- defence

- GURNAM’SANGHERA . . .

Packed rally urges unity,
action to counter racism

By DAN KEETON |

Racism is a problem for all

» not just the minorities

it is directed against, and a unified

effort is necessary to pressure

government and law enforcement

agencies to take action against

Tacist groups and racially
Motivated acts.

That was the message Sunday
hight as community, civic and
labor representatives addressed a

~ fullhhouse at the Ladner Communi-

ty Centre Jan. 18 rally called by the
East Indian Workers’ Association.

About 350 people came to ex-
Press their revulsion at the
Tesurgence of racism in the com-

-Munity, dramatized by the racist

arson attack against the Sidhu
home in Ladner Jan. 3.

The need for a united people’s
front to combat that resurgence
Was stressed by the many speakers
who addressed the rally.

EIWA member Gurnam
Sanghera, who provided transla-
tions in both Punjabi and English,
hoted that “‘racism always has a
target — it just happens to be East

now.’

Former Fishermen’s Union
President Homer Stevens echoed
Sanghera’s remarks, recalling that
Tacism had been one of the major
hurdles the union had to cross in
Organizing the fishing industry.

Stevens also took on the ad-
vocates of ‘‘self-defense is the only
Wway,”” warning it would leave
minority groups open to attack.

.. “Self-defense doesn’t unite us —
It just breaks us up into small

“gelf-
only

HOMER STEVENS.
approach-

a. Separates us into small groups.’

groups. We need to unite against
racism,”’ he said to applause.
Jarmail Chandhi, vice-president
of the EIWA, emphasized that
racism was ‘‘not just a problem for
East Indians. “‘It is a problem for
all Canadians,’’ he said.
Emphasizing the decisive role of
organized labor in combating

racism, Sanghera stated the ETWA’

policy that members must work
withing their respective unions to
ensure that they takeastandagainst
racism, noting that in the absence
of such action, “the Klan might

_ creep in.’

Racial discrimination via civic
legislation was the theme of Rich-
mond alderman Harold Steves and
Vancouver alderman Harry

In the mid-70’s, a right-wing
Richmond city council, acting on
complaints filed by individuals,
cracked down on those forced to
live in substandard ‘‘illegal suites,”’
a majority of whom turned out to
be East Indian families, said
Steves.

Currently the right-dominated
council is prosecuting those adults
whose parents are living with them,
an action affecting mainly non-
white families who do not share the
North American tradition of the
limited nuclear family, Sie
noted.

One result of this legal Ae
ment, said the Richmond alder-
man, is that many people are afraid
to register as civic voters, for fear

the city may investigate their

premises.

“The best way to clear up the il-

legal suites problem is to have

enough housing for everybody,”
stated Vancouver’s Harry Rankin,

who reviewed some of. his ex--

periences with racism at city hall.
He cited former fire chief Armand
Koenig’s refusal to reconsider
height and weight qualifications
for firemen, and city council’s inac-
tion in cases of racial discrimina-
tion at several city discotheques.
Rankin also tackled the accusa-
tion from the B.C. Civil Liberties
Union that his publicly stated call
for the abolition of the Klanin B.C.
violated the right of free speech.
‘No-one has the right to yell
‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. I say to
those well-meaning people who
would defend the Klan’s right to
speak that the KKK has a history of

. Murder and violence. .Don’t be

“East indians are now the targets of racism.

fooled by their so-called ‘new im-

Official foot-dragging and
government reluctance to act
against the Klan or even to admit
the existence-of racially motivated

. violence was cited a other

speakers.

Stevens noted that some of-
ficials, quoted in the Delta Op-
timist, tried to play down the recent
Ladner arson case ‘‘as if this was
bad publicity for Delta.”

B.C. Coalition Against Racism
chairperson Delicia Crump noted
the local police were treating the at-
tack as an isolated case of teenage
vandalism rather than part of a
growing tendency towards racially-
motivated violence in Canada.

‘“‘The Klan has clearly violated
the Criminal Code of Canada,”
Crump said, in reviewing her
organization’s hitherto unsuc-
cessful efforts to wrest the
necessary permission from B.C.
attorney-general Allan Williams to
allow prosecution of the KKK
under the criminal code.

The next step, she said, is to peti-
tion solicitor-general Robert
Kaplan. It that fails, there are plans
to take the case to the United Na-
tions, and from there to make it an
international protest.

‘*All we are asking the attorney-
general for is permission to take the
Klan to court. If the law is found to
be weak, we'll work for it’s
change,”’ she said.

Shiv Narian Singh Basi, presi-
dent of the Khalsa Diwan (Sikh
Temple) Society in Victoria, told
the audience in Punjabi, ‘Racism
is acancer which must be cut out —
and it is the unity of the people
which will do the surgery.”

Other speakers at the rally in-
cluded North Vancouver alderman
Ernie Crist, representing the
Marineworkers and. Boilermakers

~ Industrial Union; Jit Singh Ankhi,

president of the EIWA; Phil
Zander from the Telecommunica-
tions Workers.Union and Graham
Hope, a commissioner with the

. B.C. Human Rights Commission.

The meeting unanimously en-
dorsed a resolution condemning
“all violent attacks of racism’’ and
calling on government to use all ex-

TRIBUNE PHU! US—SEAN GRIFFIN

isting laws to bring those guilty of

racist acts to justice and to ban the
KKK.

Vancouver city council will be
urging the Greater Vancouver
Regional District to pass by the
Feb. 1 deadline set by Socred
minister Bill Vander Zalm to
agree to his decision to purchase
the automated light rapid transit
system and to accept along term
deficit sharing arrangement.

Vander Zalm has delivered

-an ultimatum to the GVRD to
accept his rapid transit package
by Feb. 1 or else he would estab-
lish a new body under his con-
trol to replace the GVRD’s tran-
sit functions.

The GVRD will meet to con-
sider Vander Zalm’s threat and

000 GVRD analysis of the On-
tario ALRT system proposed by
Vander Zalm as opposed to the
conventional _LRT originally
proposed by the GVRD at a spe-
cial meeting of the regional
board Jan. 27.

~ _ However at a special meeting
of Vancouver city council Jan.
20 to discuss the city’s stance at
the GVRD, Vander Zalm was
under heavy attack for attempt-
ing to impose an untested sys-
tem on the region.

Vancouver council invited
delegations to speak to the issue
and heard unanimous con-
demnations of the provincial
government. Sol Jackson of the
Committee of Progressive Elec-
tors (COPE), Nathan Davido-
wicz of the Killarney Champlain
Heights Citizens for Action and
Dez Turner of Citizens For

ly for a conventional LRT sys-
tem.

The elevated, sanonnisted sys-
tem. would blight neighbor-
hoods below it and create a safe-
ty hazard because of its ‘hot
rails,’? warned Jackson: The is-
sue of Canadian content is a red
herring, he added because the
conventional system, although
a European design, has an equal
amount of Canadian content.

Citizens for Rapid Transit ar-

_ gued that the conventional sys-
tem is more versatile and can be
tunnelled underground through
busy intersections, a superior
route to elevating the system
overhead.

Arepresentative of the Amal-
gamated Transit Union said
that any system must be man-
ned, whether it is automated. or
not. Public safety in the event of
equipment malfunctions, or
crisis situations require person-
nel on duty, he said.

Communist Party Greater
Vancouver regional chairman
Fred Wilson also spoke and
stressed the motive of the pro-
vincial government in attempt-
ing to impose a system on the
GVRD from the top down ‘‘and
in the most reactionary and re-
gressive manner possible.””

The financing of the rapid

question, he said, and until it is
resolved the debates over the rel-
ative merits of different systems
are meaningless.
He called for a ‘‘realistic as-
sessment of the actual costs’’ be-
ginning with the $74 million def-
icit the bus only system incurred
in 1980. This year the deficit is
expected to inflate by-14 per-

\_ cent, according to Urban Tran-

GVRD urged to
defy Vander Zalm
fransit ultimatum

the recommendations of a $30,- -

stantially increased to substitute

Rapid Transit all argued strong- -

‘the system,” he said.

transit project is the decisive

- Said.

sit Authority figures, and at that
rate the deficit for the present
system will be in the order of
$160 million by 1986-1987.

If rapid transit is added to the
system and financed according
to the Socred plan, by borrow-
ing the money through the issu-
ance of bonds, the $460 million
capital cost which the GVRDes-
timates the ALRT system would
add $60 million per year in fi-
nancing costs to the transit sys-
tem’s deficit.

“If we are truthful with the
public, they must be told that we
must meet a deficit of about
$220 million in 1986-1987 and of
over $320 million by 1991,”’ he
said.

“The present hydro and gas
taxes will come nowhere. near
meeting these costs. That is why
the city of Vancouver finance
department warned a year ago
that property taxes would be
needed to support the system by
1984.

“Clearly this is an unaccept-
able result of the present finan-
cial formula. We cannot accept
that property taxes throughout
Greater Vancouver will be sub-

for the province’s responsibility
to provide a basic social
service.”

A second unacceptable result
of the present formula cited was
a steady increase in transit fares
to over $1 within a few years, be-
cause of the requirement that
fares must cover 35 percent of
operating costs.

The alternative to substantial
property tax increases with the
present formula is a huge in-
crease in the gas tax, which Wil-
son said the party has ‘‘unquali-
fied opposition”? for. The gas
tax is a regressive tax applied on-
ly to consumers while leaving
the oil industry and automobile
industry untouched, he said.

“Tt is our opinion that if the
GVRD told Vander Zalm ‘no
deal’ to his present ultimatum
and instead presented realistic
counter demands, there is no
question that the GVRD would
have overwhelming public sup-
port,”’ he said.

Wilson urged the GVRD to
renounce the present transit ser-
vice agreement with the prov-
ince’s Urban Transit Authority
and to demand a new deal which
would see the province pay the
great majority, if not all, of
transit deficits and which would
eliminate the‘pegging of fares at
35 percent of operating costs.
The new agreement must pro-
vide for rapid transit without
adding financing costs to the op-
erating costs of the system, ‘‘be-
cause that will break the back of

In Moscow and Mexico City
vast rapid transit systems oper-
ate with fares equivalent to
about a nickel in Canadian coin,
he added, because in those
countries mass transportation is.
treated as a social necessity and—
funded in the same manner as
education and health, by a pro-
gressive tax system to appropri-
ate wealth at its source, from in-
dustry ard resources. ‘“There is
no other way that we will have a
decent transit system here,’’ he

y,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 23, 1981—Page3