eeRN4| Sa 2 Rapid transit YES, Freeways NO Rapid transit No. 1 Priority says expert ze Chairman of the Town Planning Commission, John Vane °XPressed the sentiments of the majority of Greater act Citizens last week when he said rapid transit is the gone priority. Moy, ea only 2,000 people per hour on the average can be COuld tr. a lane of automobile traffic. One line of rapid transit lanes 4Nsport 40,000 people an hour, which is equivalent to 20 "Quire Teeway. He added one line of rapid transit would the freeway from one-sixth to one eighth of the land needed by wae Ky said if Vancouver’s population doubles it would be tema, fume that land requirements would quadruple. The the wig Can only be met by ingenious planning of land uses on st possible scale. Ridership nee out the Ontario government has ‘‘given » d ani to Metro Toronto, and money out of their highways Mith bys Oday the city has a first class commuter train service 0 goy, eeder lines, Just last week it was revealed the On- Sadin, “Tent rejected the completion of the $237 million ‘tbway €Xpressway in favor of a public transit system. A Areca! be built along the six and a half mile route of the S : area. SWay to link northwestern Toronto with the downtown ™ test interesting side benefit of the Toronto move is that tion ae which had been slated for expropiation and demoli- is ved by this decision. the Qo Ming Saturday, June 12, the regional committee of itging nist Party is holding a mass distribution of leaflets Scheq " Start on rapid transit. Several public meetings are anid eer this month and in July. “tthe ¢ Pp Transit — the Only Modern Way to Go is the theme ¥ woman reports ‘world peace parley the Dice of W dug World p omen delegate by messages from Prime Min- Ry Pest last eace Assembly in ister Mrs. Bandanaraike of ig ee Month says that in Ceylon and Mrs. Indira Ghandi. fi th i the <> Know they’ve got to a Hila Y to world peace. in City "Y Brown told a Mrs. Brown herself initiated a discussion of the projected the yy, Udi i in th ions of e Ry lene Amchitka test in the sessions lia Fireside a last Tuesday the Disarmament Commission. ings Chur beeen Uni- the test of the 5-megaton urope i Olle, "Veryone oe Peas nuclear weapon, she told them, S oy tion : ‘ aot Stil the ot the war years. It 'S4 completely immoral ac Saiq Tame of The assembly was addressed Nelivet which poke. by Madame Binh, chief Viet- pp Peakin namese delegate to the Paris i, ive 8 Of the truly im- Peace talks, who said that the “bly breadth of the April demonstrations 1n the $y) Bates She said it included United States represented an aidan; trom the Afro-Asian historic turning point. For the sin on Committee the first time, she said, the Indo- agstiang rence of Catholic Chinese felt that Americans be ur Offi Uropean States Were going to say No to the war. hitea ted sae delegates from Mrs. Brown was among a dele- The o2 Apa lons Special Com- gation of eight which went from ® first on theid. Canada including three trade Ceygubly ne read to the unionists, and Dr. James wy from Secretary- Endicott of the Canadian Peace ant, to be followed Congress. Civic crisis report pins blame on Socred policy The fact that B.C. muni- cipalities are facing financial disaster comes as no surprise to knowledgeable people who have warned that provincial govern- ment policies would lead to such a situation. The Plunkett report made public last week confirms the stand of progressive municipal spokesmen, the NDP, Com- munist Party and many others that municipal administrations could not continue to function under the financial burdens placed upon them by the penurious Social Credit govern ment. The special report com- missioned by the Union of B.C. Municipalities states they face disastrous developments unless the provincial government assumes the total cost of social welfare and a greater pro- portion of education costs. An increasing share of these costs have been shifted from the provincial government to muni- cipal property taxpayers. This means there is an increasing incapacity to provide primary services in the municipalities, and the reduction of the role of municipal authorities in provid- ing responsible government. Although this year the Socred government reduced municipal share of welfare costs to 15 from 20 percent, an executive director of the UBCM said 15 percent is still too much, as it is half as much again as the 10 percent share that the govern- ment boosted to 20 percent in 1968. The report said it cannot be denied that requirements are expanding in such areas as protective services, sanitation, pollution control, parks and rec- reation, urban development and redevelopment, roads and trans- - portation. “The continual reduction of financial capacity of municipal governments to deal effectively with these requirements will have unfortunate consequences on community living,’ it states. The Plunkett report urges that the provincial government assume all social welfare costs and a greater proportion of education costs. The only direct source of revenue available to the munici- palities is the tax on real property, and an increasing proportion of that revenue goes to the support of services over which municipal governments have no real control — education _and a social welfare. Pointing out that many muni- cipal districts are now entirely urban, the report says that in fast-growing areas there is less money spent per capita than in slow-growing areas. While needs increase, the ability to pay for them, in other words, decreases. “This means,” the report says, “‘that there is an obvious time lag between when the population arrives and when it is serviced adequately.” Five categories of municipal spending were listed to illus- trate the increases between 1957 and 1967. They are astonishing figures. Police and fire costs jumped an average of 365 percent in fast- growing municipalities, and 220 percent in the slow; public works jumped 198 percent in the fast growing areas, 30 percent in the slow; sanitation and garbage service, 768 percent and 317 percent in the two categories, and recreational and com- munity facilities, 720 percent and 355 percent. = Expenditures per capita in both areas of growth has doubled between 1957 and 1967. In 1957, 40.6 percent of every property tax dollar went to education; in 1968 it was 54.3 percent of the tax dollar. Most damaging, property owners, the majority of them small home owners in all cities and districts faced an increase in property tax of 226 percent in those ten years while the increase in property tax for education was 450 percent. The report points out that the home owners grant is a discriminatory one in that it is applicable to only one class of property — residential home- owners — and it will benefit a decreasing number of muni- cipal residents in the future as more and more people are forced to become renters rather than homeowners. Fort Ware natives resent charity call Nick Prince, an organizer amongst Indian people at Fort Ware, and a former chief at Fort St. James, said the people in the area do not need charity and resent being the recipients of charity. He was commenting on an appeal for food to be flown in to Fort Ware by a concerned Surrey citizen recently. He said that he had been to Fort Ware twice since April 1, and had yet to see starving people in the village. “‘These people don’t want pub- licity that makes beggars of them,”’ he said. He claimed there is work for them with the Forestry depart- ment and in clearing around Williston Lake. Prince is trying to promote a government-sponsored scheme to preserve and keep alive the ancient handicrafts of the Indian people before the art is allowed to die. A story in the Prince George Citizen tells of a case at Chet- wynd where 26 people lived in a two-room shack last winter. They are non-status Indians. “Tt shouldn’t be that bad,”’ said a field worker for the B.C. Association for Non-Status Indians, “‘but they couldn’t get. welfare assistance and it was cold.”’ He said 33 people were cut off welfare last year in Chetwynd - . because they didn’t declare Veteran British Communist R. Palme Dutt examines the Lenin Jubilee Medal he received in London recently from Soviet Ambassador M.N. Smirnovsky in recognition of a lifetime of work as one of the world’s outstanding Marxist writers. {P39 Y eT OAS PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1971—PAGE 3 earnings such as fire-fighting. They were told before this it wasn’t necessary. The Association has organized 24 locals of the group in the province in less than two years= = = wig