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RE-ELECTED. Dorothy Lynas, North
Vancouver District school trustee,
was re-elected last Saturday
polling 4,093 votes. She has
completed 12 years as a school
trustee, and now enters her 13th
year of service to the people of the
North Shore. She beat out a well-
organized attempt to defeat her
by a candidate who works for
Standard Oil.

The results of the 1970
Vancouver civic elections
showed the beginnings of a
movement that can bring about
significant democratic reforms
at City Hall.

It is true that the same
demagogic, reactionary mayor
remains in office and with him
six NPA aldermen out of ten. But
this is only the surface result.

Campbell’s much trumpeted
‘aw and order’’ campaign
fizzled and his vote dropped
sharply.

Instead of occupying four of
the top five aldermanic positions
as they did in 1968, the NPA now
holds but one— Marianne Linnell
— who in her last term of office
frequently voted against the
NPA block on social issues.

The three ancient NPA

LABOR SCENE:

Unions spearhead fight
against unemployment

Local 452 Carpenters’ Unemployed Committee is sponsoring a
march on the Unemployed Insurance Commission office in the 100
block Robson St., next Monday, December 21, at 12 noon, to de-
mand winter unemployment benefits.

This is but one of the concrete
moves endorsed by delegates to
the regular Tuesday night meet-

ing of the Vancouver and Dis-

trict Labor Council, which will
spearhead a fight against un-
employment. .

Delegate Podovinikoff of the
Carpenters’ local reported that
his union was strongly in favor
of a lobby-demonstration to Vic-
toria to demand jobs. He said a
number had committed. them-
selves to take part in the lobby
and challenged other unions to
take part.

The VLC will also present a
well-supported brief to city coun-
cil demanding action on low-
cost housing, which delegate
Dave Werlin of CUPE pointed
out was possible through hous-
ing grants amounting to $35 mil-
lion ‘‘waiting to be picked up in
Ottawa.”

The B.C. Federation of Labor
has decided to appoint a full-
time worker to co-ordinate the

JOBS NOW

_Cont’d from pg. 1

exhorbitant pay boost for the
Prime Minister and MPs with
the prospect facing Canada’s
youth who have no jobs, can’t get
jobs, and have no prospect of
finding work. Nothing, absol-
utely nothing is done for them —
not even unemployment insur-
ance. It’s a disgrace to our
country that Ottawa can report
that nearly 11 percent — or
212,000 youth between 14-24 are
jobless.

Unemployment is the No. 1
issue before Canada today. As
the Communist Party says in
_ the poster on page one being
widely distributed across
Canada: Prime Minister
Trudeau must be compelled to
take action to create a million
new jobs in Canada.

Ottawa and Victoria must be
confronted by the widest united
demand of the Canadian people:
Get off your fanny and act now
for jobs! -

work of union unemployed com-
mittees for the province.

The VLC urged all affiliated
unions to get their unemployed
committees set up. It was
agreed that suitable headquar-
ters would be rented once a con-
ference of all the unemployed
committees was held. The VLC
will continue to work with and
support the organization once it
is established.

Other unemployed groups not
affiliated with trade unions will

attend the first conference as ~

observers, delegates agreed.

Unemployed IWA members
are dissatisfied with Man-
power’s approach to job re-
training aptitude tests and will
protest this discrimination at
the Manpower office on Decem-
ber 23, IWA delegate Bruce
Elphinstone reported.

Food and Allied Worker Jack

Lawrence reported Swifts had’

ratified a new agreement with
employees, in which equal rates
for male and female employees
were negotiated at the Rich-
mond plant.

UFAWU president Homer Ste-
vens thanked the VLC for its
moral and financial support for
Nova Scotia fishermen during
their long strike and gave de-
tails in his letter of some of the
benefits won.

A. B. Dick, Nulife, Hoskens
Drug Wholesale, Alcan in Rich-
mond, Tilden, Crane and
Sandringham Hospital in Vic-
toria are strike bound. All union
papers were asked to publicize
the fact.

Josephine Halleck of the Hotel
Employees union presented a
resolution which deplored the
suggested astronomical raise
to M.P.s, while old age pen-
sioners received a raise of 42
cents a month.

“The M.P.s can expect some
militant action on this
question,”’ she said. “‘Senior citi-
zens are going to organize from

- coast to coastin protest,”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1970—PAGE 12

People can win reforms
from new city council

warhorses — Hugh Bird, Halford
Wilson and Ernie Broome, had
their votes drop drastically,
over 20%, and even their
“‘youngest’’ representative Ed
Sweeney experience a 15%
decline. In another election all
four could be defeated.

In sharp contrast to the
declining support. for the NPA
was the rise of Alderman Harry
Rankin (COPE) to the top of the
polls. Alderman Rankin is
recognized as the most
consistant, principled opponent
of the NPA on Council and hence
the natural leader of the forces
capable of supplanting the NPA.
Rankin’s vote increased by
11,415 to a.record high of 63,667.

Incumbent TEAM aldermen
Brian Calder, Walter Hardwick
and Art Phillips, at the bottom of
the elected poll in 1968, are now
third, fourth and fifth
respectively. All three received
a 40% increase in their vote.

TEAM candidate John Volrich, »

Setty Pendaker and Don
Bellamy, with endorsements
from the Vancouver Sun and
Province, came within six
thousand votes of election.

COPE candidate Bruce Yorke
increased his vote by 4, 134 to
22,029, placing him above four
TEAM aldermanic hopefuls and
well ahead of every NDP
candidate except ex MLA
Norman Levi.

These results reflect a demand
for new policies and will greatly
affect the conduct and business
of future Council meetings.

NPA DECLINE

The slipping NPA aldermen
will be attempting to bolster
their sagging image and will be
subject to pressure from the
people.

In such circumstances some
progressive reforms can be won
if sufficient pressure is
generated by a united people’s
movement outside Council.

Tax equalization and reform
can be secured. Big business
handouts can be stopped.
Freeways can be buried once
and for all. A large scale low
rental housing program can be
launched. A democratic ward
system can be introduced. Real
tenant rights are a possibility.

The civic electoral scene is
very fluid. The end of the NPA
era is in sight. The big question
that will be decided in the next

two years is whether the NPA
will be replaced by TEAM or by
a coalition of genuine people’s
representatives led by Harry
Rankin.

The number of voters going to
the polls was the highest on
record, 45%, despite a
monumental effort on the part of
the NPA and Campbell to avoid
any discussion of the issues.

The turnout in the upper
middle class and wealthy
sections of town remained
relatively high, whereas in the
working class homeowner and
tenant sections the turnout was
relatively low. :

However, tenants now
comprise 55% of the eligible
voters and in this election they
began to take a more active role.

The Vancouver Sun and to a
surprising extent the Vancouver
Province decided that the time
had come to dump most of the

NPA and to place TEAM in .

power.

The Sun series of anti-establish
ment articles on the eve of the
election, helped to expose the big
business connections of the NPA.

The Sun realizes that the days
of the NPA are numbered. From
its point of view, some ‘‘new”’
blood is necessary, provided of
course the ‘‘new’’ blood
continues to serve big business
and freezes out those forces
demanding real social change.

It sees this new blood in
TEAM, which is striving to
achieve a mass base. This
striving attracts some genuine

opponents to the real-estate.

dominated NPA, but by and
large the main attraction is to
the new industrial and commer-
cial concerns in the city who
want a larger piece of the action.

This year the Vancouver Labor
Council printed and distributed
to every household a card
endorsing all COPE and NDP
candidates. Unfortunately this
was the extent of its participa-
tion. The decision of secretary
Paddy Neale to withdraw from
the mayoralty race in the light of
the provincial council NDP edict
of no alliances (Neale is also a
vice-president of the NDP)
significantly lessened labor’s
interest and involvement.

Objectively the entry of the
NDP into civic politics has
proven to be a divissive action,
helpful in the final analysis to the
NPA and TEAM.

Lt

In civic elections the NDP vote
is now shown to be about half of
what it is provincially and
federally, which by itself is too
narrow a base for election.

What is needed is a broad
alliance of those forces who want
to curb the power of the establish:

ment in Vancouver. In such a
broad alliance there should be
room for all labor, democratic
and political forces who want
new people’s policies.at city hall.

NDP AND UNITY

COPE, with Aldermen Rankin
at its head, has already indicated
that its aim is to build such an
alliance. It’s likely that it will
push in the coming year for all-
inclusive civic unity of labor and
democratic forces in the city.

There is no doubt that if those
persons who were originally
prepared to run for COPE and
the NDP had in fact run under
some common banner with one
campaign, one budget, one
program, that this unity would
have resulted in advances for the
progressive forces. Unity

-means enthusiasm and involve-

ment, the two factors lacking in
the separate campaign.

Why did the NDP enter civic
politics at this time? A number
of forces were at work. The main
ideological push came from the
Trotskyites in their ranks who

saw this as a means of extending

their influence.

Certain personally ambitious
elements also supported entry,
feeling they would stand a better

chance of election by “cashing .

in’ on the NDP name.

Other left and socialist forces
in the NDP supported entry
believing their party should
contest elections at every level.

Most decisive, however, -was
the anti-unity position taken by
the Provincial Council of the
NDP which authorized entry but
barred unity with COPE.
Following their decision the
Vancouver Area convention

adopted a go-it-alone policy.

In the two years ahead the
crisis in municipal government
is bound to’deepen. The
employment situation is not
likely to improve. Property
taxes will continue to mount
since this narrow base is at
present the only means to
finance the rapidly growing
needs of urban populations.
Transportation and pollution
will remain as big problems. The
need for housing will grow. And
of course the real estate sharks
will continue to demand this and
that hand-out.

Genuine new policies are

needed to solve the problems of |

the cities. The 1970 elections
showed that there is a demand
for such new policies.

The responsibility of the left
progressive forces in the city is
to fight between elections for

programs that meet the im--

mediate needs of the people
while ‘at the same time pointing
out the necessity for more far
reaching social changes.

It is through such activity that
a political movement and
organization will be provided
that will unite all those who seek
real progressive change in

. Vancouver.

ee