, more inexpensive headquarters at 333 Gore St. But
with donations from organizations like the B.C. Federation
of Labor, the Vancouver labor Council and the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union, from its own
members and supporters and with Sunday’s successful
banquet, DERA’s trimmed organization will be able to

Chilean exiled folksinger Angel Parra in Vancouver
some months ago will be pleased to hear that Parra will bé
back in Vancouver this fall for a bigger concert.

John Radosevic of Canadians for Democracy in Chile
informs us that Parra has agreed to return to Vancouver foF
a concert September 17, but this time he will bring with hi™
his sister Isobel and two accompanyists.

Parra’s first concert won such wide acclaim in the Lowe!
Mainland that the Canadians for Democracy in Chile hav®
decided to raise their sights and the concert will be mov’
from the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse next door to the Quee#
Elizabeth theatre with a 2,500 capacity.

Even with a world renowned performer like Parra

the
committee will have its work cut out filling the Theatre and ‘|

it would appreciate any assistance that you could provide ip
helping to spread the word and ensuring a full house.

The concert will be called “Pene Parra” (Parra —

celebration) and tickets will be on sale soon at a host °

TRIBUNE

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

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