a a Fs: | ———_———_——————S Sas 1000-MEMBER LOBBY URGED To Su Beet Demand new tax deal from Victoria By ALD. H. RANKIN Should Vancouver send a thousa Victoria next month! It may impress the provincial gov ‘Vancouver demand a new tax deal. There couldn’t be a better time than right now when the provincial legislature is in session. We’ve been getting the short end of the stick for a long time from senior governments. We have to foot the bill for continually-rising costs of necessary municipal services such as education, police and fire protection, hospital expansion, road and street construction and maintenance. We need new buildings — the coliseum, a new. magistrates court, an annex to nd strong delegation to require something like that to ernment that the citizens of But where do we get the money? The federal government monopolizes the main sources of revenue — income tax, corporation tax, duties, etc. The provincial government takes the rest — sales tax, liquor profits, motor vehicle licences, gasoline tax, and the tax on natural resources. The municipalities must resort to property and business taxes, and since big corporations have found many ways to escape paying their fair share of municipal taxes, an City Hall. EDITORIAL determine they should have. Now another eight or nine hundred B.C: Ferry workers are to be added to this “second-class”’ citizen status — subject to the whims of a monopoly-dominated anti-labor government — thatis, if Bennett can get away with it. ~ : departments — if such are designed to curtail reckless government spending and improve services. Labor is however very much opposed to any and all moves designed to short-circuit free collective bargaining — and replace it, as Bennett hopes to do with an extended and continuing compulsory arbitration ball-and-chain for B.C.’s civil servants. ’ No road this way : hen the big B-52 bomber crashed at Thule, Greenland on January 21, spilling four H-bombs with 220-times the destructive punch of that which destroyed Hiroshima, Washington hastened to assure the world at large, including the Danish government that there was ‘‘no danger of a nuclear explosion’, and that everything was serene and quiet on and below the polar ice of Greenland. In a similar spill-out of these horror weapons on the Spanish coast in January of 1966, similar ‘‘assurances’’ were peddled about, but the multi-millionsearch to retrieve the H-bombs lost in Spain — and nowa similar frantic search in Greenland, indicate that all such assurances by Washington are, even by their own credibility gap standards, considered soothing — but worthless. There is only one assurance against similar accidents — for Canada at least, and already long overdue; to take firm and decisive steps which will prohibit U.S. aircraft carrying nuclear missiles of any calibre or megaton whatsoever from flight over Canadian territory. We cannot guard against accidents happening to the H-bomb maniacs of Washington, but we can make damn sure they don’t happen on Canadian territory — and thereby perhaps help avoid their happening in other countries as well. The lesson of Greenland for Canadians is quite clear: keep U.S. nuclear delivery bombers out of Canada’s Labor is not opposed to the incorporation of government: Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288. Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months. North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00 one year. Authorized as second class mail by the ever increasing tax load is piled on the homeowner. They say a man’s home is his castle, and I must say that they sure tax it like one! The provincial government made « almost $45 million clear profit last year from the sale of liquor. The two price increases in the past couple of months guarantee that profits will be still higher this year. The provincial government had a budget of around $740 million last year. Yet with all this money it spent only around $2 million for public housing and placed a freeze on school construction. We need an expansion, not a freeze, on classrooms for our children. We desperately need a home building and slum clearance program that will provide 2500 units of low cost public housing annually licences that it collects here. At the Same time, it should cease its present discrimination against Vancouver in educational grants and give us fifty percent of approved educational costs, just as it does for other municipalities. City Council is asleep at the switch in failing to do something about this = whole issue now when the legislature is in session. You can help to wake them up by demanding action. Then let’s prod Premier Bennett for a new tax deal. Let the mayor, council and school board lead a_1000 member delegation of citizens to Victoria. I’m sure this could persuade our premier to have a change of heart and give Vancouver ‘the added grants it needs. for the next ten years. > > ae While the provincial government 3 ¥ = < i x See Eee takes in millions of dollars from its hes itu 8 hs Bees x \ I tax on gasoline and motor vehicle E bes I ee ae | 4 < 3 Cut Speec er GE licences, Vancouver gets back only £ % iE Pe z a ¢) B 5 & : : F Ys % Y) : 4 x ¢ ; : $369,000 in grants for arterial roads. j roo x wees x a i iB last Thursday’s Speech marking the opening of B.C.’s = : ey ' FE ¥ of aml ¢ - = 26th Legislature, the Bennett government proposes ‘‘to Now the provincial government is Say t W x W <. aD) x absorb the B.C. Ferry Authority into its Highways Department”. pushing amalgamation and regional Z! ae i yaa 7. Fr W < Under such a move the 850 or more B.C. Ferry workers (all government. Its aim is that the ci > ¥ % = c Pp < o ig F classifications) will be elevated to the status of B.C. civil servants, better-off municipalities will pay the Sion fc ez Ey i TH | lose the collective bargaining rights they now hold as ferry personnels shot to improve municipal ser RACES ae v4 8 x yt ic F 4 w 3% Yv - and be press-ganged into Bennett’s standing army of civil servants, in those not to well off. This will | 9 t f &% |} FO Zz M4 £ ‘ = mainly the B.C. Government Employees Association to which, up until enable the provincial government to ii | Eee “s 9 AU: } x = now he has managed to deny all semblance of collective bargaining duck its financial responsibilities. at) a 4 5 id « VY ‘ 3 rights. : To correct this unfair situation, the oN y F ip Bennett’s attitude to this substantial body of competent public provincial government should rebate < v4) vu i 2 workers is that they must stear clear of unions, take what his to the City of Vancouver not less than i Sat va) government decrees is sufficient return for their labors, rather than fifty percent of the liquor profits, Le sae =5 % what their own collective strength and free collective bargaining might gasoline taxes and motor vehicle G ul | ss : | UY tes ‘Gimmickry no substitute for schools’ By CHARLES CARON ~ Premier Bennett apparently is not satisfied with having cut hospital needs from a $300 million requirement down to $51 million through his Fraser-Burrard Regional structure. But he is now engaged ina similar move in the field of education. Fraser-Burrard Regional District will most likely be called upon to act as a clearing house and broker for bonds floated by individual municipalities to meet the cost of school construction. An attempt to Canada’s Economic Council, in its study on urban needs concluded: “Municipal Governments will have - to become increasingly regional in This premise Premier Bennett has hurriedly put into effect. But Canada’s Economic Council also said something else which the Premier conveniently forgets: ‘‘The municipalities will have to be given new revenue sources to meet their needs and the Federal and Provincial governments will have to take over some existing municipal responsibility.”’ The above recommendation is precisely the opposite to the policy followed by the Socred government, The purpose of the Regional form of municipal structure established in get local school boards to float their B.C. is not designed to meet the on swing shifts by next territorial airspace. : own bonds has already been made in needs of the people. On the contrary, September. i Vancouver. the purpose is to establish a fourth Vancouver School Trustee i That way we’ll be free from the hazards of such accidents, and also This move on the surface would level of government to act as a James MacFarlan said this week | free of the explanations, excuses, apologies regrets, and usual hogwash appear as a step in the direction of buffer between the municipal and that the Speech from the Throne f that usually emanates from Washington when a load of U.S. H-bombs extending democracy ‘by provincial government. indicates that the provincial f are dumped on territory other than the USA. transferring authority to the They are designed as escape routes government intends to place ' : municipalities. But in fact, it is by which the Provincial government more and more of the i St es nothing of the kind. One only needs to can’ evade meeting its financial responsibility and burden on local = ask the question: ‘‘What available responsibilities. school boards. He charged that ‘ source of revenue have the The Provincial government must the present school freeze puts 5 Vi Wal-4 municipalities to guarantee and give the required financial school facilities back almost to i ; = : : amortize these bonds?” Do several assistance for education at this the critical level of the 1950s. | ‘West Coast edition, Canadian Tribune financially-starved municipalities session of the Legislature. We must The PTA provincial federation ' SS * through some magic wand of make clear to the Jayne naa has decided to send as many bus ; : : : combining a Regional structure nothing short of complete ve i ing loads as possible to take part in i Sco Nee Saas St., suddenly become wealthy? the freeze on school construction will the lobby. All those wishing to be acceptable. If the Premier doesn’t know where to get the money, the people can show him ina two minute lesson — from his U.S. PTA lobby on education The B.C. Parent-Teacher Federation has called on all PTA’s in the province to join ina mass lobby to Victoria on Wednesday, Feb, 14 to take up with the provincial government and MLA’s the crisis facing our schools. Many questions are to be aired at the one-day lobby in Victoria, but one of the main issues likely to be highlighted is the current freeze on school construction, which is threatening to put tens of thousands of B.C. school children participate must have their names in a week before — by Wednesday, Feb. 7. The federation offices are at 45 ey hs Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash nature, spanning municipal friends who are raiding the Sn ee eae boundaries to take a common resources-of British Columbia via approach to common problems.’’ the route opened up by him. Kingsway in Vancouver. For information phone 874-0933.