Health Society takeover:

‘Political manipulation at any price’

By FRED WILSON

The day before Vancouver city
council voted to take over the
Downtown Community Health
Society clinic, mayor Jack Volrich
had a television camera follow him
as he paid a personal visit to the
clinic on Cordova St. in Van-
couver’s poorest neighborhood. As
he was leaving the clinic an old-time
resident stopped and, looking at the
mayor incredulously, asked,
**What are you doing down here?’’
Volrich obviously didn’t know
quite what to say in response and

fumbled back something about.

“inspecting the premises.”’

The brief incident gave an in-
sightful glance into the con-
troversial takeover of the DCHS
clinic by the city and the provincial
government. For Volrich’s cheap
attempt to grab publicity at the
expense of the Health Society and a
community that he has nothing in
common with, was a necessary part
of the whole affair which has made
Downtown Eastside residents the
pawns in a political attack on com-
munity leaders.

When the city of Vancouver
completes the takeover of the clinic
sometime this week, nothing at the
clinic will have changed. Local
residents will receive the same
medical and dental attention and
other services as before.

The clinic itself, however, was
never the object of the exercise,
despite the posturing by Volrich
and the Socreds about their concern
for health care in the Downtown
Eastside. Not a single substantiated
claim, or even any specific claim at
all, has been made about the ser-
vices of the clinic or the quality of
its patient care.

Rather, as the facts come out
about the complex and clouded
controversy at DCHS, it becomes
clear that the. unprecedented
takeover drama had nothing to do

with health care and had been
plotted for some months before by
the provincial government, mayor
Volrich, and some senior bureau-
crats and professionals. The real
objective was no less political: to
restore a higher degree of govern-
ment control in the Downtown
Eastside and to politically smear the
Downtown Eastside Residents
Association.

All of the characters in the
rather involved scheme had a
political axe to grind against

‘DERA. Volrich and the NPA

majority at city hall have long seen

DERA as a political threat; former -

city health director Gerald Bonham
was a long-time target of DERA for
his failure to enforce city bylaws;
DCHS -director Peter Melhuish
who, like some other professionals
in the area, was bitterly opposed to
DERA’s militancy and to the
concept of community control over
services and agencies; and, of
course, the Socreds. Individually
and as a group they had witnessed
their influence in the Downtown
Eastside steadily decline as the
community found a spokesman and
advocate in DERA.

The DCHS was, however, safely
in the hands of the establishment
groups until October of last year
when a citizens’ slate, including

some DERA members, swept two-.

thirds of the seats on the DCHS
Board of Directors. Local lawyer
David Stone was elected chairman
and DERA’s David Lane became
vice-chairman. It didn’t take long,
however, for the defeated Board
members, city officials and the
Socreds to get together to plot a
comeback

Anonymous and secret letters.

of complaint were registered with
the ministry of health about the
clinic’s long term health care
project, which had been a subject

Housing Opportunity

SOUTHSHORE
— False Creek

The City of Vancouver is prepared to consider proposals fo1
one (or two) Par-Value Co-operatives in two developments of
about 40 units each in Area 6, Phase 2, SOUTH SHORE,

False Creek. i

Co-Operative Associations or groups or individuals interested
in organizing and managing a Par-Value Co-operative are in-
vited to submit a statement of interest accompanied by ap-
propriate supporting information.

Selection will be made by Vancouver City Council based on
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objectives of the redevelopment of False Creek, knowledge of
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Please submit any questions and your replies on or before 5th

April,. 1979, to:

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671 B Market Hill

Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 4B5

Tel. No. 873-4216

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 23, 1979—Page 2

; CaR
| Foon STORE

| THE DOWNTOWN

HOM

Downtown Community Health Society vice-chairman and DERA
community worker David Lane at the Cordova St. Clinic.

Board. Also on cue, the one-third

of dispute under the old Board for
at least a couple of years.

The long-term health care
workers moved to unionize to
protect their jobs, the first in B.C.
to take such action, and with the

blessing of the new Board, But’

before their certification came
through Socred health minister Bob
McClelland announced that the
long-term health care program was
being taken away from the DCHS
and turned over to the city’s Board
of Health under Dr. Bonham. The
workers and the Board termed it
union busting and recalled Bonham
warning them against attempting to
unionize. Significantly, Bonham
and the city knew about the move
before the DCHS was informed by
letter, January 2.

In the ensuing week, the new
director of DCHS, Peter Melhuish,
who had been appointed the
morning of the annual election,
convinced the medical staff at
DCHS — three doctors, a dentist
and a nurse — to sign a letter ex-
pressing non-confidence in the

of Board members from the
previous Board resigned and sent
similar letters to the ministry of
health. To fill out the picture, Bon-
ham left the city a few weeks later
to become deputy minister of health
for the Socreds.

Over the next month the new
DCHS board continued its work as
usual and began making plans for
an extension of services into the
community, a new and improved
facility and the prospect of ex-
tended dental care. It suddenly
learned in the news media March 9
that Socred minister McClelland
had asked the city to take over the
DCHS because of the Board’s
alleged incompetence. Volrich used
the occasion to attack DERA in the
media for supposedly harming
health care for local residents.

The following Tuesday Volrich
took the matter to city council and
on the strength of McClelland’s re-
quest agreed to take over the DCHS
clinic and reunite it with the long-
term health care program. The

~second piece of correspondence

‘hy it i

DCHS will end up exactly as it was
before the new Board was elected,
only run directly by the city. Not a
single reason for the takeover was
raised in the council debate, despite
challenges from aldermen Harry
Rankin and Darlene Marzari to)
produce evidence of bad
management at the clinic. ‘‘A tissue
of lies,” Rankin called the in-
nuendo and smear campaign
against the clinic.

Three DCHS board members
contacted Dr. Bonham and asked
for the specifics of the charges
against them, but Bonham replied
only that ‘‘it is 90 per cent at-
titude.”’ ;

After the full scenario had bea
completed, the DCHS received its

from the ministry of health, on
March 16, informing them that the.
city would be taking over the clinic,

For its part the DCHS Board has
asked for a full inquiry into the’
charges against it, but the city and
province have, as expected, stone-
walled. In the final analysis th
failure to state their case against the
DCHS has undercut the smea
campaign which, without facts, j
won’t hold up. —

One objective, to resto
establishment control over the
DCHS, has been achieved, but only
partially. The DCHS will continue
to function and be involved in
health care in the area. Moreover, |
the. government will control the
clinic, but the clinic will have lost
the confidence of many residents
because of the authoritarian way in
which it was taken over. :

The results, then, are small for a
political attack on a community in-
volving the cabinet, the mayor and
senior officials: It was political
manipulation at any price, and as it
turned out, that price was. he!
health care standards of Downtown
Eastside residents.

Hacking at civic democracy with,
vindictiveness of a decade past ©

spend taxpayers’

By Ald. HARRY RANKIN

It was the Night of the Long
Knives at city council on March 13,
1979, with the mayor and his NPA
council hacking away at civic
democracy with a vindictiveness
that hasn’t been seen there for a
decade.

First there was alderman Little
with his motion, seconded by alder-
man Boyce, to limit to six the
number of delegates that may
appear before council on any
application for a civic grant. It
passed, of course.

When I asked: Who will decide
which six will be heard if more than
six apply to be heard, no one could
answer the question. Presumably
the mayor or council will decide
who may or who may not be heard.

This restriction on the right of

citizen groups to appear before
council won’t of course, affect
applications for grants from
businessmen’s organizations. They
have their own method of lobbying
— quiet whiskey and soda before
lunch in some businessmen’s club.
But for citizen organizations that
must rely on pressure to win any
concessions, this restriction on their
right to appear can be fatal.
What it amounts to is that this
mayor and this council just don’t
want to have their time wasted by
citizen groups asking for this and
that. They want to spend their time
on big projects like the Trade and
Convention Centre, the central
waterfront development plan and
the PNE Multiplex where they can

dollars by the
millions to help private business
interests. ;

Next we had the biggest con of
all, mayor Volrich’s proposal for a
Governmental Review Commission
to look into such matters as a ward
system, the size of city council,
length of office by alderman and
mayor, qualifications for running
for public office, and the powers of
the mayor.

The whole purpose of this pro-
posal is to subvert the decision
already made last November by
voters when by majority they voted
in favor of a ward system.

The mayor and his NPA council,
all of whom were elected by a
minority vote, refuse to accept this
decision of the majority of the
voters. They propose to turn it into
its opposite. What the mayor and
NPA are after is longer terms for
aldermen and. the mayor, re-
strictions on the right of people to
run for city office, and increased
powers for the mayor.

It looks to meas if the mayor

-would like to be another Shah of

Iran.

This commission will be hand.
picked by the mayor and council
and it will be expected to bring in
the kind of decisions that the NPA
and the mayor want. It will be
about as neutral as a school of
piranhas in a fish bowl.

Setting up this phoney Govern-
mental Review Commission is the
very antithesis of responsible
democratic government at the civic

1980 civic elections,

level: It is designed not only to ki i
the ward system in Vancouver b
to perpetuate NPA political contro
aver council.

I-made a motion in council the
we ask the provincial government —
to enact legislation to bring the
ward system into Vancouver for the
and that
council set up a ward implementa-
tion commission to hold public
hearings in line with city council’s
printed pledge to the electorate i
last year’s plebiscite. Predicta
my motion went down to defeat, 8-
3. ~

As I said, Tuesday, March 13,9
was a bad day for civic democra
at city council. Given the present —
mayor and council there will be
more such days. They-seem to think
that because we won’t have another
election for two years, they can do
what they like in the meantime.

But they are forgetting one fac
The citizens of Vancouver will have
their say too. And*I don’t think —
they will wait two years to ma
their views known.

Strategy mecha

Citizen organizations and promi-
nent individuals in Vancouver |
meet March 29 at Britannia Cent
to discuss the erosion of democra
at Vancouver city hall. The meeti
has been called by the Commit
of Progressive Electors, but alde
men Mike Harcourt and Darle!
Marzari have lent their support
the initiative.