Protest prick

balloon at B.C. Place

Premier Bill Bennett’s attempt
to prop up the Socred image in
Vancouver fell flat Monday after
he tripped over about 30
demonstrating tenants protesting
the Socred government’s inaction

_ On the housing crisis.

Flags and ribbons were
€verywhere, oddly decorating a
chain guard fence and a huge con-
Struction site, and while Bobby
Hale’s rag-time jazz band played
SOme tunes from under a red and
white canape, 300 of B.C.’s elite,
hand picked for the occasion,
Mingled fashionably.

They had come to the south
Shore of False Creek, across the
toad from Bay Lumber and just
down from Sweeney Barrels, for an
Old fashioned political revival
Meeting, to revive the Social Credit
base in Vancouver by trumpeting
the glory of the new stadium and
B.C. Place. B.C. Place brass Alvin
Narod and Paul Manning were
Primed to heap praise on Bennett,

~ and Bernie Smith was ready to lead

the cheers from the audience; it was
all set up to be the propaganda

_ Coup the Socreds have wanted in

Vancouver for a long time.

_But when Bennett and most of
his cabinet jumped off their
chartered bus campaign style, they
were met with a spirited
demonstration staged by members
of the Greater Vancouver Renters
Association and the Save Our
Homes Organization.

Chants of ‘‘housing is our right’’
and “‘tenants are voters too’’ pierc-

» ed the air while the slogans on. the

Placards pointed to the criticisms of
the B.C. Place project which the
Official speeches had been meant to
deflect.

The stadium and B.C. Place are
not “‘monuments”’ to the govern-
ment assured Manning, Narod,

ed minister Stephen Rogers
and Bennett in succession. It would
hot take money away from
necessary social projects, and it
would provide housing for
€veryone, low income people too.

The chants continued, and a
Cocky Bennett responded with jabs
back at the demonstrators, finally
offering the protesters five minutes
to have their say, if they allowed
him his

When Bennett finished a
Somewhat amazed audience wat-
ched Greater Vancouver Renters
Association president Tom
Lalonde take the podium beside

ett and deliver a blistering at-
tack on Socred housing policy.

“Millions of tax payers dollars
being wasted building monuments

€ this to save the government,”’
he said, “‘Not one dime should be
Spent on a monument like this until
Our citizens are housed.”’

Lalonde called the housing crisis
and the lack of a Socred policy to
Provide affordable housing ‘‘a
Crime”’. ‘‘This government hasn’t
built a solitary unit of social hous-
Ing since it was elected. And it has
ee clans to build any now,”’ he

Bennett had the last word, at-

tacking Lalonde for being a

“knocker” while he and the
SOvernment were engaged in

_ Positive projects, but the damage

had been done. He had apparently
thought that Lalonde would have
Stumbled over himself, unable to
level a coherant argument. But the
attack had been articulate and
Stinging, effectively contrasting the
heeds of people and the pre-

GVRA PRESIDENT TOM LALONDE, PREMIER BENNETT ... Ben-.

nett offered five minutes and Lalonde used it to deliver blistering at-

tack on Socreds.

occupation of the government with
huge construction projects.

Most present couldn’t help but
question how wise the premier was
to have handed a political oppo-

nent the stage, although it fits with ©

the Socreds apparent «strategy:
build B.C. Place at all costs and the
sheer size of it all will eventually
wear down the critics.

But like Monday’s dedication
ceremony, B.C. Place can only
lead to more criticism of the
government.

The stadium will please some but
it will lead to an almost immediate
controversy with the city over the
access and transportation facilities
needed. The Cambie bridge needs
to be replaced, but the province
hsn’t offered to help pay the $50
million or more bill.

Bennett proudly claimed that the
$111 million price tag for the
stadium is a guaranteed price, and
more, that it would be paid for out
of the revenues generated by
developing B.C. Place. So far only
$25 million has been budgeted by
the province, leaving $85 million to
be raised in provincial budgets over
the next two years, and that will
mean more consumer taxes, or cuts
in other areas.

And all the promises about
20,000 people who supposedly will
live on B.C. Place someday won’t
blunt the criticisms on the housing
issue which can only grow louder.

B.C. Place spokesman Kathie
Moseley readily admitted to the
Tribune Monday that there will be
little, if any, land for housing
available until 1987, after the pro-
posed Transpo ’86 exhibition. Six
years of promises while the city
languishes with a zero vacancy rate
will satisfy no-one.

If there is housing built on the
site, who will live in it will be
another area of controversy. The
plan is for B.C. Place to service lots
and lease them to private
developers for both housing and
commercial .projects, hence
recovering the cost of the stadium.

Who will lease the land and build
low income and non-profit hous-

ing? The city of Vancouver,.

answered Moseley. That was news
to COPE aldermen Harry Rankin
and Bruce Eriksen who knew
nothing of the proposal.

The city doesn’t have a housing
corporation and the Greater Van-
couver Regional District Housing
Corporation hasn’t been asked to
participate either, said Rankin.

“Tf they are interested in having
affordable housing down there, the
land should be made available to
the GVRD Housing
Corporation,”’ said Eriksen.

Moseley was unable to say how
land would eventually go to the city
for housing except to suggest that
the city would bid for leases along
with private developers in 1987.

And will the public be consulted
about what it would like to see at
B.C. Place? According to Moseley,
when a consultant’s report is com-
pleted this fall it will be issued to
“interested parties’? to show that
their fears about the project are
groundless. Input will be welcome
at that time, she assured.

In the meantime consultants
from three private firms are
preparing sketches for the
redevelopment of the heart of Van-
couver. Their ideas will then be
refined by the B.C. Place board of
directors, and then offered to the
public, as a package. Members of

Vancouver city council or the parks -

board haven’t been asked for a
single idea, nor have they received a
report on what is being planned.

COPE parks commissioner Pat
Wilson this week filed notice of
motion that the parks board seek a
commitment from B.C. Place that
the agreement reached between the
city and Marathon Realty when
False Creek was rezoned to provide
aminimum of 30 acres of parkland
will be lived up to. Wilson also
wants the parks board to havea say
in the design and placement of the
parks. ee

Vancouver city council should
also start seeking committments,
beginning with the basic step of
having public hearings now to
allow the people of Vancouver to
say how they want their city re-
developed.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
s Socred's

TRIBUNE PHOTO—FRED WILSON

‘

Fed demands Heinrich
fire deputy minister

The B.C. Federation of
Labor has angrily demanded
that Socred labor minister Jack
Heinrich fire his newly ap-
pointed deputy minister Doug
Cameron over his threat to have
labor representatives on
Workers Compensation Board
of Reviews dismissed unless
they cross picket lines..

The incident is the latest in a
series of conflicts between the
labor movement and the
government over the operations
of the compensation board
which has come under growing
criticism for its lack of preven-
tative action to stop industrial
accidents.

Tuesday, B.C. Federation ex-
ecutive director Jim Kinnaird
demanded that Heinrich fire
Cameron for ‘‘completely
Overstepping his authority’’ in
attempting to force Boards of
Review to meet behind picket
lines.

The Board of Review, sup-
posedly an independent body,
shares space in the same
building as the Legal Services
Commission currently struck by
the B.C. Government
Employees Union. Under Sec-
tion 4E of the regulations for the
Boards of Review, the chairman
may move the venue of hear-
ings. That was done, until depu-
ty minister Cameron ordered
the Board to move the hearings
back behind the picket line. If
the labor representatives refused
to cross the picket line, the
government would consider
their contracts terminated, he
threatened.

Last week the Federation re-
quested a meeting with Heinrich

to discuss the operations of the
WCB and press its demand fora
Royal Commission of Inquiry
on the WCB.

“The operation of the WCB
is scandalous. Its deficit position
has increased from $8 million in
1976 to $390 million in 1980. In

our opinion Social Credit has

been influencing the WCB to
keep assessments and penalties
on employers as low as possible
and this is one of the major
reasons for the deficit,’’ said
Kinnaird.

He said that it would make
some sense for a larger deficit to
emerge if it were the result of the
WCB taking action to reduce
accidents or to hire more inspec-
tors, but the 2, 269,256 work
days lost to industrial accidents
in 1980 represent a ‘‘totaly
unacceptable level.’’

The WCB was also the sub-
ject of an executive resolution at
the May 19 meeting of the Van-
couver and District Labor
Council which echoed the
Federation call for a Royal
Commission into the operations
of the WCB.

Carpenters delegate Colin
Snell noted the more than 400
percent increase in the unfunded
liability of the WCB and said
that a royal commission study
into the Board’s industrial
assessments and financial in-
vestment policies is long over-
due.

“The labor movement has to

make sure that the government -

doesn’t just bail the Board out
of its present financial crisis,”
he said in reference to the possi-
bleuse of general tax revenues to
fund the WCB.

Curing inflation with
high rates ‘baloney’

Continued from page 1

“The banks make money, in-
dustry makes money, and
working people scramble to
keep from going under,’’ he
said, ‘‘working people must
have more money just to pro-
vide the basics and that is a real-
ity the federal government pre-
fers to ignore.

“It is absolutely outrageous
that these interest rates could be
allowed. The federal govern-
ment is locked into a mutual sui-
cide pact with the United States
that threatens to destroy the
economy of this country.’’

Exactly how consumer bor-
rowing feeds inflation is un-
clear, but whatever its impact, it
is for less than the inflationary
high interest rate policy.

And not only labor
spokesmen are attacking the
Liberals and Bouey for holding
the rates high.

‘‘When the monetary author-
ities say they’re going to cure in-
flation with high interest rates,
that’s baloney,”’ claimed Ernest
Stokes, an economist with the
conservative Conference Board
of Canada. An 18 percent mort-
gage rate is ‘‘extremely infla-
tionary,”’ he said, and business-
es are passing on higher financ-
ing costs to consumers in higher

‘| prices.

With business bankruptcies
up 17 percent in the first four

months of 1981 across Canada,
small business spokesman John
Bulloch said small firms are in
‘‘a nightmare. They are angry
and frustrated and they listen to
politicians who say that high in-

terest rates are needed to fight |

inflation and they knowit’s alot
of hot air.”’

But it is the poor who are suf-
fering most at the hands of the
government and banks which
claim that their need to borrow
is responsible for inflation and

- the interest.rate which now will

cripple most poor families.

A recent report prepared by
the Canadian Council on Social
Development revealed that the
poorest families are now carry-
ing average debts of more than
four times their income, and
they must use credit to buy basic
necessities like food and
clothing. _

Faced with opposition at-
tacks on high interest rates in
Parliament last week, prime
minister Trudeau told NDP
leader Ed Broadbent that the al-
ternative to high interest rates is
exchange controls to prevent a
large scale flow of money out of
Canada to the U.S.

However labor economist
Emil Bjarnason told the
Tribune this week that exchange
controls would be relatively easy
to impose.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 29, 1981—Page 3