BRITISH COLUMBIA

Rehashed
security
bill still

threatens

Bill C-9, intended to establish a
domestic spy service in Canada, is little
better than its predecessor, Bill C-157.
The latter was dropped by Ottawa in the
face of widespread protests. But almost
all the objectionable features of Bill
C-157 are still in the new bill.

The director of the new spy agency
would still have the power to spy on any
individual or group he suspects “on
reasonable grounds” (section 12) of
“constituting threats to the security of
Canada.” The problem is that the
RCMP (and there is no reason to believe
the heads of this agency will be any dif-
ferent) have always targeted trade
unions, peace groups and other forms of
lawful dissent as “subversive” and a
threat to Canadian security.

The new spy agency would have the
power (section 23) “to remove from any
place any thing installed” and “to enter
any place or open or obtain access to any
thing.” This gives the spy agency the
power to virtually do anything it
wants — to break into homes and offi-
ces, to seize anything it wants, to open
mail, to bug telephones — there are vir-
tually no limits.

By law these are crimes, but not when
‘committed by the spy agency.

There is one slight improvement in Bill
C-9 as compared to Bill C-157. The old
bill gave the director of the Spy agency
the power to operate without any control
by government or Parliament. He was
above the law. The new bill makes him

responsible to a cabinet minister for his
actions.

But this provision, too, has been
watered down by clauses which slough :
off the minister’s responsibilities to his
deputy minister and a new appointee
called the Inspector-General, who is
supposed to monitor the activities of the.
spy agency. Complaints about the
actions of the spy agency are to be
referred to a review committee, appointed
by the cabinet, none of whom may be
elected members of the House of
Commons.

The role of Parliament in controlling
the new spy agency will be practically
nil — only once a year will it receive a
report from the review committee passed
on by the minister. _

Under the new bill no provincial
attorney-general may launch actions
against any member of the spy agency
for violation of the law if the federal
attorney-general declares it not to be in|
the interests of the security of Canada.
Translated into plain English, this means
that the federal government has the
power to cover up any crimes committed
by the spy agency against citizens of
Canada

Bill C-9, just like Bill C-157, is still a)
police state bill. All the rights, freedoms:
and protections we are supposed to have
under Canada’s Charter of Rights won’t
be worth a damn if this bill is passed.
That’s why every union, every citizen

Jobs, services maintained

in pre-budget council vote

Vancouver will have a balanced budget
in 1984 that will maintain city services at the
1983 levels and keep all civic staff on the
payroll, if a vote taken in council last week is
repeated when the budget is finalized in
mid-April.

Council’s progressive majority in a 7-4
vote Feb. 21 beat back a right-wing attempt
to chop $7 million from general revenues
contained in a preliminary budget estimate,
a move which would have cost some 300
jobs, and numerous services.

“In a sense, it was the opening gun of the
1984 election campaign — and the right
wing has been defeated,” said Ald. Bruce
Yorke afterwards.

Yorke, and fellow aldermen from the
Committee of Progressive Electors Bruce
Eriksen, Libby Davies and Harry Rankin
were joined by Ald. Bill Yee, Ald. Don
Bellamy and Mayor Mike Harcourt in
approving a city manager’s report on
budget estimates that will guide department
heads and council’s standing committee on
finance and administration in setting a min-
imum cuts budget at a time of provincially
imposed restraint.

Opposing the report, because it contains
a key recommendation that the city transfer
into general operating revenues $7 million
accrued through rentals and short-term
investments from the city’s $400 million
property endowment fund, were aldermen
Warnett Kennedy and George Puil from
the Non-Partisan Association, and The
Electors Action Movement’s May Brown
and Marguerite Ford.

The vote is highly indicative of the deci-
sion council will make when the completed
budget is tabled sometime in April. It will be
the second consecutive year the city has held
the line on cutbacks, following the election
of the progressive majority in 1982.

Last year that majority, again over the
objections of council’s right wing, took $5

ALD. BRUCE YORKE. . .‘opening gun’ of fall
election fired.

million from the endowment fund to keep
jobs and services intact.

“We did a lot better job than the provin-
cial government in balancing the budget,”
declared Rankin at last Tuesday’s meeting,
“And I believe we can do it again this year.”

Without the $7-million transfer — which
city finance director Peter Leckie said
would prevent “‘massive layoffs” — the city
faces a $19 million shortfall, the difference
between estimated revenues and income.

With the endowment transfer, that short-
fall is still $12 million, caused in part by the
“phasing out” of the business tax, a cut in
the provincial government’s unconditional
grant of 10 per cent and elimination of the
grant Victoria provides for housing starts.

That $12 million will likely be reduced by
at least $5 million when department heads
revise their expenditures estimates to
accommodate current service levels and
“essential” increases, Yorke said later.

The remaining $7 million can be ré;
through a modest tax hike — likely ar!
4.5 per cent said Yorke, pointing out¥
three per cent of that had already
approved by voters when they adopt
city’s five-year capital plan in a ple
during the 1982 election.

“The provincial government is ché
lot more money for a lot less services;
Rankin during council debate, refertl
the eight-per cent surcharge on provil
income tax. “Yes, we’ll have to raise
and we'll have to take some money from
property endowment fund. i

“Tf you don’t use the money when
are tough, when do you use it?“ he as

“Tt’s clear that the philosophical diff
ces have surfaced in this debate, °*
COPE’s Libby Davies,’ “It’s come dow?
a question of whether you believe that!
depression you try to keep jobs and serv!
or cut them.”

Ald. .Yee argued that the $7
skimmed from the fund “was not moO
down the drain — we're returning it!
city in the form of jobs and services.

Right-wing opposition to the transft
particularly “hypocritical,” said En
considering the support TEAM and NF
aldermen gave the proposed new Call
Street bridge. The $60 million project
require the city to borrow between §.
million, and raise taxes to between $12

issue goes before city voters in a plebis™
along with the school board byelectio®
Mar. 14. ae

“Clearly, the right-wingers have beet
defeated in their effort to cut services
jobs,” said Yorke.

“We've defeated them because of !
backing of community groups and the
unions,” he added, “And with their supP
this year, we can do it again.”

group should let the government know
that we won’t stand for this wiping out of
our democratic rights.

The Vancouver school board, domi-
nated by the right-wing Non-Partisan
Association, has a “‘hit list” of five schools
it wants to close to accommodate provin-
cial government education cutbacks, the

- Committee of Progressive Electors’ school
board candidate in the Mar. 14 byelection
has charged.

Gary Onstad said parents are already
upset over the closure this June of the Tyee
elementary school, which may be sold toa
private school chain.

“The Vancouver school board should
be providing a leadership role in fighting
the Socreds’ cutbacks,” Onstad, who will
make school closures and program cuts
key elections issues, declared.

Onstad, a trustee from 1980 to 1982
when a five-person COPE majority held
the line against budget cutbacks, said the
budget tabled by the provincial govern-
ment Feb. 20 contains “even more cut-
backs” for B.C.’s school children.

“It has big hikes for private schools,
which only a few families can afford, and
disastrous decreases for public education.
It’s a Fraser Institute plan to have the
public school system in a shambles by
1986.”

Onstad said he agreed with a recent
report by University of B.C. professor
Robert Allen which found that B.C.
shared with Prince Edward Island the dub-
ious distinction of having the “thinnest”
education system in Canada, and which
concluded that so-called problems the

Onstad — ‘VSB should
lead anti-cuts fight’

Socreds see with the public schools are the
result of “ideoiogical fantasies.”

After four months of wrangling, the

school board’s NPA majority reached a
compromise with COPE trustees Pauline
Weinstine, Phil Rankin and Wes Knapp,
and sent a “needs” budget along with a
cutbacks budget to Victoria. The needs

budget has since been rejected by the edu-

cation ministry, Onstad reported.

The financial picture for 1984 is bleak,
he warned, with 28 classes in the English as
a Second Language program slated for the
chopping block this June, and the elimina-
tion of the refugee language program next
year. ESL students comprise 46 per cent of
Vancouver’s student population.

The NPA has fielded former trustee
Jonathan Baker, who ran unsuccessfuly
against Mike Harcourt for the mayor’s
chair in 1982.

Said Onstad: “I’m surprised Baker’s
running. He showed no interest in the
board whatever in 1982. He attended no.
committee meetings, which are the bulk of
a trustee’s responsibilities — he said he
wasn’t interested since he wasn’t on the
‘winning side.” ”

Another candidate, Peter Westlake, is a
former NPA trustee in the 70s who went
down to defeat after losing the NPA nom-
ination “because he’s too right wing, even
for them,” said Onstad.

The outcome of the byelection is consi-
dered important in determining the kind

GARY ONSTAD...COPE candidate cites
NPA ‘hit list’

of: vote progressives will receive in this
fall’s elections for school board, as well as
for park board and city council.

In 1982 the electorate voted inan NPA |
majority. But since then the Socreds’
draconian cutbacks to education have —
caused mass parent rallies at which COPE
trustees were prominent and outspoken in —
their opposition to the school cutbacks.

But to get that vote out in a byelection,
in which only a small portion of voters
traditionally turn out to the polls, COPE is
planning a massive door-knocking cam-
paign on Mar. 10 and 11.

For that a large force of volunteers is —
needed. They can contact the COPE by-
election office in the Maritime Building,
111 Victoria Dr. The phone number is
255-3713.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 29, 1984