Landlords

QU CAN'T BLAME ME!
F YOU HAD LEARNED

TO SPEAK FRENCH. YOU
COULD HAVE BEGGED IN

TWO LANGUAGES!"

benefit, seniors

hede Tibone

hurt by new GAIN rates

The United Way this week releas-
ed a letter to Socred human
resources minister Grace McCarthy
which is sharply critical of the
Socred’s new GAIN rate increases.

The United Way originally en-
dorsed the increases announced by
the Socreds just prior to the election
call as a step in the right direction.
But president Ken Maddison told
McCarthy in his May 7 letter that
“*We have learned that some groups
of income assistance recipients do
not appear to benefit from the new
policy to the degree expected.”

Three areas singled out by the
United Way as examples of inade-
quate assistance are assistance rates
for those aged 60 to 64, handicap-
ped rates and overages for special
needs.

The Socred’s meagre increases in
GAIN rates were effective April 1,
only weeks after: the United Way

Leaflet blasts
“gangsterism’

Three arrests have been made in
Vancouver following the brutal at-

tack on a meeting of the East Indian
Workers Association’ last week by

members of the Maoist East Indian

Defence Committee.

The EIWA filed charges and also
distributed a Punjabi language leaf-
let throughout the East Indian com-

munity condemning the ‘‘gangster- .

ism’’ of the Maoists.

The EIWA filed charges against
the Maoists and have disrupted a
leaflet throughout the East Indian
community condemning the ‘‘gang-
sterism’’ of the Maoists.

The meeting as a democratic
forum for the exchange of opinion,

the EIWA leaflet said, and the’

Maoist spokesman was allowed 25
minutes to express his opinion to
the meeting.

But “‘the Maoist disrupters came

prepared to break up the meeting,””

the leaflet says, ‘‘They brought
hockey sticks, steel bars and base-
ball bats in a car.

“They call themselves the East
Indian Defense Committee, but in
actual fact they are an Offense
Committee.

**How long will our community
tolerate this kind of intimidation?”
it asked, adding, ‘‘We must stop
this gangsterism by our unity and
by all legal channels.”

The EIWA called for another
public meeting to discuss commun-
ity affairs and promised that the
Maoists ‘‘will not be allowed to pre-
vent this from taking place.’’

released its report on the inade-
quacy of assistance rates in B.C.
According to the United Way, in-
creases of between 35 and 45 per-
cent were required across the board
“to facilitate a minimal level of
decency in daily-living.’’

When the Socreds did raise the
rates they allowed only an average
of $10 per month extra for ‘‘sup-
port’’, food, transportation, étc.,
but gave a larger increase in the por-
tion of GAIN specifically allotted
for shelter or rents. To some extent
the increased shelter portion of the
GAIN ‘payment was illusory,
because it also existed previously in
the form of shelter overages which
were abolished with the increased
shelter rate.

The United Way this week sug-
gested that the shift from shelter
Overages to an increased rate ‘‘will
primarily benefit the landlord who,
with no rent controls, will be able to
increase the rent without necessarily
improving the quality of -accom-
modation. A recipient faced with
this sudden increase in rent will then
be required to pay from the support
allowance whatever shelter
payments were in excess of the max-
imum shelter allowance.’’ The new
regulations will not provide incen-
tive to move to upgraded accom-
modation, it said, because the new
higher shelter rate is only applicable
Once the recipient has moved into
new premises. The catch is that the

person would be unable to move
until first receiving the higher rate.

For handicapped people, the new
rates are in some cases worse than
the old rates, the letter stated.
Eliminating shelter overages and in-
creasing the shelter rates for. han-
dicapped people in most cases
worked out to about a two percent
increase in overall benefits, but the
United Way letter cited at least one
case where a handicapped person
ended up with a net loss of $3.34 in
monthly income under the new
regulations.

A third area named by the United
Way is assistance rates for seniors,
aged 60 to’64 years. Prior to April
1, a single person in this category
received $190 support, $75 shelter
and $40 shelter overage. With the
new rates the overage was: abolish-
ed, shelter raised, but the support
allowance decreased to $175. ‘‘In
other words there has been no cost
of living increase for more than
three years in this age category,”
Maddison said.

“‘When a comparison of the old
and new rates for different age
groups within this category is
made,’’ the letter said, ‘“‘these
seniors are quite obviously the most
disadvantaged since there is no in-
crease in their maximum rate while
those aged 31 to 54 years have
received an increase of approx-
imately 27 percent and those 55 to
59 years and 8.5 percent increase.”

PEOPLE AND ISSUES sccstcncunemmen

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN
This present NPA - dominated

city council is getting more and

more like its offensive and arrogant
counterpart in the years immediate-
ly preceding its humiliating defeat
in 1972 when the NPA was reduced
to one member on council.

Mayor Volrich and his Gang of
Six have given themselves a hefty
boost in salaries. Volrich was given
a 21 percent increase boosting his
salary to $40,000 a year, of which
one-third or $13,000 is tax-free; In
addition to this, his fringe benefits
include $3,000 a year for a leased

car, $1,800 a year asa GVRD direc- .

tor and to top it off, a special fund
of $22,600 a year which he can
spend at his discretion without ac-
counting for it to council.

Mayor Volrich, you understand,
is the man who is always talking
about the need for ‘‘fiscal

” restraint’’—for others, that is.

Contrast this with city council
cutting $52,000 from the library
budget, forcing libraries to cut their
hours by three per week.

I mustn’t forget to mention that
the mayor and his Gang of Six also
decided to hire a bodyguard for the
mayor at the cost of an additional
$41,000 a year. His job, apparently,
will not-only be to ‘‘protect’’ the
mayor (from what I don’t know)
but also to keep track of
“‘dissidents,’’ ‘‘protesters,”’? and
other ‘‘subversive’’ elements who
keep coming to council to express
their disagreement with NPA
policy.

Then there was the effort (unsuc-
cessful as it turned out) by alder-
man Doug Little to shut me up. He
didn’t like some of the things I said
about him and I must admit some
of the things I say about aldermen,
who cut services to people while
voting huge subsidies from the
public treasury to private business
interests, all the while putting on an
air of sanctimonious — Christian
righteousness, aren’t very nice.
Understandably some aldermen
don’t like to be smoked out and ex-

posed as the apologists for- the —
- our

_ developers that they are.

This attempt to muzzle criticism
was too much even for some of the
NPA’ers, who also like to express
‘themselves forcibly, so the motion
by alderman Doug Little, to
“name’’ (and eventually kick out
from council), any alderman who
used offensive words
another alderman was defeated 6-4.

Actions point up
NPA’s arroganct ;

> put up more office buildings and

against .

But the effort to limit
delegations to council contim
Alderman Little did succeed inf
ming through a motion that
issues concerning grants of mon
only six delegations be allowed to
speak. And alderman ‘‘Worno
Kennedy has served notice that
want. this motion extended to
delegations on all issues. The ma}
and his Gang of Six don’t like to
bothered answering citizen pro
delegations; they want to get On
with the job of handing over the
ty to the developers without
drance.

Now council has before it a /
report proposing that the parking —
space in the downtown area be in- |
creased fourfold. The reason given
is that it would attract more
customers to shop in the downtown ~
area, and encourage developers to —

stores.

-It may do that but the new pro-
blems created will far outweigh any
alleged advantages. at

City engineers admit that it will
cause a 13 percent increase in traffic |
congestion and that the average -
speed during rush hours will be
reduced from 15 miles per hour to
13. (Anyone who has ever been
caught in the downtown area during
tush hours would, I am_ sure,
dispute their finding that traffic —
moves at 15 m.p.h.)

I opposed the report in commit-
tee, but I was the only one. I’m
almost certain that if this passes on
May 15, it will only be a matter of
months before this NPA-dominated
council resurrects the freeway pro-
posals that the NPA pushed 10
years ago. The NPA was defeated
then by an aroused citizen move-
ment which wanted rapid transit
and better bus service, not ugly con-
crete freeways cutting up our city.
But the freeway promoters are still
there behind the scenes, just waiting
for the opportune moment to revive
their schemes’ because for them it
would mean hundreds of millions
of dollars in contracts.

The money would come out of
pockets, of course, and
freeways would solve nothing; they
would in fact attract more traffic
and the problem would become
worse. That is the proven ex-
perience of freeways everywhere.

This would seem a good time for —
citizen groups to revive the cam-
paign for improved bus service and
light rapid transit.

\\ ince it managed to assume power in this pro-
vince, more than 20 years ago, the Social
Credit Party has tried to disown some disreput-
able parts of its past and, in fact, it is that striv-

ing for respectability that has prompted the pro- .

vincial wing of the party to insist that it has
nothing to do with its federal counterpart. But
somehow, the name sticks; Social Credit is still
Social Credit. And the strange collection of peo-
ple that the federal Socreds have trundled out on
the hustings is an indication of just what a mot-
ley crew it is.

One of the more outlandish of them—former

federal Socred leader Lorne Reznowski—isn ‘ta
candidate, or course. He got the message to
resign some weeks ago but not before Bill
Vander Zalm, annoyed at the general derision
with which Reznowski’s views were greeted,
publicly suggested that the federal leader had

more credibility that many thought and that.

many were listening to him. °

Since then, the Socreds have fielded Carlo”

Dalle Valla in Vancouver East, a candidate who

has used the-opportunity to promote the North :
American Labor Party, ai organization linked

to the FBI and the CIA and a number of ultra-
right organizations in the U.S. .

But the Socred hopeful in the federal riding of
North Vancouver Burnaby, Poldi Meindl, is
even more incredible. A former member of the
Hitler Youth (‘‘...my father was a Nazi out of

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 18, 1979—Page 2

financial necessity.’’), he’s running for the
Socreds because their members are:
“predominantly Christian’? and uphold the
Canadian constitution. .

And in an echo of the provincial campaign, he
connects socialism with ‘‘national socialism?’—a
twisted bit of logic which prompted him to go
into politics in the first place since he had ‘‘no
problem perceiving the inroads of socialism in
Canada.”? ;

Apparently, he got that from ‘‘reading the
Scriptures” and now he is ‘‘doing (his) utmost:
to prevent the advancement of socialism in’

Canada.”’ :
a

s the Veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau
Battalion held their annual meeting in Van-
‘couver Sunday, their numbers were diminished
by the passing May 3 of Jack Cody, a veteran
who was perhaps better known to many in the
International Brigades as Curly Wilson.
Jack joined the Mac-Paps in the fall of 1937
along with several others including his brother,
Bill. Hank Hesketh, another veteran,
remembers that ‘‘around the 20th of March, |
1938, his brother was killed in the retreats and
then, about a week later, on the Ist of April, a
number of us, including Jack, were captured.’?
They were taken to the fascist prison at San
Pedro de Cardenas, near the ancient town of
Burgos where they were held for 13 months,

W e have a sad note from Harold Pritchett, tell-

R eaders will note elsewhere on this page the-

finally winning release in May 1939, the last of
the Internationals to be repatriated. :

Jack enlisted in the navy during World War II
and was for several years a business agent for the
International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers. A memorial service was held May 5 at
which alderman Harry Rankin delivered the
eulogy. ;
= * * *

ing us that Leontina Eisenbraun, a long-time
supporter of the Tribune and its various
predecessors, passed away in Langley Memorial
Hospital April 28 at the age of 78.

A familiar name in many press drives over the
years, Leontina figured prominently in the work
of press clubs in Langley where she had lived for
the-last 30-odd years. Harold tells us, “she
strongly believed that it was of vital importance
that the labor movement have a paper which

represented its interests.’’
Oe * *

‘work of Victoria cartoonist Bob Biermann
whose distinctive cartoons have won him con-
siderable renown—particularly since the now-
infamous libel suit which Bill Vander Zalm laun-
ched against him earlier this year.

Biermann’s cartoons come to us as part of a
syndicated service. We anticipate that there will —
be others in future issues. Sa