‘PROBE SCANDALOUS SITUATION’

_ Business assessments down - homes up

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Did you hit the roof when you
received your assessment notice
and found out that the
assessment figures on your
home went up as much as 40 per
cent?

You'll hit the roof again when
you finish reading this and find
out how you are. being
discriminated against in favor og
big commercial and industrial
properties.

Assessment of property is

EDITORIAL

Make it grand finale

pening January 23 the 3rd session of the 28th Legis-
lature of British Columbia will have more than a full
docket of urgent and pressing issues on its agenda.

Many if not all of these major issues disturbing wide
sections of the people of B.C. stem directly or indirectly from 16-
years of natural resources give away policies of the Bennett
government, designed exclusively to the needs and demands of
big monopoly interests. Coincident with this suicidal alienation
of the peoples’ natural resources, the Bennett government’s
parsimonious hand-outs in the area of municipal requirement,
education, public health, etc., stands in sharp contradiction to
its slavish concern for big business interests.

Most pressing among those big issues facing the coming -
session of the Legislature which demands top priority will be
mining (deep seam and strip), drastic changes in legislation
affecting education financing and extention, etc., a much
greater share of provincial finances to ease the heavy burdens
of taxation and revenues, now literally strangling many B.C:
municipalities.

Perhaps one of the most pressing issues demanding a
complete reversal and overhaul of Socred policies in the field of
labor-management-government relations, is the scrapping of its
recently adopted anti-labor legislation, commonly known as Bill
33, with its standing threat of compulsory arbitration in lieu of
collective bargaining. :

While protective legislation is urgently required (none now
exists) requiring strip and other mining enterprises to make
good a fraction of the destruction their extractive techniques
entail in any given area of operations, the best and only way to
protect the resources inheritance of this and future generations
would be the enactment of legislation with teeth in it, designed
to prohibit such mammoth give-aways to monopoly by this or
any future government of B.C.

Not unrelated to this suicidal policy of Socred ‘‘fast-buck’’
givéaways is the steadily growing crisis in B.C.’s educational
facilities, related problems extending from kindergarten to
university levels; all the victims of financial penury because
the Bennett government consistently refuses to face up to its
responsibilities on the issue of cost sharing. In this as in other
matters the Bennett government operates on the basis of
inadequate hand-outs in a style approximating bribery.

Similarly in its attitude towards pressing municipal needs
and requirements which the changing times demand. On this
grass-roots issue Socred government policies remain static,
with insult added to injury while the municipal needs:remain
a — and the tax burdens on the people become ever
eavier.

If organized labor in B.C. was on its toes and its top
leadership responsive to the demand of the rank-and-file, Bill 33
need never have happened. To get rid of it the job is now much
harder, but not impossible, despite the treasonable actions of a
few so-called labor leaders to sell themselves in its service for a

fat salary — or others who would entice labor into trying ‘‘to
live with it’’.

The coming session can indeed be a lively one, and with any
— of labor and peoples’ unity — a final one for Socredia in

SSE

Pacitic Tribune

‘West Coast edition, Canadian Tribune
set se tsi

Editor—TOM McEWEN Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months.
North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year.
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SSSR Ss 5050502050580 050 00868
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 17, 1969—Page 2
oe }

ox

supposed to be the same for all
types of property — it is
supposed to be based on the
actual market value. Homes are
being assessed at market value
but big commercial properties
certainly aren’t. Not only that,
while assessments on homes go
up year after year, on big
commercial and _ industrial
properties they are staying the
same or going down.

Here are a few examples from
assessments for general
purposes:

Shaughnessey Golf Course
(owned by the CPR) The
assessors gave it a market value
of $1,020,000 for general tax
purposes in 1967 and it hasn't
gone up since. Not only that, the
assessment on this property for
school purposes this year was
reduced by eight per cent.

Yet the CPR is demanding that
the City pay $5.2 million for this
piece of property as a site for a
botannical garden. This means
that the CPR is paying only one-
fifth of the taxes it should be
paying.

American Can Co., 611
Alexander St. In 1950 the market
value of this land for general tax
purposes was placed at $260,000.
It wasn’t changed until 1968 and
then it was reduced by 20 per
cent to $208,000 and the same
figure was used in 1969. At the
same time the assessment on
this property for school purposes
was reduced by nine per cent this
year.

Bank of Montreal, Head office
500 Granville. The assessed
value for general tax purposes of
this choice piece of land-was
placed at $576,840 in 1950. By 1960
this was reduced by 20 per cent
to $456,960. In the eight year
period from 1960 to 1968 it went
up by only one half of one per
cent to $478,800 and that is where
it was kept in 1969.

And this year the assessment
for school purposes was reduced
by eight per cent. Compare this
with the increased assessments
you received since 1950!

Etons, Woodwards and
Hudson’s Bay. The assessed
value of these properties for both
school and general purposes has
remained unchanged since 1967,
with the exception that their
assessments for school purposes
were reduced by six per cent for
Hudson’s Bay and eight per cent
for Eatons and Woodwards. And
all this in spite of the fact that
the value of these properties has
been increased tremendously by

MORTON SOBELL, was this week
released from a U.S. prison after
serving 18 years of a 30 year,

A world-wide
has demanded his

sentence.
movement
release.

the Block 42/52 and Project 200 Council has rarely protested thi

developments. unfair method of assessill
Well, there you have it. properties.
Obviously two different Isn’t it time we had 4

yardsticks are being used to
assess properties in the city —
one for homeowners and another
for large commercial and
industrial properties.

The City of Vancouver pays
the salaries of the tax assessors

investigation into methods ‘
assessment? Shouldn't Die
business properties
compelled to pay their fair shalt
of taxes? I have no doubt that
they did, city revenues from
property taxes would be at leas

a
oO

but they receive their doubled and there would be ”
instructions from the provincial _ need for any increase in taxes 9
government. However, City homes.

Ald. Harry Rankin says in this column that the dark cloud of high@!
taxes over homes would be lifted if big business properties in the ¢l! F

were assessed so that they would have to pay their fair share of taxe*
He calls for an investigation into the methods of assessment. ‘@

Education crisis

Cont'd from pg. 1

enrolment the first large scale restriction was imposed which would
have excluded hundreds of students from continuing their studies: j
Undoubtedly this decision to restrict UBC enrolment for the ne™
term weighed heavily on Dr. Hare.

He also told the November 27 press conference that; ‘I propo
to suggest to senate that student representation (on universil)
bodies) be increased.’ ‘‘I ask the people of the province to wake up 15,
the situation we are in,’ was Dr. Hare’s final plea at the press q
conference. : WW

Undoubtedly, Dr. Hare’s liberal views on higher education, 7” e
action in taking the fight for more funds for education to the publits
and his appeal to the students to “carry the message’’ to the public:
plus his support for a greater voice for students, made him maby
enemies among the establishment and an anti-education Soct®™
government. These factors contributed greatly to his resignation.

The danger in which Dr. Hare placed himself by his fight for ™ t
needs of the university was understood by the student body. a
editorial article in the November 29 issue of ‘‘The Ubyssey”’ ¢ ‘O
student paper, said: ‘‘We have a progressive president in Dr. Hara
who intimates that he is putting his job on the line over this issue . « ”
This is the year to support Dr. Hare in his very political war wi!
Bennett.”’

The indications are that Dr. Hare put his job on the line 27 N
decided to resign on the eve of the January 23 session of the B.
Legislature as a protest against the failure of the B.C. government
indicate that it will take the steps necessary to make resour
available at least to help mitigate or solve the problems of 0%
universities.

Dr. Hare must have been aware that the committee set up by Jas
year’s Legislature under deputy education minister Dr. Perry
review the problems of B.C.’s universities, including financing, 27
report to the Legislature, was not prepared to recommend the
drastic steps needed to meet the crisis of higher education. Na

It seems unlikely that he would have resigned had he known th@th
the committee planned to bring in recommendations to meet the
crisis at the session opening next week. ‘ 3

The resignation of Dr. Hare has placed the issue of high >
education as one of the top questions before the next legislati

session. His resignation will make it extremely difficult for "a

@

13
i
01

Socred government to avoid the issue when the House opens ne”
Thursday. |
At the same time it is necessary to’ warn that the wh? 4
philosophy of the Socred government is to downgrade the need fd
higher education. After all, when a government bases its policy oF
giving away our natural resources to other countries like J apan av
the U.S., what is the need for turning out large numbers of scientis
engineers, technicians and others? A raw material economy does 1
have too much use for them — therefore why waste too much money
on making it possible to provide higher education for all young peOP
who want it? it
The fight for higher education is therefore part of the fight "v
provide a future for our young people which must also include t vil
fight to provide decent careers for them by processing raw materl@”
in B.C. and creating the public need for scientists, enginee!™
technicians and other skilled young people in B.C. — q