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BRITISH COLUMBIA

The limited rights and freedoms con-
tained in the old Residential Tenancy Act
officially passed into history June 30 — and
only strong, united action can get those
rights back, according to B.C. tenant organ-
izer David Lane.

His comments have been echoed by Jim
Quail, chairman of the B.C. Tenants Rights
Coalition, who predicted last month,
“landlord-tenant relations will take a giant
step backward on July 1 when the office of
the Rentalsman officially closes its doors.

“The tenant has one right under the new
act,” said. Quail: “He can move out if he
wants.”

Quail, and Lane, who heads the coali-
tion’s Tenants’ Rights Action Centre, point
out that the new act is an improvement over
Bill 5, the attempted legislation introduced
with the July 7, 1983 Socred budget and
withdrawn under fire from Solidarity activi-
ties last fall.

“We won a real victory there. but it is
only a partial victory. This new law just isn’t
good enough,” said Quail, adding that the
new act “is aimed at making big landlords
richer, and tenants poorer.”

In beating back Bill 5, the Solidarity Coa-
lition member tenants’ coalition defeated an
attempt by the Socreds to give their land-
lord backers the carte blance power to evict
tenants without cause, or to evict with cause
on only 10 days notice. there were similar
regressive measures proposed for mobile
homeowners, which were also withdrawn.

But the subsequent “consultation” pro-
cess that followed the “Kelowna Accord”
failed to produce any other results. Despite
repeated briefs and visits to the minister
responsible, Jim Hewitt, other negative fea-
tures of the withdrawn Bill 5 remain in Bill
19, the recently proclaimed rental act.

Foremost is the elimination of the Ren-
talsman’s office, said Lane in listing the
features of the new act.

City greets peace envoys

Id. Libby Davies, as acting mayor, receives gift marking greetings from Vancouver's
sister city, Odessa, from peace trekker Sigurd Askevold July 4. Askevold, a retired
teacher from Creston, was chief organizer of the 16-member Peace and Friendship
Caravan International which embarked on a 23-country tour, including the USSR, from
Vancouver city hall last February. ‘’We can tell you that the city of Odessa is looking
forward to more exchanges,” Askevold told Davies, who praised the group’s effort.

Tenants’ campaign cites $30 fee

“The office is still around, but only in
Vancouver and only to handle cases filed
before July 1. Everywhere else in B.C., the
offices are closed — period.”

In place of the former rental officers the
province has installed an untold number of
“arbitrators” — thainly part-time adjudi-
cators who work under monthly contracts
and who can “be dismissed at the whim of
the minister,” said Lane.

The charge for the arbitrator’s services
— whether it’s landlords or tenants seeking
redress — is $30. Despite continued insist-
ence from the tenants’ coalition that the fee
is prohibitive for many, Hewitt has refused
entreaties to drop it — even for hardship
cases.

The arbitrators decide on all non-rent
cases — “‘it’ll cost you $30 just to get a
leaky faucet fixed,” explained Lane.

“There is no avenue of dispute against
unjust rent increases left to tenants, except
through the courts,” he added.

The new act also abolishes the last of rent
controls. Landlords are still limited to one
rent hike per year, “‘but that could be 100-
per cent increase, and there’s nothing the
tenant could do about it, except move.”

That ‘section is particularly hard on
mobile homeowners, Lane, who recently
toured 20 centres around the’ province,
reported. “It costs between $2,000 and
$3,000 to move a mobile home, we were
told at a meeting in Kelowna, so the trailer
park owners really have mobile homeowners
at their mercy.” ;

The new act reduces the tenancy period
following the serving of an eviction notice to
two months from the former four. While
the attempted “no cause” eviction of Bill 5
was withdrawn, the new act allows land-
lords eviction_powers under a “reasonable
cause” provision.

“The provision allows landlords to pick
some reason for eviction not specifically
covered udner any other section of the act.
It’s a catch-all clause and one of the most
serious changes to rental legislation,” said
Lane.

“In short, the act allows landlords the
most power they’ve had in years, while
tenants lose most the rights they gained in
the last decade. They’re forced to pay $30 to
try and force even minor repairs, or to chase
landlords for an unrefunded security dep-
osit through small claims court. And to

DAVID LANE...$30 arbitrator's fee th?

target.

make matters worse, even that machinery
isn’t in place,” Lane reported. “ical

Lane said his tour revealed that while
Rentalsman offices outside Vancouver
closed, the replacement arbitrators have a
been chosen. The result is “‘mass confust™
— no one knows where they can 8° fo
rental grievances. ‘aes

“We’ve had people in B.C. communi
looking for the form you’re supposed be
out to apply for arbitrators’ services. t
are actually with the local governmen
agent, but no one knows that. Outsi™”
Greater Vancouver, landlord-tenant rela
tions are reverting to the wild, wild wes i

The coalition’s current effort, alongs"
the continuous job of assisting tenants 30
organize is the attempted removal of the?"
user fee which, the coalition notes in a Mee
tion, imposed hardship on tenants rathe
than landlords. 00

Recently the petition, signed “by 1 d
representatives. of community organiZ
tions and trade unions, was sent to BS
nett’s office demanding, “the . cabiné
immediately withdraw the user fee and givé
assurances to B.C.’s tenants that no SY
discriminatory fees will be introduced? the
future.” j

Lane predicted that with the abolitio:
the Rentalsman machinery, tenants
forced to take demonstrative action to
resolve their grievances.

“Because arbitration is an. unworkable
system, we’ll see more and more dramatt’
tactics — picketing landlords offices, i
perhaps staging sit-ins — whatever is 0!
to get the point across.”

n of

—|

The Canadian Conference of Catholic
Bishops has now printed its second major
statement on the Canadian economy.

The first was the thought-provoking
Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis,
which aroused a great deal of criticism
within corporate circles and politicians
supporting vested interests. The second is
the bishops’ recent submission to the fed-
eral MacDonald Commission on Eco-
nomic Union and Development Prospects
for Canada. This one too aroused the ire
of the corporate-owned media.

Both documents were significant con-
tributions to the debate on the directions
Canada should take to economic recovery
and social justice. The submission to the
MacDonald Commission contained state-
ments that are worth examining.

It emphasized that the fundamental
question before Canada and the commis-
sion is the kind of society we want.

“«, People in general, and human labor
in particular,” it stated, “take priority of
both capital and technology in an eco-
nomic order based on justice. . .all persons
have certain inalienable rights. Of primary
importance is the right to life and all that
makes for a more fully human life such as
adequate food, clothing, shelter, employ-
ment, health care, education and effective
participation in decisions affecting their
lives. ~ :

“The primary purpose of a socio-
economic order,” the statement con-
tinued, “should be to develop its resources
for the common good, namely, the basic
life. needs of all its people for food, clo-

- thing, shelter, education, employment,
health care. ..economic strategies aimed at
maximizing private profits and consump-
tion, or technological growth designed to
maintain power and domination, consti-
tute distorted models of ‘development’
and must be resisted.”

Harry
Rankin

Dealing with the value and dignity of
labor, the submission stressed that
“human labor must...take precedence
over both capital and technology in the
production process,” urging that “the
basic rights of working people take prior-
ity over the maximization of profits.

“Working people...should -have an
effective and meaningful role to play in
social and economic planning regarding
the use of capital and technology,” it
stressed. ‘The state has the responsibility

Bishops gave sound advice to MacDonald

to intervene in the operations of an econ-
omy to ensure that basic human rights and
moral principles are realized.”

Dealing with current economic trends
in our society, it noted that “the worker-
less factory and the automated office may
well be among the chief characteristics of
the new industrial age”’ with its “‘continu-
ing crisis of permanent or structural
unemployment.

“Capital and technology,” it stated,
“have become increasingly concentrated
in fewer centres of power. The result of
foreign owernship and economic depen-
dency on the U.S. and the phasing out of
labor-intensive industries has been well
over two million people. . deprived of an
adequate family or personal income.

“The adoption of monetarist policies,”
it stated, “has resulted in a series of cut-
backs in social spending at both federal
and provincial levels.” If this trend con-
tinues, “it will likely result in the disman-
tling of the social welfare apparatus that
was gradually put in place following the
second world war”, adding that “‘privati-
zation could lead to a system where basic
social services are made available to
people on the basis of their ability to pay.

“The structural crisis has also intensi-
fied the concentration of economic power
in the hands of a small number of large
corporations exercising monopoly control

over key sectors of the economy,” !
stated, “with greater emphasis placed 08
organizing our economy to serve extern
market interests rather than producing for
the basic needs of our own population,” t0
the point where, “our country is becoming
more and more dependent on other coun-
tries for the basic food needs of out
population.

“The Canadian economy,” the bishop
submitted, “is becoming more closely
linked to the arms race.” The statement
went on to urge that war industries be
assisted to change over to “more socially
useful forms of production.”

The Catholic bishops argued for “4
renewed national commitment to full
employment. ..more meaningful and effec
tive forms of providing basic social servi-
ces,” and “‘new and more effective ways of
redistributing wealth and power among —
both people and regions in this country.”
A new approach to both centralized and
decentralized. planning, they stressed,
“may require nationalization of key sec-
tors of Canada’s economy.”

The bishops also urged a policy of
“increasing the self-sufficiency of ouf
industries to manufacture our natural
resources as finished products for the
markets,” as well as new forms of com-
munity ownership and worker-controlled
industries.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 11, 1984