Letters

J =] Letters  ~

City needs controls on housing
demolitions to protect tenants

It’s a sad reflection on a city when one of
the major concerns drawing neighbour-
hoods together is the fear of having your
home torn down. But it’s happening.

The Tenants Rights Coalition, on its
second month since re-opening, receives up
to ten calls a day from tenants facing demo-
lition. A couple of years ago we were getting
maybe one call a month.

Those calls come from all over — three
storey walk-ups in Kerrisdale, single houses
in east Vancouver (sometimes a whole
block of them), high rises in the West End.
Callers share the plight of being forced to
find a new home where the current vacancy
rate shows almost none exist. They’re likely
to meet one another knocking on the same
door, competing for the same suite.

How is Vancouver city council respond-
ing to this housing crisis? A lot of words
about a new “‘Housing Department” which
will do little more than re-direct the bureau-
cracy, instead of creating new solutions.

Holes abound in Vancouver’s recent
bylaw requiring a six-month notice to
tenants before a demolition permit is given.
Mere rumours of demolition are often all it
takes to scare tenants into moving out. The
insecurity is almost impossible to live with.
It gives tenants no protection against
harassment by a landlord anxious to pres-
ent an empty building to city hall.

Vancouver's housing crisis requires real
political will from. city.council, as. well as
immediate action. We need a provincial
Rental Housing Protection Act allowing
demolition of affordable rental housing

Times demand more than

Of all the theoretical problems that
bedevil the progressive movement, none
seem to hold so much confusion as that to
do with “reforms.”

If we look back over the last 25, 50 or 100
years of social progress made in our coun-
try, improvements of working peoples’
social programs and their on-job conditions
and wages have taken place. And they have
improved by the process of reforms. As we
all know these improvements were all
gained by usually bitter struggle between
the workers and the owners. Nevertheless,
in the early days of capitalism, reform must
have seemed the way to go; for one thing the
workers’ numbers and organizations were

ae emeetll

only where a developer provides an equal
number of affordable housing units or con-
tributes to a social housing replacement
Taya Nisei
We need a city moratorium on demoli-
tion until provincial protections are in place.
We need fast housing remedies and

small and, compared with today, inexpe-
rienced.

But now, although the names have
changed, the same class forces that were
controlling all aspects of Canadian life a
hundred years ago still do so today.

There is, however, a cardinal difference in
these present times. Now, because the rulers
are much more powerful, because they can
operate far, far more efficiently due to their
close-knit organizations, and of course,
because they put the same paramount
importance on maximum profit, they are
infinitely more dangerous to the well-being

_ of everything and everybody on this earth.

My congratulations to you for pub-
lishing yet another enlightening and
comprehensive article by Adel Safty
(“Events pass judgement on Camp
David accords,” Tribune, April 10). lam
moved to comment on the honourable
manner in which Egypt has attempted to
maintain the terms of the treaty despite
Israel’s continued occupation of Arab
territories and denial of Palestinian
human rights let alone national rights.

With Egypt leading the way in its
recognition of the Palestinian state, one
may continue to hope that Israel may be
encouraged to follow, thus demonstrat-
ing its willingness to honour the Camp
David accords. However, there is always

Useful analysis on accords

the fear that the longer the Israeli
government denies the Palestinians the
rights any human being deserves, the
more risk they run of facing disaster
through mass revolution which ulti-
mately comes when oppression becomes
too much to bear.

In Egypt’s recognition of the Palesti-
nian state, the Palestinian people have
been given a glimmer of hope that
through continued negotiations a peace-
ful settlement can still be achieved and
the spirit of the Camp David accords can
be revived from the desert dust.

B. Cunningham,
: Langley

Writer Shanahan (I) with tenant activists John Tufts, David Lane, Barb Mitchell.

immediate answers to give tenants who are
feeling the foundations upon which they live
getting shakier and shakier.

The demolitions must stop. They must

Stop now. ”’
Noreen Shanahan,
Tenants Rights Coalition, Vancouver

just reforms

Reforms have neither stopped this conclu-
sion nor altered in any way the nature of the
owners. And, considering such monstrous
evils as the nuclear devastation threat or the
super, Exxon-style polluters, changes other
than those of a reform kind must take place.

The answer to the problem does not lie,
in the first place, by patching up the worse
evils, or in some kind of quick-fix anarchy.
The solution surely will be found in really
and truly bringing the citizens of Canada
into the control of their country. That
means a quite different kind of democracy
from the one we have at present, by which
the rules and their operation are in the
hands of those causing the trouble in the
first place. They also control that important
source of power, information.

Perhaps the road to a better future for

those-of us with under a $100,000 a year

does rest with the new people’s coalitions

which first surfaced in the battle against the
“free trade” deal?

Bill Campbell,

Kamloops

There’s no peace
on the home front

The 1989 Canadian Parliamentary Guide
notes that Defence Minister Bill McKnight
lives in the town of Wartime, Saskatchewan.
I wonder: will he be moving now that
Finance Minister Michael Wilson cancelled
his submarines?

Darren Lowe,
Vancouver

The levelling
of the field
begins under
Tories’ free
trade budget

On April 26 our Conservative
federal government delivered
Canada’s first “free trade”
budget.

During the election campaign.
Brian Mulroney. John Crosbie,
Michael Wilson and others called
people liars who warned that free
trade would result in cuts to
social programs. Now Michael
Wilson’s budget eliminates the
federal contribution to
unemployment insurance, cancels
the promised creation of 200,000
childcare spaces, cuts federal
contributions for health care and
education and begins to eliminate
the universality of old age
security and family allowances.

Who are the liars?

On top of cuts in social
programs the budget contains a

massive increase in taxes. There

are immediate increases in taxes
on alcohol, cigarettes and
gasoline as well as increases in
income tax and the future nine
per cent sales tax. Economists call
these taxes regressive because
average and low income families
who spend almost 100 per cent of
their money on goods and
services will be the hardest hit.
The rich will hardly notice the
difference.

Attacking the suddenly
discovered deficit is the
justification given for this budget.
The deficit however will remain
at over $30 billion. If the
government were serious about
eliminating the deficit they would
make corporations pay their fair
share of taxes.

In 1962, corporate income tax
came to 21.6 per cent of
government revenue while
individual taxes came to 34 per

cent. By 1987-88 the corporate
share had dropped to just 11.4
per cent and the individual share
had risen to 50.4 per cent.

Their budget is really a big step
towards the Americanization of
Canada. The Free Trade
Agreement calls for harmonizing
of social and economic conditions
in the two countries — the so-
called “level playing field.”

The levelling has begun.

There is no doubt in my mind
that if we want Canada to be a
country where human values take
priority over private profit and
corporate wealth, people from all
walks of life will have to join
together and defend every
program and service we value.

Hans Penner,
Gibsons

Pacific Tribune, May 22, 1989 « 5