Pon Oe - By STEVE GIDORA “Working together’’ is the slo- gan of the Surrey Municipal Elec- tors (SME), the municipal politi- cal organization which now total- ly dominates Surrey municipal council with seven of nine seats and Surrey school board with four of seven seats. However it is doubtful that the divergent and opportunistic po- litical groups in SME will stick to- gether very long, much less than work together for the better of Surrey. SME won the majority on Sur- rey council last year when voters became. disenchanted with the Surrey Voters Association (SVA), a coalition of Liberals, Tories and Socreds which had previously held a majority on council. Most voters thought that SME represented a change from the old policies and would push for reform in Surrey. But the vot- ers were being conned as SME was quickly becoming an estab- lishment group just like the SVA. SME was originally founded by Liberal SVA. defector Don Ross, the current mayor, and NDPer Garry Watkins. But as the SVA became more discredited SME was joined by more SVA defectors, Bonnie Schrenk, a Soc- red, and Bob Jacobs, a Liberal. The other SME aldermen are NDPers Clay Campbell, Bill Fo- \ mich and Jack Whittaker, elected this year. Whittaker is provincial representative for the Operating Engineers, but on the ballot he chose to be described as an ‘“‘ad- ministrator.”’ A comparison of the financial expenditures of the SME and SVA slates in this year’s election indicates that the commercial in- terests and developers in Surrey are now behind SME. The so- called reformers in SME are not a problem to them, as long as Lib- eral mayor Don Ross, and Jacobs and Schrenk keep progressive policies in check. — This has been the secret of SME?’s quick success — feigning reformism and using the money machine to get elected. Both SME and SVA are ar- rangements of convenience. Nei- ther slate has unanimous agree- ment on basic issues and some- times it is difficult to ascertain who is with who. On Sunday shopping, for example, Watkins. and Schrenk were actually for it, although they didn’t let too many people know, while Whittaker was dead set against it. SME was probably financed by the stores pushing for Sunday shopping, and supported by the same voters which in a majority voted against Sunday shopping in the plebis- cite. On several other issues as well, SME has already shown itself to be little different than the SVA. It has largely ignored the housing is- sue. It is promoting the idea that more police and fines for parents are answers to juvenile vandal- ism. It has refused to deal with the question of radioactive waste in Bridgeview and contaminated property in Newton. The SME majority has not been for reform and change, and there is no rea- son to believe it will be on the new council. SME has played the same kind of shell game in school board pol- itics. When SME’s incumbent trustee Barbara Girling was re- jected by the Surrey Teachers As- sociation and by CUPE Local 728 because of her right wing stand on many education issues, it snapped up parent activist Laurae McNal- ly and teacher Hollis Kelly for its school slate. McNally and Kelly restored the “Teform’”’ image to the SME slate, and both were elected. Girl- ing was also re-elected, with the double barrelled edge of the sup- port of both SME and the SVA, which only ran three candidates. SME was able to con many re- form voters, partially because the reform movement in Surrey was not united and did not offer a vi- able and clear alternative. There were five progressive candidates running for four SME's false image conned Surrey voters aldermanic positions. The newly formed Citizens for a Better Sur- rey ran an NDP slate of four can- didates in an effort to establish an official NDP presence in Surrey politics. The other candidate was Jo Arland of the Surrey Alternat- ive Movement (SAM), which ran its fifth campaign this year. SAM also ran two school board candi- dates, Vi Swann and Steve Gi- dora. In spite of the CBS’ attempt to pre-empt the aldermanic contest, SAM sincerely tried to work with CBS, and at least a spirit of coop- eration was achieved in the cam- ~ paign. The New Westminster La- bor Council helped by endorsing the four CBS aldermanic candi- dates and the two SAM school board candidates. When the votes came in, the CBS’ Betty McClurg and Joan Smallwood, received 4,965 and 4,340: votes respectively. That compared to the 4,599 and 4,519 votes received by the SAM school board. candidates, Gidora and - Swann. These votes ranged be- tween 21 percent and 24 percent of the vote, about halfway point to'what was needed to secure elec- tion. After those four, the vote dropped to the 2,000 vote level with the CBS’ Pat Nicholl and Lee Immerzeel and SAM’s Jo Ar- land all within a few votes of each ‘work together to achieve that. _ gressives in Surrey began “‘work- other. Arland finished ahead of Immerzeel. For SAM, it was the highest vote ever with its top vote climb- ing to 24 percent, up from 17 per- cent in 1979 and 14 percent in 1977. The steady climb in SAM’s vote indicates that it will be poss- ible to break through with the election of progressives to Surrey municipal office in the near fu- ture. But it will come much sooner if unity of all left of centre groups is achieved. ; One conclusion must be obvi- ous. The NDP by itself is not the secret to success. That much 1s shown by the CBS vote, and by the deep divisions within the NDP itself. A much broader unity 1s needed and SAM is prepared to The fact that SAM’s school board candidates and the top two CBS aldermanic candidates re- ceived roughly equal votes, while Arland and the other two CBS candidates were also closely grouped, shows that the import- ant thing is not a party label, but labor and community support. It is about time the real pro- ing together’ to advance the civic reform movement. Steve Gidora was a school board candidate for Surrey Alter- native Movement in the recent’ municipal election. —S EO ca a a RE AE PEOPLE AND ISSUES § f you were shocked and puzzled by a story which appeared in both the Sun and Province about two weeks ago which quoted Pravda as supporting Trudeau’s constitutional proposals, and more, suggesting that Canadian Communists also support Tru- deau’s plan, be at ease. The story was completely false. The author of the Pravda article was its Ottawa correspondent Nikolai Bragin, and he confirmed to the Canadian Tribune that the story which appeared in several Canadian dailies through Canadian Press news service, utterly distorted his article printed in the Soviet Union more than two months before. Bragin’s article did comment on the political forces opposed to Trudeau’s patriation plans, and he did refer to the ‘‘conservative’’ premiers with close ties to the U.S. multinationals, but the article had at its essence a summary of the position of the Communist Par- ty of Canada rejecting the BNA Act and calling for a new, made in Canada constitution. ; “I consider it one of those dirty tricks,’’ Bragin said of the distor- tion. “This information was not journalist’s work, but some other ‘service.’ 99 » : os Canadian Press could have easily gotten its facts straight, Bragin added, because TASS, the Soviet news service, has made repeated offers to CP for an exchange service: Instead CP chose to quote Pravda using an ‘‘unknown source.” ss “This information from an unknown source has a poisonous content,”’ said Bragin, ‘‘but in Pravda it was all made very clear.” * * * * * T heresurgence of the peace movement across North America and here in B.C, was underscored this week with the formation of a new peace group made up of doctors. Physicians for Social Responsibility, an education group dedicated to stopping the nuclear arms race, established its B.C. chapter at a meeting Monday at the Vancouver General Hospital. The new organization is headed by two Lower Mainland doctors, Donald Ross and Clayton Ham and about 40 others turned out to the inaugural meeting to hear guest speaker Dr. Peter Joseph, head of the California chapter. Joseph spoke on the medical consequences of nuclear war and called the danger of nuclear war ‘‘the ultimate health issue.”’ The peace movement has been saying that for some time, but now that a group of socially responsible doctors in B.C. are prepared to say it too, the message will be that much more convincing. * % * * bl ‘n another health issue of considerable importance, particularly to women in this province, the Concerned Citizens for Choice on Abortion have scheduled a major rally for this Sunday, Nov. 30, 2 p.m.-5 p.m. at Kitsilano High School, 2550 W. 10th Ave., Van. The rally will demand the repeal of federal abortion laws and the right to abortion be enshrined in federal law which would compel hospitals and clinics to provide abortion services. Among several speakers scheduled are Dr. Henry Morgentaler, tried and acquitted three times on charges of performing illegal abortions, and Ann Kingsbury, leader of the pro-choice movement in England. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 28, 1980—Page 2 Socreds dumping huge tax increases on city homes Most Vancouver taxpayers pro- bably think that Vancouver city council sets the tax rate for the city. Actually this is only partly true. Our council decides how much money is to be raised through taxes, based on the budget, but what proportion of this is to be paid by homeowners, and the owners of commercial and industrial proper- ties, is decided each year by the pro- vincial cabinet. Several ye ars ago the pro- vincial government decreed that municipal taxes must be levied by all municipalities according to one of four formulas, described as Op- - tions A, B, C, and D. These options lay out what percentage of the as- sessed value may be taxed and there is a specific percentage set for each of four kinds of property — resi- dential, commercial, industrial and utilities. All four of these options are un- fair to homeowners, and all of them favor industrial and commer- cial properties. They are unfair be- cause (a) homeowners should not be taxed for general revenues in the first place, only for those services that directly relate to homes, and (b) the B.C. Assessment Authority uses formulas to assess commercial and industrial properties which in- - evitably result in them being assess- ed at far below their market value. As a result they don’t pay their fair share of taxes — often only a half or a fifth of what they should be paying. Labor economist, Dave Fairey pointed out to Burnaby mu- nicipal council recently, as only one example, that Shell Oil in Burnaby has a market value of $220 million, . yet is assessed at only $47.2 million. Each year city council has to se- lect one of these unsatisfactory four options. Some, of course, are worse than others. It’s like choos- ing one of four kinds of pills, all of which make you sick and really don’t do any good, but some are - worse than others. Until now Vancouver city coun- cil has chosen Option A, as the “best’’ of a bad lot. Under this for- mula the provincial government decided that 1980 taxes would be based as follows: 14.5 percent of assessed value for residential prop- erties, 25 percent for commercial, 30 percent for industrial and 30 percent for utilities. This year the cabinet decided that the rates would be slightly lower — 13 percent for residential, 24.5 percent for commercial, 28.6 | percent for industrial and 30 per-_— cent for utilities (the same as last year). On the surface this looked’ like a reduction in taxes, but not so. Why? Becase (a) the market value of properties has gone up as- tronomically in the past year and therefore the assessed value has gone up, and (b) because the city budget will be increased. (This in- crease is not all due to inflation by any means — it is also due to the fact that city council is subsidizing developments like the Trade and Convention Centre.) Furthermore, the assessed value of residential properties, as deter- mined by the B.C. Assessment Au- thority, is going up much faster than the assessed value of com- mercial and industrial properties. Unless something is done, there will be a huge shift in taxes this year away from industrial and commer- - cial properties and onto the backs of homeowners. It could result in an increase in taxes on homes a5 high as 24 percent. On the other hand taxes on commercial prope!- ties would go down by five percent and industrial by 19 percent. The provincial cabinet has publicly rec- ognized this but is doing little about it. All it would agree to do is to re duce the rate of taxes for school purposes on homes from 13 pet cent to 11 percent. Apologizing for the failure of the Socred government to do bet- ter, alderman Puil says (The Prov- ince, November 21), that the gov- ernment ‘‘probably went as far asit could go to help Vancouver resl- dents.’? That’s not only incorrect, that’s hogwash. The government could, without any difficulty, re duce the percentage much further. Council will be meeting before Dec. 1, to decide what to do. It should, I believe, call for: @ a further reduction inthe pel- centage for homes, from the cul- rent 13 percent to at least eight per- cent; @ an increase in the home-— owner grant; @ demand that the B.C. As- sembly Authority open up for pub- lic inspection its formulas for con- sistently underassessing big com- mercial and industrial properties - with the object of changing them sO that these properties pay their fair ‘share of taxes; @ city council should consider adopting a graduated business tax based on ability to pay so that small businesses will pay only a small rate of business tax while big-business will pay a higher rate; ct @ adopt as a goal the objective that homes should be taxed not for - general revenues, but only to pay for those services they get. ‘