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BRITISH COLUMBIA

Money Mart

fees hit
by jobless

B.C.’s poor now have another parasit-
ical enterprise trying to make money at
their expense, the Vancouver Unem-
ployed Action Centre charged Jan. 25.

And the centre wants Vancouver city
council to pass a bylaw prohibiting the
charging of fees to cash cheques for wel-
fare and Unemployment Insurance
recipients, said spokesman Tom Lalonde
at a demonstration outside the East

Broadway Street branch of MoneyMart.

MoneyMart, with a name suspiciously
similar to a recently closed outfit that
sold false promises of jobs to the unem-
ployed, cashes cheques for jobless
workers at a charge of six per cent of the
amount.

People are forced to take their cheques
to MoneyMart because increasingly
strict bank policies place almost impos-
sible demands on welfare and UI recip-
ients, said Lalonde.

His point was underscored by the case
of two young men who were refused
service at a nearby branch of the Royal
Bank.

One had a GAIN card, showing he
was on social assistance. “But they
refused that, and they wouldn’t help my
buddy either, even though he had all
kinds of ID,” the man related.

MoneyMart subsequently cashed his
cheque, charging the six per cent fee for
the service. For a welfare cheque worth
$375, the man received $352.50.

Lalonde said banks increasingly ask
for credit cards when demanding identi-

fication, and a credit card isn’t something
B.C.’s jobless are likely to possess.

“Poor people don’t have major sav-
ings in big accounts, and they don’t take
out big loans. The banks can’t make any
money off them, so they make it hard for
them to gt service,” he said.

In contrast to banks, MoneyMart
demands no identification.

A young woman who also used
MoneyMart’s service reported receiving
$623 for her monthly welfare cheque of
$675. “For a family of three, that means
giving up a week’s worth of food,” said
Lalonde. ,

MoneyMart charges six per cent for
each welfare or UI cheque, but only
levies the fee for first-time users who are
employed. After that, pay cheques can be
cashed for a fee of three per cent.

“That’s blatant discrimination under
the Human Rights Code,” said Lalonde,
who said the centre has laid a charge of
discrimination before the B.C. Human
Rights Branch. (The branch, abolished
along with the old Human Rights Act
July 7, is still operating.)

The Ministry of Human Resources
could alleviate some recipients’ problems
by providing a “letter of verification”
with each cheque issued. But ministry
practice is to issue letters, on request, the
day after “even though welfare people
need that money right away,” said
Lalonde.

The Unemployed Action Centre has
sent letters to Human Resources Minis-
ter Grace McCarthy requesting a policy
change, and to federal Employment and
Immigration Minister Lloyd Axworthy.
Both the GAIN and UI acts prohibit
charging fees for welfare and UI cheques.

Additionally, the centre is seeking
from city council’s community services
committee a bylaw prohibiting fees-
charging for cheques within city boun-
daries. If approved, it will go to council
for a vote.

There are two MoneyMart branches
in Vancouver, and one each in Surrey
and Burnaby.

COPE picks candidates,
Strategy for 84 race

In the earliest ever kick off to an election
campaign, members of Vancouver’s Com-
mittee of Progressive Electors elected their
candidates and adopted an election budget
twice the amount of the 1982 budget
Sunday.

Some 200 COPE members also elected
former school trustee Gary Onstad to con-
test the anticipated school board byelection
this spring, before breaking up into several
groups to map strategy for the “crucial”
election this fall. 3

“Vancouver city council has been hold-
ing firm against the Socreds’ cutting of jobs
and services,” said COPE president Jim
Quail, noting “the very clear polarization”
between left and right forces in the city and
on city council.

The Socreds’ organization in civic affairs,
the Non-Partisan Association will be aim-
ing to unseat council’s progressive majority,
and people shouldn’t think there will be
various right-wing groups contesting the
1984 election, he warned.

“We should realistically expect a unified
right on all slates this election,” said Quail.

That theme dominated the speeches and
discussion at the day-long session, with
members unanimously endorsing a call
voiced by Libby Davies, for a unified pro-
gressive slate backed by organized labor.

The proposal, which was to go before the
Vancouver and District Labor Council
Tuesday, involves, for the third election ina
row, VDLC financial backing and endor-
sement for full slates of COPE candidates
for school and park board, and a partial list
for council. Three council positions — the
mayor’s and two aldermen’s — were left
open for Mayor Mike Harcourt and his
running mates aligned to the NDP.

Acclaimed to carry COPE’s banner in the
aldermanic race were the incumbents —
aldermen Bruce Eriksen, Libby Davies,
Harry Rankin and Bruce Yorke — joined
by Jean Swanson, Carmela Allevato, Sol
Jackson and Jim Quail. Swanson, a former
leader of Downtown Eastside Residents
Association who in two provincial elections
came close to breaking the Socred hold on
Vancouver’s Little Mountain riding, is con-
sidered a top contender.

For school board, COPE candidates are
incumbents Pauline Weinstein, Wes Knapp
and Phil Rankin, plus Gary Onstad, Tami

Lundy, Chris Allnutt, John Church,
Colleen Bostwick and Peggy Chunn.’
Lundy, one of the new faces on the COPE
slate, is a former trustee in North Vancouver.

Park board incumbent Pat Wilson is
joined by Connie Fogal, the runner-up in
the 1982 race, plus Joe Arnaud, former trus-
tee Mike O’Neill, Tim Louis, Mike Chrunik
and DERA worker Sue Harris.

“The struggle at city hall means the
Socred jerks on council will go all out to
bash COPE in this election,” said senior
alderman Harry Rankin in assessing the
political situation.

Placing it in a provincial context, Rankin
said last year’s provincial election has the
Socreds thinking they’ve “‘made a clean
sweep across the province.

COPE’s Onstad to run
in trustee byelection

Former school trustee Gary Onstad will
contest the anticipated byelection for a
vacant seat on the Vancouver School
Board, Committee of Progressive Electors
members decided Sunday.

They gave a prolonged, standing
applause to Onstad’s nomination speech at
a nomination and strategy session, during
which the teacher hit the board’s Non Parti-
san Association majority for their ready
acceptance of the education ministry’s cut-
backs to school funds.

COPE plans to open an office to conduct
Onstad’s campaign, and a leaflet should be
out early next week.

GARY ONSTAD. . .‘Socred cuts alarm parents’

the right. We’re going for a majority,
with work, that’s a real possibility for us
1984,” he declared.

COPE will head into the 1984 cam
with a budget of $110,000 — double tha
1982. “But the NPA will spend about t ,
our amount,” noted campaign manage
Fred Wilson. a

An ambitious advertising campaign, ®
full-time staff person and a canvass cOmr
bined with enumeration this spring are 0?
the agenda. A large office is slated to open at
the beginning of September. ‘

Vancouver city council voted last week t0
hold a byelection for the seat vacated by
NPA trustee Ken Livingstone, consecutiv’
with a plebiscite on a new Cambie Street
bridge Mar. 14. 7

However, there’s a possibility the NPA
Majority may opt to appoint a replacement
with the education minister’s approva:
That option is opposed by COPE trustee
Pauline Weinstein, Phil Rankin and We
Knapp, and independent Tom Alsbury. _

Legislation governing school board
replacements — for which there is nO
precedent in Vancouver — is confusing
allowing city council the option of calling 4
byelection, but stipulating that a vacant seat
must be filled within 30 days of the trustees
resignation. The Socred government may
be tempted to step in and appoint a right
wing trustee, but to do so would undoubt-
edly raise the wrath of Vancouver voters
and could scuttle the NPA’s chances in thé
fall election.

Onstad, who is also on the COPE slate
for the fall election, attacked Socred cuts
which so far have eliminated 123 full-time
and 168 part-time jobs in Vancouver's
school system, and which will wipe out
funding for the English as a Second Lan-
guage program in 1985. :

“That kind of underfunding condemns
kids to failure,” Onstad charged, pointing
out that B.C. has the lowest percentage of
high school graduates going on 4

~

university.

Warning that members face the pros-
pect of a major disruption at the end of the
school year and the possible elimination of
2,000 jobs, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation
representative assembly Jan. 27 and 28
began mapping plans for action in defence
of public education.

Federation president Larry Kuehn told
delegates that the effects of provincial
government budget decisions would not
be felt for the remainder of this school year
since local boards decided to put off any
cutbacks until later in 1984. But “‘if the
budgets are unchanged,” he warned, “we
face the elimination of 2,000 teaching posi-
tions, layoff notices to large numbers of
our members and re-organization of the
schools based on worse staffing rates.”

- His proposals for action, he said, “are
to respond to the current problems and to
build a base for a long-term fight to regain
adequate conditions.”

They included:

@ Mobilizing for the Feb. 4 rally in Vic-
toria against education cutbacks;

Assembly continues BCTF campaign |

© Pressing local school boards to sub-
mit budgets to Victoria based on real
needs rather than on the Socreds’ financial
restrictions;

© Providing support for local associa-
tions in obtaining Bill 3 exemptions, not
all of which have been secured;

© Carrying out a public campaign to
dramatize the effects of education
cutbacks;

@ Holding a conference May 10-12 on
children in crisis, highlighting the loss of
educational services to children imposed
by Socred cuts.

Kuehn also urged that if additional
money is not made available to education,
teachers should give consideration to “a
symbolic, province-wide action” that
could be taken in addition to action by
local associations.

The representative assembly, one of two
held by the BCTF annually, is not a
policy-making meeting but it does make

meeting, generally held in April. |
Recommendations going tothe upcom- |
ing AGM indicate that the militancy of
teachers that brought them into the fore- |
front during Operation Solidarity’s public
|

recommendations to the annual general |
i

sector strike has not changed since the |
strike was called off Nov. 13. |

One key recommendation called forthe |
BCTF to continue as a member of Opera-
tion Solidarity and the Solidarity Coali-
tion noting that participation would
enable teachers to develop and maintain
allies among the labor movement and
community groups.

The meeting also recommended that
the BCTF work with parents’ groups to -
resist education cutbacks and to launch a
campaign on class size and support
services.

Another major recommendation urged
the BCTF to establish a reserve defence
fund as “a demonstration of our commit-
ment to public education and our willing-
ness to defend it.”

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 1, 1984

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