Vietnam committee says:
‘Aid still urgent need’

The Canadian Aid for Vietnam
Civilians committee (CAVC) has
mailed out hundreds of copies of its
Fall-Winter Bulletin headlining the
story of the visit of Dr. Alan Inglis
and his wife Kay to North Vietnam.
The Bulletin is headlined:
“Vietnam visit confirms need for
continuing aid.”

The Bulletin also contains the
text of a letter sent to Hon. Allan
MacEachen, minister of external
affairs, Ottawa, by CAVC chair-
man Dr. A. Inglis, urging that
Canada extend official recognition
to the People’s Nevolutionary
Government (PRG) of South
Vietnam as a major step toward
implementing the terms of the
Paris agreement, and that Canada
render material aid to all parts of
Vietnam to help the people rebuild
their lives.

Expressing the CAVC’s thanks to
Mrs. Sheila Young for her
“exemplary effort on behalf of the
needy Vietnamese children,” the
Bulletin announces that CAVC
reports with regret that Mrs.
Young has informed the committee
that she will no longer be able to
serve in the capacity of vice-
chairman of CAVC and to be
responsible for the Children’s
Committee.

The announcement says _ that
“Mrs. Young has actively assisted
the work of CAVC since its in-
ception, and also has given un-
stintingly of her time and efforts on
behalf of this humanitarian
cause.”’ ‘

The CAVC Bulletin announces
that parcels for aid to Vietnamese
children can be sent to: Canadian
Aid Vietnam Civilians, 3751 Selkirk
St., Vancouver, B.C. or Box 2543,
Vancouver 3, Canada.

Dr. and Mrs. Inglis will show
slides and share their experiences
of their visit to North Vancouver at
a public meeting to be held at the
Unitarian Church, 949 W. 49th
Ave., Vancouver, on Wednesday,
January 15 at 8 p.m.

Start the
New Year
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By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

To review the events of the past
year and to try and look ahead to
see what 1975 holds for us seems
the logical thing to do at this time
of year.

1974 was a year of accelerating .

inflation that hit all working people
hard, especially those on fixed
incomes. Unemployment
creased at an alarming rate in the
: depressed lumber industry and
sooner or later this will affect most
sectors of the B.C. economy. As the
year drew toa close it was evident
that Canada, along with other
countries in-the non-socialist
world, has entered an economic
depression, the full effects of which
are still to be seen.

Tenants in B.C. had a tough
battle defeating landlord attempts
to lift rent controls. The decision of
the provincial government to limit
increases to 10.6 per cent in these
circumstances can be considered a
clear victory for the people.

The housing shortage is as bad
now or. worse than it was a year
ago. In view of the refusal of City
Council to institute tax reforms,
taxes on homes continued to rise.

Granville Mall, that
unimaginative and uninspiring
alley of cement and glass was
opened at a cost of over $2 million
to taxpayers. If its purpose was to
enable Granville landlords to make
a mint by hiking rents, then it was
a success. But by any other
standards this ‘monument to
Phillips’ Folly was a dismal dud
that will yet come back to haunt
TEAM.

The redevelopment of the South
Shore of False Creek is proceeding
and more and more it is becoming
evident that this will be a housing
project for the wealthy and no

- those who need it most. :

The decision of City Council to
rezone the North Shore of False
Creek to enable the CPR to build
another West End apartment
jungle there was a clear gift of at
least $100 million to a railway that
has been built on public subsidies.
It is, to date, the biggest giveaway
to developers in Vancouver’s
history and we have had some big
ones. The rezoning of the water-
front, from Stanley Park to Main
Street, by the TEAM Council had a
similar objective.

in-

ee ii Restraints on corporate
greed main goal in 1975.

I could go on for a long time in
the same vein, but let’s leave it at
that. Let’s just say that thanks to
TEAM, 1974 was an excellent year
for developers in Vancouvef.

What’s ahead for 1975?

We can be certain that the lan-
dlords, led by big corporate

‘holders, will step up their drive to

lift rent controls.
There is no way of solving the

$

Ald. Harry Rankin reviews 1974
and projects what lies ahead for
the people of Vancouver in
1975. :

housing shortage other than for the _
various levels of government to go
into the housing business them-
selves on a large scale. Private
enter prise cannot and will not build
housing that’s within the reach of _
working people. Ei

Taxes on homes will be reduced _
only when Council compels big
industrial and commercial _
properties in Vancouver, like B.C.
Sugar, to begin paying their fair
share of taxes. =

The development projects un-_
dertaken in 1974, like the North
Shore of False Creek and the _
waterfront, will bring un-
precedented traffic and other
problems in their wake that will

impose huge new financial burden:
on taxpayers.

In these circumstances to wis
anyone a Happy and Prosperou!
New Year has a hollow ring to it. It _
would be much more realistic to
express the hope that in 1975 the
people of Vancouver will be able
through cooperative efforts,
place some restraints on the greed
of the developers and other cor.
porate interests responsible fo
inflation and economic depression
In this sense I would like to wis
you all a most successful Ne
Year. Keep on fightin’!

Rankin urges GVRD changes

In a year end statement Ald.
Harry Rankin called for changes in
the functions. and responsibilities
of the Greater Vancouver Regional
District (GVRD).

He said, ‘‘Having the voters in
each municipality decide which of
their alderman (or mayor as the
case may be) will represent their
municipality on the GVRD, as was
done in the last municipal elec-
tions, is an improvement but it
isn’t enough.”

Rankin said aldermen are busy
in their own municipal affairs with
little time left for the GVRD, and
that the Board of Directors should
be elected by the voters in the
Regional District apart from
aldermanic elections. ‘‘They
should be people who can give their
full time, or at least most of their
time, to the GVRD.”

He said the basic problem is still
that of trying to get the GVRD to
adopt people-oriented policies

rather than developer-oriented »
policies. Rankin added that the —
GVRD faces the same issues we _
face in municipal politics —_
housing, tenant problems, public ~
transportation, tax reform, ete. —
and the business-oriented councils _
that do little or nothing about these _
problems are the same people wh
make up the GVRD.

Rankin also disassociate
himself from a resolution passed
by the GVRD criticizing the B.C.
government for stepping in and
ordering public hearings in Rich- —

mond. He branded the attempted —

rezoning as a_ sell-out, to
developers.
HIGHER PENSIONS

The results of a recent Gallup _
poll show that if the decision were
left to the average Canadian, an
old age pensioner with no ad- |
ditional income, would get $300 per
month from the government, —

K one were to take all that the crystal gazers of big
] business say of 1975 the prospects would be gloomy
indeed. Lately there has been no end of bankers, financial
Sharks, politicians of all sorts, “economists” and “ex-
perts” of every vintage giving us the lowdown on °75 and
how bad it will be.

They have yet to decide among: themselves as to
whether we now have a “depression” or merely a
“recession.”” Such wordy, _hair-splitting against a
background of a million or more unemployed workers and
their families, illustrates a cynical callousness that would
make an angel weep. Then the high cost of living, ac-
cording to these soothsayers, is to continue on the up and
up for '75, as is the barefaced robbery of rising prices...
and of course doubly rising profits:

Moreover and not forgetting humanity’s recent

carolling on the universal hope for “peace on earth, -

goodwill to men,” these purveyors of gloom and doom
give the modern merchants of Death a hefty shot in the
arm by prognosticating all sorts of wars in various sectors
of the earth, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and elsewhere.
Since they speak for the real criminals of this age, they

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1975—Page 2

must (and will) bear the responsibility for their
prophecies.

Happily there is another side to these multiple issues of
75, which these so called ‘“‘economists,” ‘‘experts” and
similar spokesmen for big business do not dwell upon —
the latent and imperishable power of the people.

In the depression of the Hungry 30’s a million or so
unemployed workers compelled the government of the
day to enact a system of unemployment insurance.
During the intervening years unemployment insurance
has been amended almost beyond all recognition from the
original, and given over to a bureaucratic machine, whose
main function would appear to be the denial of insurance
benefits to jobless workers. - -

In ’75, a million jobless, combined with the great trade
union movement in Canada are capable of writing another
Unemployment Insurance Act, which will give to the
jobless and dispossessed worker what is his (or her) right
as a citizen of Canada ... and dispose of a supervisory
bureaucracy as one would so much garbage!

The skyrocketing prices and inflation still beckon to 1975
to up the maximum profit intake. Big business licks its
chops in anticipation while its hired “‘experts’’ spew out
their ‘‘nobody-can-help-it’’ — and in the Soviet Union
things are ‘‘just as bad as they are here.’’ Another lie that
they have been spouting (with varied modifications) since
1917. Things are not just as bad as they are in Canada or
anywhere else in the ‘‘Free West.” First because there is
no unemployment where socialism prevails; and second,
because while real wages steadily go up, living costs go
down, and the blight of inflation does not exist, since the

economic policies of the socialist lands are geared to
workers’ needs, and not to the maximum profits of
monopoly parasites; and lastly, if indeed it should be
first, the Soviet Union and the socialist world budget for
peace and peoples’ prosperity, rather than for war, with

its human and material destruction. Our “economists,” _

“experts” et al may learn that basic and fundamental

\
H

Marxist-Leninist lesson, when it is too damn late for them

and those who pay them for parroting such tripe! oe
Thus 1975 may not be the happiest of new years, but in
the titanic struggles ahead, involving millions from

factory and farm alike, it will be a history making year of —

great decision. -f

In an editorial in the Vancouver Sun, December 21, the —

editor accidentally caught a glimpse of truth when he
wrote: “The taxers and the taxed ought to be on the samé

footing in a democracy. It may be worth remembering

that a good deal of trouble arose in Russia in the days of
the Romanovs when the noble boyars exempted them
selves from taxes, and left the serfs to carry the load.

The editor got so worked up that he even quoted a line —

from Oliver Cromwell’s closing words to the Long
Parliament of his day, as “a pack of mercenary wret-

. ches’. . . typical of our MP’s, senators and such kidney L 4

today, who stand ready to raid the public treasury...a
the devil take the hindmost.

Yes, Messieurs parasites, “remember the Romanovs”

because your inherent class greed can land you in the
same spot.

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