CP ELECTION RALLY ..
peace.

“Communist Party candi-
dates will fight with every ounce
of energy for peace, detente and
social progress,’’ Communist
Party leader William Kashtan
told an election rally in Vancou-
ver last Wednesday.

“*So don’t waste your vote on
February 18,’ he declared.
“Vote Communist.”

Therally was very much aral-
ly for peace, with speakers join-
ing Kashtan in exposing the at-
tempt by the Conservative gov-
ernment to win re-election ‘“‘by
whipping up a vicious cold war,
anti-Soviet campaign. _

“‘We must demand that not
only the Conservatives, but the
Liberals and NDP leader Ed
Broadbent and his advisors, re-
member the word ‘detente,’ ”’
Kashtan said, ‘‘because if we
don’t, the very survival of Can-
ada is threatened.”

On the platform with Kash-
tan were provincial leader
Maurice Rush, Vancouver Cen-

Bruce Eriksen awarded Lib-
eral hopeful Art Phillips and
stand-in for fellow Liberal, Art
Lee, Cockroach Haven T-shirts
and diplomas before an appre-
ciative, overflow crowd at the
Carnegie community centre all-
candidate rally on Sunday.

The presentations marked the
two years tenants in
Vancouver’s downtown east-
side have been waiting for the
enactment of legislation which
makes money available to slum-
lords for hotel renovations
through the RRAP (Residential
Rehabilitation Assistance Pro-
gram).

Vancouver Centre Tory can-
didate, Pat Carney, declined to
appear before downtown east-
side residents for a second elec-
tion in a row.

Both Liberal and Tory gov-
ermments came under criticism
for the slum housing conditions
in the downtown core, a central
issue in the two main Vancouver
ridings.

Vancouver East Communist

ed Liberal Art Lee for trying to
buy votes. ‘“‘He (Lee) can tell us
about the puny grants he hand-
ed out as MP, but what about
the over 5,000 people living in
slum housing?”

In contrast, the Communist
Party has a housing program
which ‘‘is a real challenge to the
system,’’ Wilson said.

Specifically, he said, the fed-
eral government should spent

._ $30 million to build 1,500 units

. voters urged to cast ballot for

candidate, Fred Wilson, attack- -

‘Vote for CP is vote
for peace’ —Kashtan

. tre CP candidate Jack Phillips

and Kim Zander, a provincial
council member of the Young
Communist League.

Vancouver Centre candidate
Phillips drove home the point
that “‘voters should reject polliti-
cal candidates who are war-
mongers.”

Kashtan added that Conserv-
ative leader Joe Clark had de-
cided to ‘‘turn Canada’s foreign
policy around from one of inde-
pendence to one of complete
subordination to the U.S.”

Provincial leader Maurice
Rush who chaired the rally not-
ed that youth would be especi-
ally hurt by the Conseivative
budget which downed the gov-
ernment. “‘This government is
offering youth war games in-
stead of Olympic games, and
lives in barracks and the armed
forces instead of lives with real
futures, including jobs.”’

Downtown election forum
targets housing policies

of housing ‘“‘less than one-third
the price of a jet bomber.’’

He added that the federal and
provincial governments should
set up a city-based, non-profit
housing corporation to build
2,000 units annually.
~ NDP Vancouver Centre can-
diate Ron Johnson concurred
that there was “‘no way that
speculators and slumlords were
going to answer the housing
problem.

“While we are told there is no
money available for increased
pensions or housing, the multi-
national corporations have
never had it so good,”’ he said.

While Liberal Art Phillips re- °
newed the Liberals’ pledge to in-
crease pensioners’ guaranteed
income supplements (GIS) to
$35, Communist Party candi-
date Jack Phillips said that if the
“war hysteria takes off, then
there will be no money for pen-
sioners, E

““We need a sane, independ-
ent foreign. policy,’’ Phillips
said.

When questioned by a
member of the audience on the
NDP’s position on defense,
Johnson said he ‘‘advocated an
independent foreign policy, ad-
ding that ‘‘that doesn’t include
our alliance to NATO.”’

His statement differed from
NDP leader Ed Broadbent who
said recently that an NDP gov-
ernment would review the par-
ty’s long-standing policy on Ca-
nadian involvement in NATO
and Norad.

TRIBUNE PHOTO—FRED WILSON

. community is now divided on the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 15, 1980—Page 2

manipulated by developer

By Ald. HARRY RANKIN

Mr. J. Funaro of J. Funaro
Holdings Ltd., a developer, badly
wants the city to rezone a whole
block — the north side of the 2500
block on Franklin Street. That’s
near Nanaimo, just one block
north of Hastings.

On this site Funaro says he will
build a supermarket, retail-com-
mercial space and office-commer-
cial space. Like most developers,
his plans are very general; it’s hard
to nail them down to exact details.
Of course, he expects to make a big
chunk of money out of this de-
velopment — that’s why he’s so an-
xious to get the block rezoned.

But that’s not how the idea is be-
ing sold to the public. Here the de-
veloper suddenly becomes more
philanthropic than mercenary, all
heis really after is to ensure that the
residents of the area have a nice, big
supermarket, and lots of offices
and other stores. The supermarket
is said to be Safeway, but even this
is not certain.

In the process of selling the idea
to the public, a lot of promises have
been thrown out to individuals —
promises of jobs and favors of one
kind or another. With a lot of peo-
ple feeling they have something to
gain personally (and I must say
from past experience with the de-
velopers that I doubt very much
that these promises will be kept) the

reasons:

borhood;

and too high;

parking.

issue.

\ week ago, remarking on the political direction
Canada was taking under the guidance of Joe
Clark and Flora MacDonald, a TASS writer com-
mented tersely that this country was moving towards
“McCarthyism.”? -

The remark drew predictable amusement and
derision from newspapers here but, ironically, the
comments of at least one newspaper columnist
underscored the accuracy of TASS’ description.

In this case, the columnist is the Financial Post’s
Peter Brimelow for whom, apparently, even
Zbigniew Brzezinski is only ‘‘mildly hawkish.”

After explaining that the U.S. might have been able
to prop up the Shah if only some of the U.S. ad-
ministration officials had been more willing,
Brimelow leaves us with these words, offered in the
worst McCarthyite tradition.

“Personally I believe that the great wave of leftist
activity in the 1960s, like its counterpart 30 years
before, eventually will prove to have swept a new set
of Blunts and Philbys, Rosenbergs and Hisses, Nor-
mans and Roses into positions of power and influence
throughout the free world. . . (The FBI, in fact, has
already confirmed in a letter to a group of Republican
senators that it has ‘considerable’ evidence of Soviet
influence on Capitol Hill but attorney-general Ben-
jamin Civiletti has refused further briefings.)’

“Meantime, however, after Iran, the very least that _

is necessary in the U.S. is, if not a witch hunt, a turkey
shoot,’’ Brimelow said.

Not quite a turkey shoot, perhaps, but it must
nevertheless have gladdened Brimelow’s heart to hear
Flora MacDonald announce the expulsions and later

the counter-expulsions of Soviet diplomats — all tim- -

ed, of course, to coincide with the strident anti-Soviet
clamor and an equally strident Tory election cam-
paign. But here again, the TASS comment bears
listening to — especially when you compare Canada’s
action with what is taking place in New Zealand.

In that country — also burdened, by the way, with
an arch Tory government — prime minister Robert

Muldoon ordered the expulsion of Soviet ambassador
Vsevolod Sofinski on the grounds that he ‘‘meddled
in internal political affairs’? and provided funds for
the Socialist Unity Party. In short, the old ‘‘Moscow
gold’’ charge.

But as the correspondent for the London Observer
noted, the ‘‘question being asked (in New Zealand)
was whether Sofinski did personally interfere in inter-
nal political and trade union matters, or if he was set
up to provide evidence justifying the prohibition of
the Socialist Unity Party.’ :

The problem is that this is acom-
pletely residential area. Further-
more the whole blogk to the north
of the proposed development is an
elementary school, Traffic down
this part of Hastings and on the
streets leading to Hastings are al-
ready a headache for motorists.

The city’s director of planning
has recommended that planning be
not approved, giving the following

@ poor access for traffic and
too close to a school;

@ it will require the demolition
of sound residential buildings and
disrupt the whole residential neigh-

@ the development is too big

@ it will harm the existing Hast-
ings Street merchants; ©

@ it is deficient in off-street

For these and other reasons,
many of the residents and mer-
chants of this area are strongly op-
posed to the development. The
issue was hotly debated at a public
hearing held at the Hastings Ele-
mentary School on Feb. 7. In fact,
feelings ran so high that several fist
fights broke out.

It has also been mentioned to me
that some of the merchants have
been subjected to forms of intimi-
dation. They receive visits from un-
identified individuals, who bellig-

‘PEOPLE AND ISSUES

want the rezoning? No threats at
made, but the clear impression §

development.

rezoned just so that developers can®
makea fast buck, when it will bring

borhood.

I also believe that Safeway
should be told by the city — if yo!
want to build a store, don’t try
force yourself into and disrupt 4
residential neighborhood. You!
store should meet the convenienc

not the other way round. You ca
find the property somewhere
of Nanaimo. e

As for the residents of this are@
— the Hastings-Sunrise area — I
would strongly advise them to take
alook at how they are being mamlp-

gether to protect their neighbor
hood. If you need and want 4
supermarket — tell those interest
where you want it. a

For everyone’s information le
me say that from Hastings and
Nanaimo to the Safeway store at”
Charles and Nanaimo it is exactly

to place another store that close OF
should we be looking for a site 4
good deal to the east of Nanaimo
on Hastings Street?

MacDonald may not have reached that latter point
yet but that’s where the Tories cold war march 15
leading — urged on by columnists like Petet

so much disruption to the neigh

and needs of the neighborhood,

ulated by others, and stand t0 »

one-half a mile. Does it make sens¢ ©

erently demand: Why don’t yOU —

4

|
|

left that for his own good, theme
chant should stop opposing

Idon’t think this block shouldbe

|
|

]

:

Brimelow. Pe ae

ven where government officials have grudg-

ingly conceded that the Veterans of the Mackenzie
Papineau Battalion have won a right to the same
recognition and benefits as other war veterans,
governments themselves have seemed determined t0.
withhold that recognition until hardly a veteran 15
alive to receive it. ;

That hasn’t changed in recent years but the cam-—
paign to win official veteran status has gathered con-
siderable momentum nevertheless. And last month
the Toronto City Council voted unanimously to peti-
tion the federal government to extend veteran status
to the Mac-Paps.

The motion, which also called on other municipal
governments to do likewise, coincided with the
premiere in Toronto of the new play by George
Luscombe, Mac Reynolds and Larry Cox, entitled
simply, The Mac-Paps.

* * *

t must surely be an ironic comment on the news -

media that it is in Comox — site of the Canadian
Forces base, one of only three sites in Canada where
nuclear warheads were first installed — that the local
Communist Party candidate and constituency com-
mittee has finally been given something approaching
reasonable access to the area’s newspaper.

We note that, the Comox District Free Press ran a
six-column story profiling Comox-Powell River CP
candidate Sy Pederson as well as a detailed guest col-
umn on the U.S. cold war campaign by Jack Higgin,
organizer for the Communist Party club in the Com- —
ox Valley.

We also note that it took a spate of letters to the
editor, all of them demanding information on the CP
campaigns, to get that coverage. But at least someone
was listening.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
and Ci Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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