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i wi

ATTACK ON JOBLESS
INSURA

led by mayoralty candidate Angi

parks board are shown here leaving City

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1972

e Dennis and Ald. Harry Rankin, COPE candidates for council, school and
Hall last Friday after filing nomination papers.

—Sean Griffin photo

Tribune

VOL. 33 No. 48

NCE LOOMING

15°

By SEAN GRIFFIN
As officials of the Unemployment Insurance
Commission continue to slash thousands of unemployed
off the rolls by means of the misnamed ‘‘benefit control
program,” the resignation of Bryce Mackasey in the
midst of a cabinet shuffle signals a concession to the

Conservatives who _ vociferously

opposed __ the

unemployment insurance scheme during the federal

election campaign.

Every indicationfrom Ottawa
points to the resignation as the
first major step towards
revisions in the Unemployment
Insurance Act. The cabinet
move follows closely a meeting
in Toronto last week where
Finance Minister John Turner
attacked the unemployed for
“accepting alternate sources of
income while waiting for just
the right job in just the right
place.’’ It implies a victory for
Turner’s position.

The Vancouver Sun applauded
Mackasey’s departure in an edi-
torial November 25 and added
its voice to the Conservative
clamor calling for stiff cut-
backs. It also noted that the

‘COPE only real alternative’—Rankin

Ald. Harry Rankin released
the following statement to the
press on the Vancouver civic
election following nomination
of COPE candidates last
Friday:

e@

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN
Committee of Progressive
Electors (COPE)

Predictions about the out-
Come of elections are notor-
iously dangerous. But I thinkit’s
Safe to predict that NPA domina-
tion of City Hall is coming to an
end.

Publicly discredited because
of its giveaways to big devel-
opers and its hostility to public
participation in decision mak-
ing, and now wrought by inter-
nal dissensions over disclosure
of campaign fund  contri-
butions, it has all the symptoms
of a sinking ship.

‘- TEAM atthe moment appears
to be a very strong contender to
take over control of Council,
the School Board and the Parks
Board. It has the backing of the
same big business groups that
backed the NPA including the
Vancouver Sun. At least one of
the radio stations has been

giving it strong support since its
inception.

TEAM Alderman with the
generous assistance of the
media have managed tocreatea
deceptive public image of
TEAM as something new and
different, even though that
difference is hard to nail down
or define.

Any careful study of the vot-
ing records of City Council will
reveal that on all major ques-
tions TEAM aldermen voted
with the NPA. All the TEAM
aldermen, for example, voted
for the Four Seasons project.
Not one TEAM alderman has
come out publicly against the
Third Crossing or a freeway
system in Vancouver, they have
limited themselves to disagree-

‘ment with one or another detail

of the proposed Third Crossing
to create the impression of
opposition and to ingratiate
themselves with the wide-
spread public opposition to a
freeway system.

And I doubt that Vancouver
has ever seen a more lavishly
financed Madison Avenue type
of TV election campaign than
that which has been conducted
by Mayoralty candidate Art

Phillips these past six months
aimed at creating a public
image of him as a nice guy, a
campaign incidentally that
must certainly have cost at
least 50 grand.

TEAM has going for it also the
fact that many who are desert-
ing the NPA are now moving
over to TEAM, finding the poli-
tical climate there quite comfort-

COPE CANDIDATES

When nominations closed at
City Hall Wednesday, these
were the candidates named by
COPE for the December 13
election:

MAYOR: Angela Dennis.

CITY COUNCIL: Margaret
Chunn, Les Copan, James Cork,
Solomon Jackson, Walter Kish,
James Khouri, Harry Rankin,
Sam Vint, Cliff Worthington,
Bruce Yorke.

SCHOOL BOARD: Claude
Crosby, Irene Foulkes, Betty
Greenwell, Aag Kopperud,
Dorothy Morrison, Rose Point,
Ruth Smith.

PARK BOARD: Ray Dusang,
Donald Greenwell, Tom
Hawken, Rod Marining, Helen
O’ Shaughnessy, Sid Shelton.

able. What we have, in fact, isa
new kind of coalition of the
right, this time around TEAM
with the NPA coming off not a
very good second best.

TEAM is in actuality only a
younger version ofthe NPA, and
more detrimental to Vancouver
because it’s likely to be around
longer.

NDP members and_  sup-
porters are also somewhat ina
quandary. Party loyalty and the
enthusiasm engendered by
recent provincial electoral suc-
cesses’ impel them in the
direction of voting for the NDP
civic slate.

But they also know that unity
of the reform forces is the only
guarantee of victory and that
the Vancouver Area Council of
the NDP rejected all appeals for
unity from COPE and the trade
union movement. They know
also that the COPE slate
includes men and women who
have an honest record of fight-
ing for the needs of the people
and that the Vancouver and Dis-
trict Labor Council has endorsed
me on the basis of my record in
City Council.

We in COPE have no quarrel

See COPE, pg. 12

government “‘is still hiring hun-
dreds of investigators’’ whose
purpose it is to disqualify claim-
ants in whatever way possible.

The increased program of
investigation was_ instituted
just prior to the federal election
in order to offset the alarming
unemployment figures. Several
trade unions have charged that
the investigators — euphem-
istically called benefit control
officers — are often former
policemen and are hired with
the express purpose of extract-
ing incriminating information
from claimants or distorting it
accordingly. -

Claimants being interviewed
are not allowed legal counsel
nor are they allowed to have a
union representative with them
during the interview.

CUPE provincial: president
Harry Greene charged that the
government ‘“‘is using goon
squad tactics to cut down the
cost of unemployment insur-
ance and deliberately distort the
unemployment statistics.’’ Ata
recent meeting of the Van-
couver Labor Council, former
secretary C.P. (Paddy) Neale
pointed out that one claimant
was “‘interviewed through an
interpreter and was assessed
$1757 in back benefits on the
basis of a Statement which was
deliberately misquoted.”’

Other delegates noted the
‘incredible discrepancy be-
tween the statement made by the
claimant and that of the
investigator.”’

Having been criticized for its
high unemployment rate — one
of the highest since the 1930’s—
the Trudeau government has
retaliated by creating a scape-
goat of the victims of unem-
ployment. This has been com-
bined with a campaign con-
trived by the news media who
cry fraud at every opportunity.

At the same time government
agencies readily admit before
representations of trade unions
that jobs are simply not avail-
able for the majority of the
unemployed.

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