RANKIN CHARGES:

‘Rent boost for public housing
surrender to vested interests”

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The B.C. Housing Management
Commission, an agency of the
provincial government which
administers public housing, has
announced a “‘complete change in
philosophy, policy and
procedures.” As outlined ina letter
to tenants dated January 10, the
new policy will “‘adjust rents to
realistic levels’ and ‘generate
revenues closer to costs.” Its aim
is to establish rents at their
“market value.”

To this end rents in all public
housing units will be raised $20 a
month for people on_ social
assistance and from $20 to $40 a
month for those tenants who have
jobs.

Modifying clauses in the new
policy are that rents must not
exceed 25 per cent of the income of
the tenants, and a rent supplement

Tenants draw up plans
for legislative action

As the provincial Rent Review
Commission — appointed under a
provision of the new Landlord and
Tenant Act began discussions
this month, the B.C. Tenants
Organization also. began for-
mulating plans fora new campaign
for legislative action — as well as
registering opposition to one of the
tirst proposals of the commission.

Under section 29G of the
amended act, landlords may be
exempted from ceilings on
allowable rent increases provided
they enter into an agreement with
the commission to regulate rents
payable by tenants during a period
of not less than five years. Some
landlords have reportedly ap-
proached the commission in the
hopes of using the loophole to
escape the present 10.6% limit on
rent increases — indicating the
efforts to extend the already
considerable evasion of rent
control legislation.

“We're opposed to such
agreements with the commission,”
B.GT.Q:
told the Tribune, “since there is no
stipulation in the act as to the

president Bruce Yorke -

extent of rent regulation. Virtually
any figure can be set.”

Yorke pointed out as _ well that
there are already several thousand
tenants who have no rent control
protection since they live in a two-
family dwelling in which one-half
is occupied by the owner.

‘Adding more exemptions would
only make present limits almost
ineffective,’ he emphasized. ‘‘And
then there’s the other question —
present rent control legislation is
not being enforced.”’

The B.C.T.O. has scheduled a
conference for February 11, 1 p.m.
at the Plaza 500 in Vancouver at
which time a brief for presentation
to the Rent Review Commission
will be finalized and a program
mapped out for action around the
spring session of the Legislature.

The tenants organization has
welcomed the appointment of the
commission since it will be dealing
with rent as an economic factor,
not merely as an offshoot of a legal
contract between landlord and
tenant, but first indications of the
ultimate objectives of the com-
mission are of some concern

The aim of the commission is to
recommend some form of rent
control which will be in force over
a period of several years and there
have been indications that it is
flirting with the Quebec system.
There, rents are set by the landlord
and the onus is on the tenant to
appear before a rent commission if
he feels his rent is unjustifiably
high and if so, to prove it.

“That is totally unacceptable,”
Yorke stated. ‘‘The tenant would
be right back at the mercy of the
landlord.”

The B.C.T.O. wants the com-
mission to conduct an investigation
into the whole rent structure in the
province and to recommend that
the government rent control
legislation be based on its findings.

B.C. House meets |

The fifth session of B.C.’s 30th
Legislative Assembly will open on
Tuesday, Feb. 18. The House will

‘meet Monday, Feb. 17 at which

time the fourth session will be
prorogued.

Seca

ee

will be available ‘‘for those
families unable to afford the
market rent.’’ How much that
supplement will be or what means
test will be applied has not been
spelled out. “*

A $20 to $40 a month rent in-
crease is bad enough for people
who make $600, $800 or $1,000 a
month, but think what it means to
people on welfare or working for
the minimum wage whose income
is $300, $400 or $500 a month. For
them it means real suffering — it
means that much less food on the
table, that much less for clothes
and other necessities.

What possible justification can
there be for such rent increases by
a government that prides itself in
being so much more humane in its
attitude ‘to the poor than our
previous Socred government?

According to the Housing
Commission, raising rents will
improve ‘‘the attitude of the
community toward B.C. housing
tenants,’” overcome public
“misunderstanding about public
housing, and make public housing
‘more -attractive.. to. - all
municipalities.”

I’ve never heard a phonier ex-
cuse. That’s exactly the same
argument that all opponents of
public housing and low rents come
out with, led by big landlords.

The public is not opposed to
public housing and low rents or
subsidized rents. The public (80 per
cent of the public are working
people) wants more of it.

12:30 in room 207. This will be.

TENANTS ON TV

Representatives of the B.C.
Tenants Organization as well as
Vancouver folk singer Tom
Hawken will be appearing on
Community Access, January 19,
6:30 p.m. on Channel] 8. A half-hour
program, the show includes film
clips of interviews with tenants and
discussions with tenant leaders.

The same day — January 19 — at
1 p.m., the Vancouver Tenants
Council will hold its annual
meeting at the Ironworkers Hall,
8th and Columbia in Vancouver.
Speakers will include Vancouver
alderman Harry Rankin and Dave
Fairey who recently prepared an
extensive brief on housing for the
Vancouver and District Labor
Council.

It’s the landlords, the
developers, the real estate sharks
and other reactionary monied
interests who oppose low ren
housing, just as they oppo
limitations on rent increases.

The action of the province
government in raising rents in
public housing is a capitulation to
these vested interests. It certainly
is a ‘‘complete change
philosophy and policy.’ It’s
much in direct contradiction to
previous policy as to be almost
incomprehensible. What is_ thi
government trying to do — alienate
still more support from amo g
pensioners and the poor?

I hope that the tenants concern
as well as all supporters of public
housing and all who want to s
rents maintained at their prese
level will give this government
decision the rejection it deserv

S. VIETNAMESE
ITINERARY SET

The International Committee to:
Free South Vietnamese Political
Prisoners in Vancouver this week
announced the program for three
South Vietnamese neutralists
visiting B.C. from Jan. 17 to 20. —

Friday, Jan. 17 they will speak at
UBC’s Student Union Building at:

followed by a press conference at)
2:30 at Christ Church Cathedral,
690 Burrard. a
Saturday, Jan. 18 they will be at
St. Andrew’s Wesley Church, 1012”
Nelson St. at 2 p.m. and from 4 to 5
p.m. will attend the B.C. Con-
ference of the United Church at
Parksville. q
Sunday, Jan. 19 they will appear
on CKWX (1130) from 10 to 11 a.
on the Rod Booth program. There
will be a press conference in
Victoria, B.C.’s Quaker House,
1831 Fern St., followed by a public
meeting at 7:30 p.m. at Victoria’s
Quaker House.
Monday, Jan. 20 they will ada
dress a public meeting at Simon
Fraser University at room 5030
Academic Quadrangle.
Their visit to Canada under the
auspices of the International
Committee and Amnesty I
ternational, coincides with the
second anniversary of the signi
of the Paris Agreement.

TOM
McEWEN

Pte are times when we are sharply reminded of the

inadequate circulation of papers like the Pacific
Tribune and similar fighting organs, needed always to
combat the anti-socialist and anti-labor stream poured out
almost daily by the Canadian media — newspaper, radio
and TV.

We are well\aware of course that the media — the big
monopoly newspapers, the TV and the radio ‘‘hot liners”
are Establishment oriented and not designed to give out
with any news favorable to labor or its socialist and
Communist sectors. But the brand of anti-Soviet, anti-
Communist and anti-labor filth they dredge up to feature
in their programs and “‘news,”’ little of it new and most of
it not true, would make a dog vomit.

Clearly such reaction is motivated by the Goebbels
theorum that if they lie long enough, hard enough, and

consistently enough, some of their professional lying will

stick, and thus produce the desired result — the maximum
confusion in the minds of public reading.

Some Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV and radio
programs, which have attained a measure of public
popularity, are now moving into the anti-Soviet, anti-
Communist front with ever-increasing regularity. They
may dredge up a Russian Solzhenitsyn, a Ukrainian
Moroz, a Kowalsky, Pannin or whatever, embellish the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 1975—Page 2

anti-Soviet ravings of these characters with pictures dug
out of the Hitlerite concentration camp era, and presto,
you have a Soviet ‘‘horror story’’ that chills the blood, and
most important, addles the mind!

Then other well-brainwashed appendages of the media,
be it a Wasserman, Burns, a Webster or whatever, take up
the clamor and again truth and reality takes a thorough

drubbing. And with their columns and channels tightly .

closed against any and all Communist opinion, their Big
Lie technique has a built-in guarantee against all un-
favorable comment, which means all comment which
opposes falsehood, lies and slander.

_ Another example. Vancouver being a beautiful and
attractive city, ithas a broad share of tourists, guests and
the like, not excluding the peregrinating anti-Sovieteer,
the rabid anti-Red, and the professional sniper with his
sights on the NDP Barrett government.

Some two weeks ago, our fair city, and especially its
“thot line’’ denizens were host to two genuine 24-carat
finks, one of whom has been calling the same anti-
Communist line for the past 40 years or more. Supposedly
officers of the Canadian Rights League, or some such
grandiose title, these two specimens took us back nearly
half a century on the ‘Communist Menace,” in which the
senior of the two, one Pat Walsh, told of how he had
“starred’’ in the RCMP, the (U.S.) House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) of the McCarthy era, in the
SIU-Banks smashing of the Canadian Seamen’s Union
(ably assisted by Liberal spook addict Mackenzie King)
and other anti-Communist and anti-labor activities too
numerous to mention. Needless to say, they were taken to
the bosom of the radio ‘“‘hotliners’’ like old but highly
— prostitutes. Nothing like a ‘Communist

Menace” tirade to open the door to these radio stations of ;
ill repute. ;

With the keen noses of rats searching a garbage dump
for their sustenance, these two specimens also”
“discovered” elements of their ‘Communist Menace” in _
the NDP Barrett government of B.C. Its legislation, its”
professed ideals, its program and platform, they warn, all”
should be held suspect. How the boss loggers, the mine
operators, the grasping landlords et al must have lapped -
up this fantasy — all for ‘‘free’”’ except the probable cost 0
transportation and board for these touring rodents.

However the “Canadian Rights” pair and their “hot
line” paramours left Premier Barrett and his NDP one
good “‘out”’ from this ‘‘Communist Menace.’’ Even Prime
Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, (with whom Pat Walsh
claimed a close acquaintance), had also carried on a
telltale flurry of AunAtOnS with ‘“‘ccommunism”’ in his‘ —
younger days. ‘

Yes, we sorely need a much greater circulation of th

and power of the Truth, and not only in the national in 4
terest, but for world detente, understanding, peace and
human progress. To let the people know that while they g

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to pla
upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously,
by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let
her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put t
the worse ina free and open encounter —John Milton