BRITISH COLUMBIA t proposai Ss and demand that this promaeee he COSt-of-livi SIGNATURE FEDERAL RIDING Se eee ee Seemed Copies of the petition issued by the National Action Committee on the Status of Women against de-indexing of family allowances are now circulating in British Columbia and groups are being asked to copy and circulate it as widely as possible. In an accompanving letter, NAC president Chaviva Hosek warned: “Unless: something is done very soon, all mothers are going to see the real value of their monthly benefits decrease by three per cent a year starting in 1986. This means that family allowances would lose a third of their value in ten years, two-thirds in 20 years. Low-income mothers would also be worse off immediately through losing some of their tax benefits and having to pay higher sales taxes on everything they buy.” The campaign is seen by the NAC as the “second wave” of country-wide opposi- tion to the Tories budget, following the successful campaign by pensioners in forcing abandonment of the plan to de-index federal old age pensions. Hosek urged that the petitions be filled out and sent to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, House of Commons Ottawa, K 1A 0A6, with copies to Finance Minister Michael Wilson, Health Minister Jake Epp, John Turner, Ed Broadbent, local MPs and the NAC. No postage is required for MPs. Alternatively, filled-out petitions can be sent directly to the NAC, Ste. 306, 40 St. Clair Ave. East, Toronto, Ont..M4T 1M9. i i Attack on city’s fair wage policy political The employers are not letting up in their attack on the fair wage policy adopted by Vancouver city council on May 28. Now they are challenging it in the courts. All that city council did was to imple- ment and make specific a provision already in the Vancouver Charter. (The Charter, by the way, was not drafted by or passed by Vancouver city council. It was passed by and can only be amended by the provincial legislature.) Section 174 of the Charter states “...whenever the council gives a contract to any person for the doing of any work which the city itself might do, it shall be stipulated in the contract that such person shall pay or cause to be paid to every person employed on such work not less than the wages or remuneration generally accepted as current at the time.” What council did was to specify that the wages generally accepted and current at this time are those paid to our employees, who are members of the Canadian Union of Pub- lic Employees. NPA and TEAM aldermen — May Brown, George Puil, Don Bellamy and Gordon Campbell opposed this action by council. Supporting it were Harry Rankin, Bruce Eriksen, Libby Davies, Bruce Yorke, Bill Yee and Mike Har- court. It should be noted that our action was not unusual or precedent-setting. The federal government has a fair wage clause in its contracts. So has the provin- cial government which applied it to con- struction work on Expo 86 and so have other cities like Toronto. City council’s resolution did not spec- ify that only union contractors could submit bids. It simply specified that any ee air ‘ As the B.C. and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council pointed out: “The bylaw which has been passed ensures that all contractors have the right to bid for city construction contracts. No one is discriminated against, but all must pay decent wages and conditions. This bylaw does not confer an unfair wage advantage, it removes an unfair disad- vantage faced by any contractor who has been paying fair wages, whether union or not.” For the editor of the Highland Echo to argue, as he did in an editorial June 6, that now “many well qualified firms may decide they just can’t afford to work for the city, leaving the door open to union contractors,” is both inaccurate and mis- leading. In any bidding now, union con- tractors do not have any advantage. Everybody pays the same scale of wages. The opposition voiced by Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Ritchie was equally biased. “Maybe council are paying off a political debt to their supporters, the people who elected them,” he declared, thereby revealing his own political ~ hypocrisy. Vancouver city council isn’t paying anybody anything; it is the Social Credit government that is paying off its political supporters with huge subsidies and tax subsidies that are running into the billions of dollars. I can’t help noticing that the employ- ers who now so strongly oppose a fair wage clause for the city do not oppose a similar clause in provincial or federal contracts. Why this two-faced policy? I can only conclude that the reasons for the opposition to a fair wage clause by some politicans and by some employ- ers is politically motivated. They are simply ganging up on COPE and the labor-backed majority on city council. They are NPA supporters. They are also the same people who are supporting the Fraser Institute and its attack on all social programs, on unions and on gains that labor and the people have made in the past 40 years. _ 2. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 24, 1985 Peace groups urged to speak out at © Star Wars hearing © In cities where hearings have been held, the Special Joint Committee on Canada’s International Relations has already heard resounding opposition to Canadian partici- pation in Star Wars but peace groups are concerned that the committee isn’t opening the hearings enough to see the full breadth of public opposition. They’re encouraging other groups to go to the hearings and seek to get on the agenda for a brief presentation to ensure that the committee chairmen, Senator Jacques Flynn and Tory MP Tom Hockin, get a good idea of public opinion on the Star Wars issue. “There certainly isn’t the openness of the hearings that we think there should be,” said Gary Marchant of End the Arms Race, one of seven groups formally invited to appear at the hearings in Vancouver. “But we'd like to see as many groups as possible down there asking to be heard. It’s impor- tant to impress on the committee just how bad Star Wars would be.” Set up by ‘Parliament earlier this year following the tabling of External Affairs Minister Joe Clark’s Green Paper, the joint Senate-Commons committee is holding public hearings in seven cities, including Vancouver, on two issues: bilateral trade with the U.S. and Canadian participation in — Star Wars. The hearings in Vancouver are scheduled for July 29, 30 and 31 with the afternoon of July 30 and the morning of July 31 set aside for discussion on Star Wars. The format so far has been to hear only from participants invited by the committee to appear, although in response to demands from Project Ploughshares, Hockin appar- ently agreed that the committee would hear five-minute oral presentations at the end of the afternoon session from 4:30 to 6 p.m. That has yet to be done although the number of groups expected to appear in Toronto July 24-26 and in Vancouver could change that. The formal invitation nature of the hear- ings and the tone of several press reports referring to participants as “special interest groups” has also led to concern that the committee may claim that it has “heard both sides” and then give the Mulroney government the go-ahead to proceed witha preset agenda. It is for that reason that it is particularly important that opponents of Star Wars attend the hearings and ask for an opportunity to be heard. “Certainly no one can consider peace — _ groups, church groups or trade unions — opposing Star Wars as ‘special interest’ groups. The only interest they have is every- body’s interest — security,” said Mar- chant. “But the military companies that are appearing are special interest groups who profit from the arms race,” he said. Of the groups invited to appear in Van- couver on the Star Wars issue, the over- — whelming majority are opposed, including university professor David Parness, a com- puter specialist who resigned from the Star Wars research team to oppose the project; Physicians for Social Responsibility; End the Arms Race and UBC Students for Peace — and Mutual Disarmament. Expected to be advocates of the scheme — are General Robert Lane, former deputy- — director of NORAD, and a group calling itself Canadian Aircraft. The lineup has tended to reinforce the idea that the committee is merely presenting — itself as a forum for both sides to be heard. — But even given the limitations on participa- _ tion imposed by an invitation-only format, the oppoenents of Star Wars have demon- — strated that they are indeed representative of public opinion while the proponents represent little more than the vested inter- ests of the defence establishment. In Ottawa, Richard Martin, executive vice-president of the 1.2 million-member Canadian Labor Congress called on the committee to reject a role in Star Wars research, emphasizing that the labor central — would not want any jobs from the scheme | even if it were a job creator. The commitee has also heard from Vete- rans for Multilateral Disarmament and Operation Dismantle as well asa number of vii computer experts all of whom warned of the — extreme danger to security posed by the Star _ Wars scheme. Several intervenors including Martin also — called on the government to ensure thatno — Star Wars research is already taking place. That has become vitally important in light of recent reports from Defence Week .— magazine that research contracts have — already been let for a new anti-missile sys- tem that would be based in Canada’s North. Hiroshima Day events set On Aug. 6, peace activists around the province will be commemorating the 40th anniversary of the terrible day the U.S. obli- terated the Japanese city of Hiroshima with the world’s first nuclear weapon. In Vancouver, Project Ploughshares and the Unitarian Church will be presenting the National Film Board release Speaking Our Peace at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, 49th Ave. and Oak St. to be followed by a vigil inside the church. Kathleen Wallace- Deering, one of the seven Canadian women peace activists featured in the film, will be giving the homily at the vigil. The Coalition for World Disarmament has organized a peace and friendship dis- play which will be on view at the the main branch of the Vancouver public library from Aug. 3 through Aug. 9. A model of the peace monument built in Hiroshima will be on display at the corner of Hornby and Robson Streets on Aug. 6. Vancouver and Victoria will also be par- ticipating in the international Hiroshima Day Shadow Project sponsored by Per- formers and Artists for Nuclear Disarma- ment. Peace activists will be out before dawn on Aug. 6, painting silhouettes on city _ sidewalks as a reminder to citizens of the victims of the atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of whom left perman- ent shadows. Peace activists in Burnaby and New Westminster are co-operating to hold a commemoration ceremony at the Japanese Friendship Gardens in New Westminster. Further information on this event can be obtained by contacting Kathy Beck of the — Peace Education Research Centre at 522-1123. The 3rd Annual Hiroshima Day rally will — take place in Maple Ridge on Saturday, _ Aug. 3. The event sponsored by the Ridge- Meadows Peace Group, Project Plough- shares, Mission for Peace and the Finnish Organization will feature Gary Marchant of End the Arms Race, and entertainment by Steve Gidora and Joyce Turpie. At press time the location for the rally had not been finalized. Phone 465-9775 for further ‘information.