Photo shows poster being displayed at open air rallies by COPE explain-
ing to voters how to cast their ballots in Vancouver's October 24
plebiscite. In his column on this page Ald. Harry Rankin explains the
issues on which the public will vote.

City spends tax dollars
to subsidize merchants

Vancouver Mayor Art Phillips
and his TEAM council came under
fire this week for their ‘‘spend
first, collect later—if possible”
stand on building a shopping mall
on Granville, between Hastings
and Nelson.

Recently the TEAM . council

voted to spend $3.24 million to es-
tablish the mall. The actual cost
will be considerably higher, well
over $4 million by the time a storm
sewer and comfort station are
built.

Ald. Harry Rankin said in a state-
ment that he has always been of
the opinion that closing off sections
of downtown business streets to set
up shopping malls would be a good
thing. “But in this case,” he says;
“the city is spending tax dollars to
subsidize merchants who are not
prepared to underwrite their fair
share of the costs. As it stands now,
City Council has no definite com-
mitments whatsoever from the
merchants that they will cover any
of the costs.”

Rankin said the Mayor insisted
that we pass the money vote right
away. “I only wish he would show
the same concern and speed when
Bess

it comes to such issues as housing
or public transit; on these issues
we can’t get any action from coun-
cil at all.”

Vancouver should first get a
secure commitment from the
merchants and the provincial
government that they will each pay
one third of the cost. “Let’s find
out where the money is coming
from before we spend it,’’ says
Rankin.

Rankin also said that the spen-
ding of $6 million to take over the
Orpheum Theatre as a home for
the Symphony cannot be justified.
He added that the money is needed
for those in real need, he said, urg-
ing the money be spent to build
low rental homes for senior
citizens, constructing a rapid tran-
sit system and expanding park

: facilities.

“This doesn’t mean I don’t ap-
preciate the value of the Symphony
or the contribution it makes to the
cultural life of the city. It’s just a
question of priorities. The ordinary
citizen has only the City Council to
turn to for the things I have men-
tioned. The Symphony Society, on
the other hand, has other sources.”’

ALD. RANKIN’S APPEAL:

Use your vote on Oct. 24 |
for Vancouver's progress

By HARRY RANKIN

The October 24th plebiscite will
give Vancouver voters an oppor-
tunity to decide on 4 important
issues — the establishment of a
ward system, buying up the Four
Seasons site at the entrance to
Stanley Park for public use, and
building five new community ice
rinks. In addition a new school
trustee will be elected to replace
one who has resigned.

The vote could be a close one.
Your vote may decide the issue. Be
sure to use it.

Ward System: When you vote on
this issue bear in mind that a
change is badly needed in our pre-
sent method of electing aldermen.
The people of Vancouver are today
the least represented of any city in

Canada. All other major~ cities’

have ward systems. If it is correct
to divide Canada up, (and Van-
couver too), into constituencies for
federal elections, if it is correct to
divide the province up, (and Van-
couver too), into constituencies for
provincial elections, then surely we
should also have constituencies
(wards) for civic elections.

That is really the only way to
guarantee that all areas of the city
will be represented on Council. To-
day I am the only alderman from
the East End of Vancouver which
has half of Vancouver’s population.
Furthermore, ward aldermen will
have to serve their areas to secure
election and re-election.

There is no doubt that a ward
system will make it a lot easier to
elect genuine community represen-
tatives to Council. And there is no
doubt too, that under a ward
system it will be a lot harder for
developers to swing aldermen and
councils their way as they have
been doing for so many years now.

You will be asked three
questions:

1. Do you favor keeping the pre-
sent At Large System for electing
Aldermen? The answer should of
course be “no”. :

2. . . . Would you prefer a par-

eeececectetatetatatetetete®s

5
WereteteteteteteteteteMetetetete®,

system? A partial ward system is
just another way of keeping things
as they are while giving the
appearance of change.

Vote for a full. ward system. It is

the most democratic system.

3. Do you favor a council of 10
aldermen as at present, 12-15, 16-22
or 35-45?

A council of ten or even 12 to 15
is not big enough for a city of
almost half a million people. On
the other hand a council of 35-45
would be too big and unwieldy and
would result in a small inner
cabinet being appointed to run the
city. The best size is that proposed
by COPE, 21 wards based on the 21
natural communities in Vancouver.
So put your X in the box marked 16

eg * * *

Stanley Park Entrance: The wor-
ding on this ballot is rather tricky.

You are asked if you favor the
city borrowing $2 million to buy
Area A of the Four Seasons proper-
ty. Then you are also asked if you
favor the city borrowing $4.4
million to buy Area B. To further
confuse the issue the words
“without the consent of the elec-
tors’; are inserted in each case.

The people opf Vancouver have
demonstrated again and again that
they want this whole area preserv-
ed. for public use and not turned
over to private developers. There
should really only be one question
on the ballot: Do you favor buying
the entire site and preserving it for
public use? But the majority of this
TEAM Council would like to see
the developers get at least a part of
this site; therefore the two
questions.

If you want Council to buy the
whole site, then vote “YES” to
both questions.

$6.4 million is a lot of money, but

believe me, if we allow developers
to use any part of it fora huge hotel
and apartment complex as Dawson
developers plan to do, then it will
take at least twice that amount to
undo the traffic and new popula-

development.

Don’t let the wording about isst"
ing debentures, (which simply
means to float a loan), “without
the consent of the electors’’, throw
you. Under provincial regulations;
City Council is authorized to 40
this, providing at least 60% of
those voting do so in the affil
mative.

* * OK

Five New Community Ice Rinks:
We need them! They will be goo
places for our young people, (a!
some of us who are not so young
too), to spend our time in healthy
community recreation. We are get:
ting them at this low price becals?
the provincial government !
footing one third of the bill. So vol
“YES” for the by-law to borrow
$2,750,000 for this purpose.

* *k *

One New School Trustee: Whe?
you vote for a new school truste
just remember this. The presse
school board on which TEAM has
majority, (with the remaindet -
NPA members), voted to turn +
Mount Pleasant School, right at t
corner of Kingsway and Broa
over to private developers. the
also vote to do the same with
Dawson school site on Bu
just across from St. Paul’s hosp!

The moral of the story 1S: © -
vote for a TEAM or NPA nomi ;
I heartily recommended, Angi
Dennis, a native Indian S¢ d
teacher who lives in the East Bae
and who is nominated by ©
With, Angie Dennis, on the $
board we will have at
member who is prepared to §
up to the developers.

Who Can Vote? Just ane
everyone can vote in this elect!
and on all questions, tenanl
well as property owners.

If you are a tenant, and ft
least 19 years of age, an ie
name has been left off the V0",
list, you can still vote. Just eri00
the poll where you live on él ie
day and insist on your right to yi is
The Deputy Returning Office
See RANKIN, pg: 11

at
ete age

choo!

out

are at

Jeast off

H" the great classical poets of the English-speaking
world lived in our day, they would have been
hard put to it to find the appropriate and descriptive words
to fit, especially in the realm of human behaviour.
If they chose the bourgeois or upper-crust morality of
today (or what passes as morality) as their theme, they
would have to recognize that prostitution in all its manifold

expressions, has been turned into a highly profitable in-.

stitution. They would also find, as Marx and Engles said in
the Communist Manifesto of 1848, that the bourgeoisie

takes the greatest of pleasure in seducing each other’s’

wives. Everything for the mighty dollar, not excluding all
human verities; Only among the working people, as a class,
are these verities not for sale or profit.
Were today’s dispensation of a double standard of
justice the theme of the modern poet, there indeed is a very

fertile soil to poke around in. The annual output of this

nauseating manure pile is so versatile, so brazenly class-
biased, so corrupt, cruel and callous, that they just couldn’t
miss. That is, if motivated by a determination to turn all
the sod over for a public airing with poetic emphasis.
Recent events in our own bailiwick emphasize the

point. A Native Canadian or just plain Canadian worker in- -

variably draws a maximum penalty for a minor offense,
with or without “injunction” aid. For a “big” man in the
Establishment scheme of things, the reverse applies — a

Take Mr. Ballard’s case as an example. This ‘‘sporting”’
tycoon swindles the Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens, (that is
hockey fans,) out of some $250,000-dollars and draws a
three-year stint in the cooler. He is now paroled at the end

of his first year; a year during which Mr. Ballard has en-'

joyed all the privileges of his “home away from home” plus
those amenities which no respectable (page Marx and

Engels) bourgeois would want around the family

homestead.

Or take another example, equally close to home and
equally revealing. Ex-vice-president of the United States,
Spiro Agnew, super grafter, payola collector, etc., now
described by our versatile media as an ‘‘extortion scheme
kingpin” gets a mere $10,000 fine for the millions he has
taken from American workers. All other charges against
Spiro have been quietly dropped to avoid a long trial.

- On the resignation of ‘‘I-won’t-resign”’ Spiro, Tricky
Dicky is said to have expressed a “‘sense of deep personal
loss”’. It may be recalled that Al Capone expressed a similar
sentiment when any of his gunmen got “bumped off” by
rival gangsters.

Al and Spiro had much in common. Both were con-
victed because of their failure to turn in that portion of

their boodle which the U.S. Department of Revenue con-'

sidered its share of the swag — in political circles, income

tax. The larger crimes of corruption, graft, extortion,

mayhem and homocide were quietly dropped. Al’s greatest
““pay-triotic’’ hour was when he joined with the late presi-
dent Harry Truman in launching the cold war by widely an-
nouncing that “we Americans must stand together in
fighting the menace of Bolshevism”.

Spiro was equally vocal in his denunciations of millions

Bess : SSS RST eee

acer

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of demonstrators protesting the murderous U.S. wat ee
Vietnam and Indochina, protesting race hatreds an oot
crimination, protesting the prices racketeering of oe
clothing and shelter monopolies. To the “pay-triot 0”
Spiro, all were the “‘riff-raff of the American ghe ond!

No wonder president Nixon ‘‘senses a deep PO ine
loss” with the exit of Spiro. It’s like Ananias weePiNg © il
bier of Judas, with the problem of a successor to pi
unsolved. othe!

On the theme of war, perhaps more than upon srt of
single human issue, the classical poets and wr eval
yesterday and today meet as equals. Out of the ple
tion, suffering and death, the heroic Vietnames¢ etna”
together with scores of hundreds of U.S. ie gels

writers, equal to, if not superior to the old
Young poets and writers who can pour their s
and hatred upon the sham causes, the futility, ¢
crime of war. vials

And, despite all the desperate efforts of an impe wil?

oligarchy to stoke the fires of war to a continuous wile

jight

heat, their young voices are being heard, in ade:
volume above the din.
“War is the statesman’s game, the pries
the hired assassin’s trade . . .” wrote Percy BY: she
nearly two centuries ago, but the youth of today," th
poets and writers are writing a different version by ter
monstrous crime of war! And the era envision
nyson is hastened by youthful Tennysons. athe pattlé
“Till the war drums throbb’d no longer aM ederatiO”
flags were furl'd, in the Parliament of man, the
of the World.” A Socialist Federation, that 15: ue

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