BRITISH COLUALBIA

SAM DEMONSTRATORS .

Surrey commuters caught in
the rush hour traffic jam at the
Pattullo bridge on Nov. 4 had
plenty of time to read the banner

pass at the south end. The slogan
was appropriate — ‘‘Surrey needs
rapid transit, too.”’

A, a

The demonstration was organ-

strung across the pedestrian over- —

Right place, right message

ized by Surrey Alternative Move-
ment (SAM), whose labor-en-
dorsed mayoralty candidate,
Steve Gidora, is a trenchant critic
of municipal affairs minister Bill
Vander Zalm’s contention that
Surrey has no urgent need of
rapid transit.

Gidora is equally critical of the

. taking the message to thousands of commuting motorists.

incumbent council’s failure to
conduct an aggressive campaign.
for extension of the planned New
Westminster line to what now is
the Lower Mainland’s most
rapidly growing municipality,
with an estimated population of
155,000 and an area of 349 square
kilometres.

With “progressive candidates
contesting council seats both in
Vernon and Salmon Arm in the
Nov. 21 municipal elections, there
is a good prospect for changing the
course in these two North Oka-
nagan centres toward satisfaction
of citizens’ needs and away from
developers’ schemes which for
years have dominated the political
scene.

In Vernon, where labor-endors-
ed Bert Nilsson narrowly missed
election to council last-year, a main
issue is sewage disposal.

Council recently applied to the
B.C. Land Commission for per-
mission to annex 300 acres of land
three miles ‘outside present muni-
cipal boundaries for new residen-
tial subdivisions. But the problem
of sewage disposal remains to be
solved. :

Vernon adopted a spray irriga-
tion system for sewage disposal a
few years ago. Now the available
land is totally saturated with efflu-
oH and a new tract of land is need-

A suitable tract is available 25
miles from the city, but it will cost

ae a ee

$25 million*to build a system to
carry the waste there. The alterna-
tive is construction of a $17 million
filtration plant discharging pure
water into Okanagan Lake.

“The solution will be a costly
one,” Nilsson says, ‘‘but at least we
should slow down construction of
new residential areas until the prob-
lem is solved.”

Two unionists, Reg Walters,
Carpenters Union member making
his first bid for council, and Ron
Anderson, former Retail Clerks
member and a past Kamloops
school trustee, are candidates in
Salmon Arm.

"As Walters, who has the en-
dorsement of several unions,
points out, Salmon Arm faces the
prospect of along hard winter if the

‘mill closes down and throws some

500 IWA members on unemploy-

_ ment insurance. —

,... JONES

civic reform movement

SUNDAY, NOV. 22—6 p.m.
805 East Pender Street
Speakers: ALD. HARRY RANKIN
MAURICE RUSH
CP Provincial Leader

sea. © aaa ean seers”

“This is a question affecting all
citizens and one council can’t be al-
lowed to ignore,”’ he declares. ““We
have a need for cooperative hous-
ing developments and greater mu-
nicipal funding of a large local
youth centre. There’s also a need to

Honor

_EFFIE

Pioneer of the

at a banquet

- Tickets $8
OAP $6

Labor candidates contesting
seats in Vernon, Salmon Arm _

preserve what is one of the Oka-
nagan’s largest baseball and soccer

facilities as a recreation area rather’

than converting it into a commer-
cial development.”’

Anderson, drawing on his ex-
perience asa school trustee in Kam-
loops, sees emphasis on the quality

of learning as the only acceptable —

justification for money spent on
education.

“With this changed outlook on
education,’’ he. adds, ‘‘we need a
much more open style of work on
the school board, one that encour-
ages the participation of parents
and citizens generally.”’

‘What does single
parent do if only
crime is poverty?’

‘Poverty is the worst crime in
our country,’’ says Irene
Schmidt bitterly. And another
crime apparently, if you are
poor and a single parent, is to
have a child whose existence ex-
cludes you from most rental ac-
commodation.

Landlords are not disposed to
regard Irene Schmidt as a desir-
able tenant. For one thing, she’s
on welfare and rent increases
approved by the rentalsman’s
office cannot be met out of wel-
fare reductions approved by hu-
man resources minister Grace
McCarthy.

For another, she has a five-
year-old son. Even if there were
no housing shortage, that‘alone
would make it difficult for her
to find a place. The problem
created by developers who find
it more profitable to build high-
rise towers for couples and
single adults than housing for
families provides landlords with
still more reasons for refusing to
accept children.

Where does this leave Irene
Schmidt? Out on the street, un-
less she wins her court appeal
this Friday.

Life was hard enough for her
before the rentalsman’s office
granted her landlord, Germano
Aresta, a $100 increase on her
two-bedroom apartment at
2A57 Brock St. Her total income

- is $585 a month and she already

was paying $450 a month in rent
for accommodation which
would not win any awards.

“‘We have been without heat
since October 23,”’ she reports.
“The landlord refuses to fix the
furnace. But I have to pay the
rent on time.”

She appealed the rent increase
without benefit of legal aid and,
as she says, ‘‘I asked for and
fortunately got an adjournment
because I knew the lawyers for
the rentalsman and the landlord
would make mincemeat out of
me?

Now, when her appeal is
heard this Friday, she will have
legal counsel. But even if she
wins, her problem, the problem
of hundreds of single parents
like her, remains.

Three provinces, Newfound-
land, Quebec and Manitoba,
have legislation covering dis-
crimination against people with
children in rental accommoda-.
tion.

Ontario reportedly is con-
templating similar legislation.
But backward British Columbia
has no such restraints. Here dis-
crimination is flaunted in the
advertising columns of every
paper — adults only, no child-
ren.

In Vancouver city council on
Oct. 27, aldermen debated
COPE alderman Bruce Erik-
sen’s motion urging McCarthy
to cancel changes in the GAIN
program which, as his preamble
stated, reduce welfare payments
by as much as 27 percent and re-
classify as employable thou-
sands who have no skills, with-
out offering training or day care
facilities. The preamble added

_ that the city ‘‘inevitably must

bear part of the cost of the ef-
fects of cutbacks in social ser-
vices by the provincial govern=
ment.”’ :

After alderman Marguerite
‘Ford had succeeded in deleting

the entire preamble, over objec-_.

tions of COPE aldermen and
mayor Harcourt, council en-
dorsed a motion calling on Mc-
Carthy to review the GAIN pro-
gram publicly before imple-
menting the changes, with only
NPA aldermen Warnett Ken-
nedy and George Puil opposed.

So far McCarthy is adhering
to her stand that neither she nor
any of her staff has any inten-
tion of appearing before council

- to explain changes to the GAIN

program — presumably be-
cause her position is indefens-
ible.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 13, 1981—Page 3

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