‘iy iv 4). \ }

school

parley

protests Bangor base

Protests against building of the
U.S. Trident sub base at Bangor,
Washington, continued to mount as
preparations proceeded for a big
Peace Arch rally on Saturday,
June 28.

Meeting in Vancouver on May 1,
the United Nations Association of
Canada, Vancouver’ Branch,
adopted a resolution requesting the
Canadian government to express
to the U.S. government “‘in the
strongest possible terms Canada’s

_ unequivocal opposition to the

deployment of the Trident II
system because of its escalatory
potential and because of the
danger it poses to Canadian lives
and security.”

The resolution: points out that
Trident warheads will allow it to
evade anti-ballistic missiles and
destroy hardened missile sites.
“This development,” says the
resolution, ‘‘can be construed by
any potential enemy as the
departure of the U.S. from its
present ‘second. strike’ or
retaliatory policy to that of a ‘first
strike’ policy, and can only result
in a dangerous escalation of the
arms race.”’

The Vancouver branch of the

United. Nations Association also
points out in its resolution that
locating the base at Bangor,
Washington ‘“‘makes it a prime
target in the event of nuclear war,
with resultant catastrophic impact
on the adjacent areas of British
Columbia.”

Also, last week a seminar of
Vancouver high school students,
sent a resolution to the provincial
government which said: ‘‘We urge
that the B.C. government express
to the government of the U.S. in the
strongest possible terms, our
unequivocal opposition to the
deployment of the Trident II

system because of its escalatory.

potential and because of the
danger it poses to Canadian lives
and security.”

The petition against the Bangor
base, being circulated by The
Pacific Life Community
organization in B.C., is receiving

wide support. The petition was>
published in last week’s Tribune.’

Petitions should be returned when
filled to: The Pacific Life Com-
munity, C/o Chalmers United
Church, 2801 Hemlock St., Van-
couver, B.C. 5

Livable region plan
_of dubious benefit |

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The Greater Vancouver
Regional District (GVRD) has
come up with a series of proposals
to “manage the growth of Greater
Vancouver.”’ They’re embodied in
a 52-page report called ‘‘The
Livable Region, 1976-1986,’ now
being distributed for public
discussion.

The proposals come under five
headings — population growth,
(including housing), balancing
jobs to population, decentralization
of the district through the creation
of regional towns, public tran-
sportation and open spaces (parks
eClCD:

Targets have been set under
each of these headings. They in-
clude a population increase of
approximately 300,000; some
215,000 new jobs; regional town
centres in Burnaby, New West-
minster, Surrey and the area
comprising Coquitlam, Port
Coquitlam and Port Moody; the
acquisition of 12 sites for parks;
and the building of a greatly im-
proved transportation system that

would include light rapid transit, a .

subway for Vancouver, a North
Shore ferry and better tran-
sportation for all areas within the
region. —

Plans specifically for Vancouver
include dramatically slowing down
the rate of job growth in Vancouver
(one out of every two new jobs now
locate in Vancouver), so that four
out of every five jobs will be out-
side of Vancouver, a slower rate of
growth of the downtown area, and
using 1,200 acres of the University
Endowment Lands for a_ park
leaving the remaining 500 for
housing.

Some features of the report, such
as the development of the
University Endowment Lands, the
establishment of new parks and the
building of a vastly improved
transportation system are com-
mendable. But it fails to deal with
at least two basic questions:

1. Who will pay for all this
development,

and:—
2. Public housing.
The answers to’ these two

questions will determine whether
the plan is good or bad and so far
the GVRD has no answers.;,

_ We must remember, first of all,
that the GVRD is made up of
mayors and aldermen who are
developer and big business
oriented. In fact, the GVRD has a

-greater concentration of rednecks

than most municipal councils.
Any plans that this GVRD comes
up with will reflect the interests
and needs of the developers, and
the Livable Region — 1976/86
report is no exception. :
Sure, we can agree with the
concept of regional town centres. It
would be better for all citizens if
these were spaced throughout the
region instead of being limited to
Vancouver. But who will pay for
these centres? The developers will
move in, put up their buildings and
move on. But the citizens will be
left with the extra bills that will
result from these developments —
increased police and fire protec-
tion, garbage, collection, traffic
congestion, wear and tear of
existing streets and the building of
new ones to take the increased
traffic loads, the need for more
parks and recreation facilities and

_ SO on.

Any new taxes coming in from
such development will not even
begin to pay costs such as these.
They will be paid by the taxpayers

YEARS

WORKING FOR J
BETTEROMA

- municipal and provincial gov®

who will be compelled to subsidi#®
the developers.
As for public housing, the
Livable Region, 1976/86 does”
even mention, the subject. To
developers “public housing” 4
dirty words. The report conteml»
itself with advocating mediull
density development through Ee
building of town housing 2
compact housing. This pretty
limits new housing to those In ¥
higher income brackets.
public housing initiated 7

ments can solve the hous

shortage.

Any Livable Region plan ™
fails to deal with these two issUs”
is, in my opinion, unacceptable:
Such a plan must include prop0s# f
for a more equitable distribution |
the tax burden. cf

The developers must be con
pelled to pay for’ the addition®
costs to the public that result from
their developments. This shoW™
include public amenities. such
cultural and recreational faciliti®

As for tax reforms, I w0
propose:
1. Tax homes only for those S&

vices supplied directly

homes. No taxes on homes
education or to raise genet®

" revenue. “Ae
2. Assess big commercial a!

industrial properties at thel!

true market value so that bié
business beings to pay its fal!
share of municipal taxes.

3. Establish two different mil
rates. One rate, the lowest on®
should apply only to homes ant
apartments. The other, and thé
higher one, should be for othe!
commercial and industri4
properties.

4. Levy an'added value tax so thal
the municipality will obtain 4
portion or all of the increas®
value added to land when it ®
rezoned upward by municip4
council.

If the Livable Region plan can bé
amended to include reforms su¢
as Thave mentioned, it could be 4
good plan. But until it does, }
remains a plan of, for and by thé
developers.

TOM —
~ McEWEN

ymbolic, prophetic, inevitable, describe it as one may, it

is indeed an inspiring reality that the key city of South
Vietnam, Saigon, should be celebrating this May Day,
1975 with songs and flowers, the reality of peace, a united
Vietnam, and the early attainment of socialism. That the
guns of war should be decked with flowers instead of
death-dealing bullets and smoke of carnage, that the tread
of marching feet of soldiers and citizens alike should be
proclaiming the birth of a new era of peace, unity,
progress and socialism ... for a one and undivisible
Vietnam.

What price now all the prognostications, all the
falsehoods and conspiracies of a profit-crazed US.
Establishment, spanning the period from John Foster
Dulles to Ford-Kissinger “‘humanitarianism”’: to divide
Vietnam and bomb its heroic people “‘back to the stone
age;”’ to rain death and destruction upon its lands and
peoples, to “kill everything that moves.” To condone the

wanton massacres of Viet villagers, such as U.S. Lieut.

Calley did at Mai Lai, so atrocious that even a U.S.
military court convicted — while a, criminal ex-U.S.
president pardoned. And yet there were many Mai Lais in
Vietnam.

The U.S. bombing of schools, hospitals, whole civilian
populations in North Vietnam centres, and its “‘body
count,” kill and overkill, in which Washington and Pen-
tagon computers listed the murdered babe-in-arms and
the aged citizen as a ‘“‘Cong.’’ U.S. Establishment dif-
ference between its baby ‘‘Cong”’ count and its recent

desperate “‘baby-lift” is simply one of degree — how to

avoid inevitable defeat at the hands of a small but heroic
- nation it sought to destroy.

All of which adds a greater significance and brilliance
to the May Day celebrations in Saigon, to the resolution of
its provisional government, and to the determination of
the Vietnamese people, North and South, in all ‘“‘zones,”’ in
hamlet, village, town or city, to be free to determine their
own destiny. May Day of 1975 in Saigon, not only marks
the end of a long and terrible nightmare of death and
suffering at the hands of a ruthless imperialism, but the
birth of a new era for Southeast Asia, an era of peace and
orderly progress . . . an era when ideas can no longer be
“contained”? by the latest big guns of imperial
gangsterism!

Were William Shakespeare living today and had he
listened to the extravaganza and fabrications of an ex-
clusively staged CBS-TV two-hour program (spilled over
into Canada), a program aimed at whitewashing US:
crimes in Vietnam, put on by the elite of its brainwashed
trained seals, he would possibly have added to his
classical’ observation on the assassination of Julius
Caesar, presaging the end of a once-proud Roman Em-
pire, when he queried: ‘‘Are all thy conquests, glories,
triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this small measure. . .,”” and

May Day of 1975 in Saigon would have provided him with _

an historical and decisive answer!

It is not uncommon for capitalist Establishments to
cover up their planned and systematic destruction of
democratic freedoms by pretences of ‘‘defending”’ it.
Thus when a criminally-oriented U.S. Establishment
expends the lives of 55,000 of its own manhood, plus a $150-
billion dollars to ‘‘win’’ an aggressive war it was
inevitably destined to lose, all the while robbing its people
at home of their substance and heritage, all in order to
“contain’’ the emergence of a new social order, its fitness
to survive becomes a question of world concern.

But a simple unobtrusive Asian people, who desire only
to live in peace, to work out their destiny in accord w!

their own ideals, who count their dead and maimed by the

‘millions, who met U.S. aggression and overwhelminé
tonnage of death-dealing equipment with literally baré

hands — and won — that is the side of the scroll which

heralds their future, ushered in by this historic May DaY

in Saigon in 1975! q

Just shortly before his death the venerable and belové 0
president of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, inspired his torture
and hard-pressed people with the words ‘‘Vietnam will y®
be free and undivided,” and the “‘Dien Bien Phu”’ of a May
Day celebration in Saigon confirms it.

In every city around the world where workers gather to
assess their victories, setbacks, and future achievements,
the victory and unity of the Vietnamese peoples will be
hailed as their victory too. Let the imperialist “com”
tainers” of the status quo tremble, this is no “spectre, —
but a living vibrating humanity, determined ona socialist
freedom, and possessed of the courage to achieve it. q

An embattled working class keeps its tryst with History
— to celebrate May Day of 1975 in the new city of Ho Chi
Minh ... yesterday only a military brothel of U.S. im-—
perialism. :

PACIFIC

IRIBUNI

> Editor — MAURICE RUSH

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1975—Page 2