British Columbia/Canada

Nomination
for COPE
candidates
on Oct. 3

The key issue facing Vancouver is
corporate development versus
people’s development, the Committee
of Progressive Electors has declared
in announcing its nomination meeting
for this fall’s civic elections.

Wednesday, Oct. 3 is the date
COPE members will elect five can-
didates for city council, five for school
board and three for parks board. And
the civic alliance’s executive will pro-
pose “a well known and respected
leader as its candidate for mayor.”

Under an agreement hammered
out with the participation of the Van-
couver and District Labour Council,
the remaining five council seats, four
school board and four parks commis-
sioner positions are reserved for the
Civic New Democrats.

COPE president Sadie Kuehn said
the two groups will run as “a full
progressive unity slate” in the Nov. 17
civic elections.

- This year Vancouver goes to the
polls along with all other B.C. muni-
cipalities, to elect candidates for a
three-year term of office.

That makes it important that the
progressive unity slate achieve a maj-
ority position on all three governing
bodies, Kuehn emphasized.

“This is a crucial election. Can we
retum Vancouver as a happy, comfort-
able home for everyone, or will Van-
couver continue to fall into the tighter
control of the corporate developers?”

“COPE and the unity slate have an
important message: We are the group
that can provide accountable, repre-
sentative, community-based civic
government,” said Ald. Libby Davies.

“Under the NPA the housing crisis
has gotten worse, neighbourhoods are
going under the wrecker’s ball, and
we’ve seen communities’ ability to
express themselves poisoned by the
NPA, and I think people are fed up to
the teeth with Gordon Campbell and
his gang.”

Last spring the labour-backed
civic alliance held an open conference
with community and environmental
activists to seek new ideas for a civic
platform. The conference did not pro-
duce resolutions, but most partici-
pants favoured the “green” approach
to developing cities along environ-
mentally-conscious lines with maxi-
mum Citizen participation.

Davies said the “challenge” in
defeating the NPA is to get volunteers
out for the COPE-unity effort.
“(Mayor) Gordon Campbell has spent
more on TV ads to date than we’ll
spend on our entire campaign; it isn’t
a level playing field for-finances, they
have huge resources.”

The COPE executive urges a
strong tumout at the nomination, not-
ing there are likely to be contests for
at least some of the candidate posi-
tions. Nominations may be made
from the floor.

The Oct. 3 meeting is at Heritage
Hall, Main Street and East 15th
Avenue, beginning at 7 p.m. All paid-
up members are eligible to vote.

Toronto lost Olympic ‘circus’
— now let's see. the bread

By KERRY McCUAIG
From world class to a third rate con-
tender. On Sept. 18 Toronto was forced to
cast its eyes modestly from its skyscrapers
to its sidewalks when its bid to host the 1996
Olympics was dropped on the third ballot.

Olympic boosters postured their sports-

manship for the first eight hours following

the news, pledging to try again in the year
2000, or 2004 or 2012 .... But guys like Paul
Henderson and Art Eggleton don’t spend
millions of dollars grasping for those five
rings and then take losing lightly.

Someone has to take the blame, before
taxpayers start asking if brochures, staff
time, trips, gifts and perks were the best way
to dispense with $16 million. The sights are
aimed at the Bread Not Circuses Coalition
and reform councillor Jack Layton.

The salvos are flying fast and angry.
Words like “sabotage” and “dirty tricks”
circulate. Councillor Tony O’Donohue, in-
spired by Shakespearean tragic prose, has
accused Layton of putting “a dagger into the
heart of the city’s bid.”

As in all wars the first casualty is truth.
Layton, rumoured to be a serious mayoralty
contender in 1992, is therefore a desirable
target for mud slinging.

However Layton was never opposed to
the Olympics in principle. When the games
first became an issue a number of individ-
uals and groups, in and outside city hall,
gave conditional support to the city perusing
the bid providing it was linked to social
goals. If as host of the games, Toronto would
be left a legacy of more affordable housing,
union jobs, community and sports centres
and improved public transit, no one had
complaints.

Commentary

City council initially paid lip service to
those concerns but as events began to unfold
it became apparent that commitments to
connect the bid with a social agenda were
bringing up the rear.

It was this reality that forged the Bread
Not Circuses Coalition in February 1989.
The name was inspired by a tactic of the
Rome’s ancient rulers who put on public
extravaganzas to distract people whenever
times got tough. Its supporters felt that after
1,600 years, new. ways of addressing human
problems should be. found.

Headed by anti-poverty activists Michael
Shapcott, Ruth Mott, David Kidd and Brian
Eng it questioned the penchant the city was
developing for mega-projects.

They eloquently argued that Toronto
should indeed look down from its sky-
scrapers to its sidewalks where 100,000
people line up every month outside food

banks and where another 25,000 live be--

cause they have no homes.

They challenged the Toronto Olympic
Council’s figures and claims. They exposed
the “dirty tricks” of the other side, such as
Mayor Eggleton withholding a letter from
Canadian National telling the city to keep its
nose out of CN’s development plans for its
lands along the Harbourfront if the city
wanted. other company property for the
Olympic Village.

Hardly a pawn of Layton, the coalition
was in the dark on how the councillor would

vote, until he raised his hand in opposition
when the vote came to city council.

Polls showed Toronto residents did want
the Olympics (70 per cent), but only if it
wasn’t going to cost them money. The city’s
finance commissioner estimated the games
would total $2.5 billion. The private sector
would kick in $1 billion while the remainder
would have to be picked up by the public.
But there were no firm commitments from
either Queen’s Park or Ottawa about how
much senior governments were willing to
kick in to cover a deficit. The information
was a Closely guarded secret the coalition
made public. ' f

Bread Not Circuses dogged the IOC
wherever it went, including its final destina-
tion, Tokyo, Japan. Here Kidd and Jan
Borowy teamed up with other anti-Olympic
groups from Melboume, Australia and
Nagano, Japan, a contender for the 1998
Winter Games.

They all delivered the same message to
the IOC: the Olympics will devastate their
cities and the environment. The Olympics
are for corporations, not people.

Either the IOC heard the message, or
Atlanta just demonstrated it could turn a
bigger buck. Either way we won and our
condolences go out to the people of Atlanta.

With the bid behind us, maybe Toronto
can take a fresh look at itself, to really think
of what it takes to be world class. I hope the
first item will be the condition of our side-
walks.

Premier Vander Zalm and his wife have
sold their Fantasy Gardens properties in
Richmond to Emilia Roxas, chair of the
multi-million- dollar Tan Yu Group based
in Taiwan.

The premier didn’t hesitate to mix his
personal business with government busi-
ness. He took the new owner over to Vic-
toria to meet with his cabinet ministers and
to have lunch with the governor general. I
guess taxpayers paid for that, too. It must
be convenient to be able to treat your
private clients at public expense.

The Fantasy Gardens property has had
a sordid history right from the start. Van-
der Zalm bought the land, while it was still
zoned as farm land and part of the Agricul-
tural Land Reserve, for $1.6 million. Then
the government-appointed Agricultural
Land Commission took the land out of the
reserve.

At about the same time, Delta mun-
icipal council rezoned it from farm land to
commercial use. This rezoning automat-
ically increased the original value by some
$4 million.

The sale price is reputed to be over $15
million. Apparently, it will be consider-
ably more than that — more likely over
$20 million.

But the assessed value of the property
was set by the B.C. Assessment Authority
at only $4.7 million.

Fantasy Gardens sale shows how
homeowners shoulder tax burden

Now, how’s that for a tax break?

If this were only an exception it could
perhaps be forgiven as an error. But setting
assessments for big properties at far below
their market value is a stated policy in this
province, applying to all big properties.

Homeowners have their properties as-
sessed at market value. Not so with big
commercial and industrial properties. A
curiously different method is used that
invariably results in an assessed value of
a quarter or less of the real market value.

It doesn’t happen only for the premier
or only in Richmond. It happens all over
the province because the Social-Credit-
appointed B.C. Assessment Authority has
jurisdiction over the whole province.

The assessment people, in explaining
this discrepancy between the methods
used to assess homeowners on the one
hand and big industrial and commercial
properties on the other, always come up

with the argument that since big properties
are not sold very often, it is not possible to
estimate their real market value.

That’s utter and deceptive nonsense.
Any real estate dealer can estimate the
market value of such properties in a very
short time. In fact, a top real estate firm in
Vancouver, before the Fantasy Gardens
sale was announced, estimated the market
value of the property at well over $20
million.

The policy of under-estimating big
properties provides a nice tax break for the
wealthy. But it also has a direct effect on
homeowners. If big commercial and in-
dustrial properties don’t pay their fair
share of taxes, it means shortage has to be
made up by higher taxes on homeowners.

That’s exactly what’s happening.
That’s why taxes on homes are as high as
they are.

I would estimate that if big industrial
and commercial properties were assessed
at their real market value, taxes on homes
could be cut in half. =:

Isn’t it time that the whole method of
assessing big commercial and industrial
properties be overhauled? It won’t happen
as long as Vander Zalm is in charge.

The solution is obvious.

2 « Pacific Tribune, October 1, 1990