q 2 ana NEWSITEM: Statistics Canada reported last week that the increase in food prices for September were three times higher in Vancouver than the national average of nine-tenths of one percent. Food prices in Vancouver rose that month by 2.9 percent. COUNCIL OUTLINES TAX REFORMS. But commercial property still won't pay its way By HARRY RANKIN City Council’s standing com- mittee on finance and administra- tion is considering changes in city taxation policies. These include a special area/special purpose tax, a parking tax, taxation of im- provements at 100%. of market value, and an added value tax. The special area/special pur- poses tax would be levied where developers are creating significant added costs to the city. An example is the downtown core with its high density development. This causes additional expenses for road and maintenance and repairs, water and sewer facilities, fire and police protection, bus service and so on. BURNABY ELECTION NOV. 17 BCA fielding strong slate Burnaby voters will go to the polls November 17 to elect a mayor and four aldermen to council as well as two school trustees. Heading up the slate for the Bur- naby Citizens Association which has been endorsed by the Van- couver and District Labor Council and several other progressive organizations, is Tom Constable, the incumbent mayoralty can- didate. Constable defeated several other candidates last June to win the mayor’s spot vacated when former BCA mayor Bob Prittie resigned to take a post with the municipal affairs department in Victoria. Gerry Ast, Hugh Cooper, Fred Randall and Colin Snell are run- ning for aldermen for the BCA and Gary Begin and Barry Jones for school board. Brian Gunn who was elected as an alderman last June for the BCA does not come up for reelection until next year. Both Cooper and Snell have held the position of president of the BCA with Cooper presently holding the office Snell is also a leading figure in the trade union move- ment holding the position of business agent for Local 452 of the Carpenters. Following the campaign in Van- couver initiated by COPE, the BCA Tom system for Burnaby for the election of aldermen, school trustees and parks board members. The Association has also called for the removal of school taxes from homeowners, to be financed in- stead by large developers in the area. On housing the BCA is calling for encouragement and cooperation with both federal and provincial governments to provide “economical and quality” housing for Burnaby. It has also pledged to establish a landlord and tenant board with powers to enforce landlord-tenant rights as well as calling for a moratorium on con- dominium conversion. Just cause for eviction is to be established in a municipal by-law. The policy on transit includes pressing B.C. Hydro for park-and- ride depots in north, south and east Burnaby as well as continuing to work for rapid transit and the cur- tailment of further freeway exten- sion. On school board policies, the BCA candidates have raised several issues including pressing for a new finance formula to remove school taxes from proper- ty, subsidized transportation for all school travel and community use of schools coordinated by school and parks boards. ; ° dollars of John Taxpayer’s money, and called it a day. The policy also advocates a significant reduction in class size, particularly in the primary grades, more Canadian content and _programs in educational materials and retraining programs for teachers. In addition the BCA wants the Burnaby school board in- creased to seven members from ‘the present five. Polls are open from eight.a.m. to eight p.m. on Saturday, November 17. TOM CONSTABLE All that was 40 years ago and the BNA remains unchang- ed and unchanging, except in those areas that promote and The benefits from this high density development , accrue almost ex- clusively to the merchants and business interests located in this area, but the public a¥ a whole has to pay the extra costs through higher taxes, higher rents, bus fares and parking fees. Such a tax would, therefore, be a good thing. It would compel those who get the benefits to pay the bills. Council should endorse it and seek the necessary amendment to the city’s charter to levy sucha tax in the form of a surcharge on the general purposes mill rate. PARKING TAX The proposal here is to levy a special tax on commuters who park their cars in the city. It is estimated that 50% of work force commuters come from outside of the city, most of them in cars. The tax would be levied on parking stalls. The rational for this tax is that commuters use roads that are paid for by the public as a whole and are therefore being subsidized. A special parking tax would recover some of this subsidy. I am utterly opposed to such a tax at this time. It would only make things harder for working people who have to use their cars to come to work. For them to pay two or _three times what they pay now in parking fees would be like a wage cut. For business men it wouldn’t make much difference — it would just be an added expense to the cost of running their businesses. The solution to the problem of transportation, including mounting road costs, is a good public transportation system including rapid transit. We need a public transit system that will move peo- ple quickly, comfortably and at low fares. It should include the whole lower mainland. This would solve the problem of traffic congestion at rush hours, cut down the costs of road repair and maintenances, cut transportation costs for com- muters, and decrease the growing volume of traffic accidents and deaths. Once we have such a public transportation system I would be quite prepared to support a park- ing tax to encourage people to leave their cars at home. snoozing away the time, only to wake up long enough '0 veto some progressive bill or other that the governmeé the day have been compelled by public pressure to enac % IMPROVEMENT TAX At present, land and im- provements are assessed at 100% of their market value. The mill rate, however, is based on 100% of the value of land but only.on 75%’ of the value of improvements. City officials estimate that if the mill rate were levied on 100% of im- provements, it would bring about a slight shift in the tax load. The homeowner would pay 3% less (about $10 a year), apartments 5.7% more while the increases for commercial properties would be 2.2% and for industrial properties 3.6%. This tax is of some service since anything is better than nothing, but it wouldn’t make any great changes. ADDED VALUE TAX This is something I have ad- vocated for years, in fact J pioneered in this proposal long before most of the present aldermen were on Council. every instance it was given the col shoulder by the NPA. This tax would be levied on the added value of land brought about » by rezoning. When the city rezones land for developers (and it is doing it all the time), the land may 1 crease five or ten times in value immediately because of the new use to which it may be put. All this new value is now pocketed by the developer. Yet it was the com munity as a whole that created these values and it was‘city councl that passed the rezoning by-law; the developers did nothing ‘ create the new values. Since this § the case it is only fair that the neW values added by rezoning shou come back to the community ‘through an ‘“‘added value’ tax. When the city rezoned the C.P.R. land at the corner of Ar butus and King Edward for a shoP” ping centre, it gave the C.P.R. @ gift of many millions of dollars. and when the city rezones f C.P.R. land on the north shore False Creek, the C.P.R. stands 4 make some $100 million, and al this just by the city passing a re20™" ing by-law. Alderman Volrich wants such ? tax limited to 25%, payable over # ten year period by the owner. see TAX REFORM pg. ! er nt of ther McEWEN I it any wonder the people’s patience wears thin at f times and they feel like going off the deep end? Away back in 1937 the Right ‘Honorable’ Mackenzie King, so beset with grips about the British North America Act, (BNA for short), set up a Royal Commission to study the BNA and make some recommendations as to what should be done about it. > This body was known as the Rowell Commission after its chairman, the ‘“‘Hon.’’ Newton M. Rowell, Chief Justice of Ontario. Its other two appendages were the “Hon.” ‘Thaibudreau Rinfret, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and one relatively honest man, the late J.W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press. This Commission sat as long as was consistent with decency, heard a lot of briefs, beefs and other assorted viewpoints from interested citizens, mostly demanding drastic changes or abolition of the BNA in its entirety. The Commission then wrote a lengthy report, embodied in three bulky volumes, collected its fee of some half a million Bsns SSeS SS PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1973—-PAGE 2 safeguard the sacred right of exploitation and the monopoly _extraction of maximum profits. For the rest the BNA “made-in-England constitution’ for Canada remains in- violable. Since 1937 there have been other ‘‘commissions’’ ponder- ing the intricacies and inequalities of the BNA, com- missions making many worthy proposals for changes, then pocketing their ‘emoluments of office,” packing their bags, and dropping the issue of a new made-in-Canada con- ~ stitution like the pre-election promise of a professional politician,,. “To hell with a new constitution” says big business monopoly, “‘the old one is good enough. Any changes re- quired, we'll write them, and the government of the day, Tory, Liberal or Socred will agree’’. The only non-‘“Hon.”’ on the Rowell Commission opposed to Monopoly’s con- _Stitutional drafters was the small ‘‘l’’ Liberal, and they dubbed him a “Commie”. _ : Years ago there used to be quite a political ferment go- ing the rounds on the abolition of the Senate. Now with the exception of some stray Tory angling for a few stray votes, its as dead as the fabled dodo, while senate appointments go merrily on. . . ata stipend (for life) of some $40,000 per annum of the taxpayers’ money. For doing little else than Outside of this watchdog role, the Senate has no 0 i pretense or excuse for its existence — except of coursé uphold the BNA made for, but not by Canadians. t Even in the ranks of the NDP, now the governmen holding power in three major Canadian provinces, one ae ly ever hears any mention of abolishing the Senate, CF despite the fact that erstwhile NDPer’s and earlier C t spokesmen used to wax very eloquent on the subjec, : Politicians of course, like decaying potatoes, mature a ij the passing of time but an organization that lays claim. | socialist objectives and goals must also concern itsel a the BNA as a many-sided obstruction to the desireable 8 of socialism. xt Were the NDP to become the government in the Me federal election and faced with the necessity of evolvin8 program and constitution commensurate with that goa’ e would be immediately hamstrung by the BNA ang obstructive constitutional provisions with which that doc ment is rife. ye Of course, some may argue as many NDP leaders at done, on occasion, that socialism in this country is “147 fs a hypothetical question” and with it, the question of scra ping an alien BNA and abolishing the Senate. But they 6s exactly the ones that have become candidates themse for that chamber of fossilized watchdogs.