BRITISH COLUMBIA

Premier Bennett must really think the
people of B.C. are a flock of sheep or
rabbits to be manipulated by buzzwords
selected for him by his public relations
(fool-the-public) department.

For almost two years since his re-
election he’s been hitting the people of
B.C. over the head time and time again
with the stick of “restraint,” which he
assured us was the road to economic rec-
overy. Two years down that road our rate
of unemployment has gone up to more
than 200,000, taxes of all kinds are going
up, and living standards, health care and
education are all deteriorating.

Now he’s adopted a new set of buzz-
words. In his recent TV appearance he
exchanged the stick for the carrot, calling
for “co-operation” and “consultation.”
The government speech from the throne
expresses “quiet optimism” for “economic
renewal.”

These are all meangingless words — in
fact they’re just plain crap. This govern-
ment has no plan for either economic
renewal or jobs for the 200,000-plus

unemployed. All it’s going to do at this
session of the legislature is give more tax
breaks and more subsidies to big corpora-
tions.

The only solutions to B.C.’s economic
depression have come from the trade
union movement. In this respect the brief
presented by the Vancouver and District
Labor Council to the People’s Commis-
sion for Policy Alternatives is outstanding.

The alternative program offered by the
labor council identifies unemployment as
the key issue. (The word “unemployment”
wasn’t even mentioned in the speech from
the throne!)

The labor council outlines a plan of |
immediate action for economic recovery

which includes:

e Enacting legislation stipulating that
no jobs be eliminated or employees laid off
without prior justification to a public tri-
bunal;

@ Stopping the export of jobs in the
wood industry by stopping the export of
raw logs or other unfinished products;
requiring that all wood fibres from B.C.

Labor has the program to put B.C. back to work

forests be manufactured into finished pro-
ducts in B.C. plants before export;

@ Enacting legislation to reduce the
maximum work week from 40 to 35 hours
with no reduction in pay;

© Stopping the destruction of our pub-
lic education, health care and social service
programs by restoring all public services

Harry
Rankin

to their pre-restraint levels, plus adequate
funding to account for inflation;

@ Establishing a massive public works
program at union rates to pay for exten-
sive and intensive reforestation, silvi-
culture and salmon enhancement in
provincially-owned forests and along sal-
mon creeks;

@ Requiring holders of tree farm

licenses to continue reforestation and silvi-
culture, but more intensively and at an
accelerated pace on a steady year round
employment basis;

© Establishing a_ large-scale public
housing construction program to employ
unionized building tradesmen:and B.C.
manufactured wood products, and to
provide low cost, subsidized rental hous-
ing for senior citizens, handicapped and
low income groups.

© Reinstating comprehensive rent con-
trol legislation, freezing residential rents
for two years, providing adequate staff for
a Rentalsman Office, and protecting
tenants from eviction who, for economic
reasons, are unable to pay their rents.

@ Incorporating a comprehensive sys-
tem of child care into the public education
system and providing free access to quality
child care services for working parents on
a 24 hour basis.

This is a realistic program for jobs and |

social services that the government should
be adopting and that, hopefullly, the NDP
will raise and fight for in the legislature.

Ald. Parker fights for ‘conscience’ on Coquitlam council

On Coquitlam council, it’s an uphill bat-
tle for labor’s lone progressive alderman.

While in Vancouver there’s a solid block
of progressives representing the interests of
labor and the low-income community —
with the active support of city organizations
and trade unions — Eunice Parker finds
herself the sole voice on many issues that
come before the seven-member council in
this Lower Mainland community.

Yet there are victories, and the satisfac-
tion of representing the interests of Coquit-
lam’s working-class community, that keeps
the alderman from the Association of Co-
quitlam Electors fighting for affordable
housing, council grants for community
groups, union rates of pay for public sector

employees and several other issues.

Parker, a former Coquitlam school trus-
tee secured her seat in the municipal elec-
tions last Nov. 17, on a third-time try after
narrowly missing victory in the two pre-
vious elections. With the backing of the
New Westminster and District Labor
Council — which yearly endorses candi-
dates in several Lower Mainland municipal-
ities — she secured for a one-year term the
seat vacated by retiring ACE alderman
Gloria Levi.

Parker, who must seek a full two-year
term this November, characterizes Coquit-
lam council as one with “no social con-
science at all evident.

“They have a hands-off policy when it

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comes to supporting certain items they-say
are outside their immediate interests,” said
Parker in an interview.

She was referring specifically to a motion
she’d introduced on behalf of the Lower
Mainland Regional Unemployed Coalition.
The group, a combination of unemploy-
ment action centres, church leaders and
community organizations, had been receiv-
ing the support of several local governments
for the demand that the provincial govern-
ment raise the welfare rates to the federally-
established poverty level.

On Coquitlam council, however, the
motion died without a seconder.

Parker notes that in her last campaign for
the aldermanic seat, her door-knocking
activities brought her into contact with
“young people living in barren apartments,
without a stick of furniture in them, right
here in Coquitlam.”

She has accused council of “insulating
itself from all social questions — part-
icularly disturbing at a time when the pro-
vincial government has abandoned or
severely cut funding to so many community
based groups and social programs.”

Parker made much the same remark to
the local Sunday News. But the article never
appeared.

“It was killed by the editor,” said Parker,
observing that with the local media, it’s also
an uphill battle.

The News took a similar approach in
covering Parker’s: protest against the con-
tracting out of janitorial services to a civic
building, headlining a portion of the article
“Good Deal Draws Ald. Parker’s Fire.”

Parker protested council’s acceptance of
a bid by Groom Able Building Mainte-
nance, which at $33,420 for a two-year
period to provide 12 hours of service seven
days a week meant there would be little

remaining after operating costs to pay fair

wages.

“That would cover about $3.80 an hour,
well below the minimum wage,” Parker
protests.

“Even if the company were to pay, as it
claims it does, a decent wage and take a loss
on the contract, it’s a sleazy way to do
business. It freezes out legitimate bidders
and you can bet the price will rise in the
future,” she said.

Parker has also run into opposition in her
effort to reverse council’s no-grants policy.
She was initially successful in forcing Mayor
Lou Sekora to strike a council committee to
study the question, but the committee —
composed of two right-wing aldermen —

EUNICE PARKER...we can. turn

council around.”’

——— a

recommended council continue to refuse —

funding for community organizations.

Calling the decision, “penny-wise an
pound-foolish,” Parker told the alderme?®
they “should not be sitting here in thel!
ivory tower, without first hearing what the
needs are, and answering ‘no’ automat
cally.”

She ran into another roadblock whet —

council refused to hear a delegation from

the area school board seeking support for itS

stand against further provincial govern-
ment cutbacks to education.

“As a Coquitlam alderman I am out
raged that a regular procedure for a submis" _—

sion to council by any community group

was broached,” Parker wrote in an opinion —

column in the Sunday News. She noted that
other area councils — Port Coquitlam;
Port Moody and Belcarra — had all
received the board’s delegation and sup”
ported the no-cuts stance.

Parker, an office worker at the Trad¢
Union Research Bureau, still scores spc
cesses. Her motion Jan. 27 that council
oppose, and intervene in hearings into B.C.
Hydro’s 6% per cent rate hike passed
unanimously. :

“I would say my biggest fight is ove?

council priorities,” she said. “Council fre

quently takes the position that social issues _
aren’t the business of council. Yet last fall

they proclaimed ‘Private Business Week
extolling the virtues of free enterprise.

“T think we should be expanding city —
staff, not laying people off. But according tO _

the mayor, I just came on council to ‘spen
wildly,’ ” Parker related.

“Tt will take a while to turn around Co- —

quitlam council on social spending, housing

and fair wages. But with the co-operation of —

community groups and trade unions, !
know we can do it.”

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