CIVIC VOTE DEC. 1

The Nanaimo and District Labor
Council and Greater Nanaimo
Civic Affairs Committee have
endorsed three candidates for civic

mittee.

Nanaimo labor to make
strong bid for election

chairman of its housing com-

Ray Holmgren, 26, is a native son

played an active part my
Nanaimo labor movement and il 4jy

by trade. A student of ie
developments and planning, he 00°

office and are making a major bid

of Vancouver Island, residing at
Chase River. He is a woodworker

wide variety of sports activities: a

ae

Re:

SWEET TOOTH

to elect trade ‘unionists to the
newly-amalgamated city council of
this Vancouver Island city.
Nanaimo and district residents
voted recently on amalgamation
which was endorsed. This accounts
for the fact that Nanaimo is
holding its civic election later than
other municipalities. The Nanaimo
vote is on Saturday, Dec. 14.
Bert Ogden, former logger,
shipyard worker and_ presently
Vancouver Island organizer for the
United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union, is running in Zone
3, which.is Nanaimo city proper.
Ogden has resided in Nanaimo
since 1966 and has played an active
role in union, co-op, credit union
and community affairs. He is a
member of the Nanaimo and
District Labor Council and

‘Build homes at Langara'

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

There’s a basic issue involved in
the dispute over what is to be done
with 20 of the 65 acres of the city-
owned Langara Golf Course.

Should City Council bow to the
wishes of vocal groups of citizens
in this well-to-do area and reserve
this land for park and recreational
purposes, when the area is already
generously endowed with park and
recreation lands?

Or should City Council use this
land for a much-needed housing
development for people
desperately in need of a place to
live?

The history and facts of the case
are these:

Some time ago City Council
purchased 66.5 acres from
Marathon Realty for $4.5 million. It
was understood at the time that
46.5 acres would be re-designed
and retained as a golf course and
that the remaining 20 acres would
be sold for a housing development
to recover the $4.5 million the city
spent.

A Citizen’s Committee was
appointed by City Council to help
design the housing site. After
spending some $20,000 on a study

with terms of reference contrary to
those designated by Council, the
Committee now wants all housing
plans dropped, and the area
reserved for recreational and other
purposes. In the meantime it is

costing the city $40,000 a month -

interest on the $4.5 million it
borrowed to buy the land. That
amounts to almost half a million a
year extra that is being added to
our tax bills.

When the issue first came up, I
proposed that we zone all open land
in the city in such a way that it
would be declared “‘special’’ and
could not be built on except by
special permission of Council. This
was turned down by City Council
on the grounds that it would be the
same as expropriating land from
the CPR and we wouldn’t, of
course, do that.

Well, what do we do now that
we’re back where we started at
square one?

All the attempted deals with the
YMCA, the provincial government,
etc., have fallen through.

Our interest bill on the loan is
going up at the rate of half a
million dollars a year.

I think it’s completely
cE

unreasonable to ask the citizens of
the rest of Vancouver, and
especially its East End, to pay the
$4.5 million plus half a million a
year interest just to satisfy the
wishes of some groups in a locality
that is already well supplied with
park and recreation facilities.

On the other hand we have a real
need among senior citizens,
students and families for housing.

When we have the choice of
whether to provide services to the
“haves”’ or the have-nots’, it’s no
problem for me to make up my
mind. I’m for the “‘thave-nots’’, and
in this case for housing.

So my stand is that the city
should zone this 20 acres of land to
comprehensive development to
enable housing to be built for
people who need it.

City Council can’t accept the
attitude of some groups who
already have good housing and
now oppose building it for those
who haven’t. That would be
democracy in reverse. Democracy
means the greatest good for the
greatest number, not “I’m okay
Jack, to hell with you”’.

i

RAY HOLMGREN

TOM

hen a crisis issue crops up as it very often does

nowadays with ever-increasing rapidity, one looks in
vain for any logical or workable solution from the many
spokesmen of a crisis-ridden Establishment.

No matter whether it be the oil and energy racket,
soaring food prices, the lack of homes, the farm income
Squeeze, mounting unemployment or whatever, govern-
ment minister after minister issues forth with umpteen
speeches, pronouncements, etc. and etc., which in their
totality, say nothing on ending that particular crisis. “A
diarrhea of words’’ a wit once observed, “‘accompanied by
mental constipation.” ~

The prime function of this wordy diarrhea is, of course,
to create the illusion that “something is being done’’,
when everyone in their right mind knows that little or
nothing is being, or intended to be done. And there are no

Lenin’s among them to project the basic solution on

“What is to be done’. :

On the issue of inflation alone we have literally tens of
thousands of government spokesmen, ‘‘economists’’,
“experts”’ of all kinds, who wax eloquent on the subject,
who offer a host of ‘“‘cures”, mostly centered around the
phoney theorum of “‘belt-tightening”. Nearly all specify
just whose belt must be tightened, and make damnsure it
isn’t their own!

National and international conferences have also been

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1974—Page 2

McEWEN

held on the subject, but with no lasting solutions other’

than to keep loading it onto the people until they collapse
under the pyramiding burden of inflation.

International monetary conferences have also been held
aplenty in an attempt to tie a sagging medium of ex-
change to an equally worthless dollar, but with no ap-
parent cure for inflation in sight. Nor is one sought since it
is highly unlikely that the money crowd which tabulates
its vast gains from rent, interest and profit are going to
choke off that one choice goose which lays their highest-
carat golden egg — inflation, and particularly since the
common people continue to pay inflation “tribute” with a
minimum of demur.

One could cite the days of the “Second Reich’’, the days

of the German Weimar Republic, where a_ social-
democratic government, aping the “belt-tightening”’
Jargon of the Schachts, Stinnesses, Krupps_ et al,

devalued the German mark to the point where the
price of a loaf of bread steadily increased a few hundred
thousand marks, between the time of purchase and eating
it; where one required a wheel barrow to cart away the
change in worthless marks if the purchase’ for food
clothing or shelter were made with a well-depreciated
aire ae Or where you could receive a one-million
note as a “premium” in a package of ci
(half hay and half horse manure a the rosteing ae
noisseur’’).

The real calamity however was what this -
monopoly ‘‘deflation’’ Conspiracy did to the ath
nation. The German worker, who had worked hard and
saved for a lifetime, saw his life’s savings eaten up in the
price of one frugal meal. He saw his wages and salary
evaporate in the smoke of an organized “‘deflation’’ which

district. : R
The third candidate is ae

(Bill) Thompson, also a native soy

who at 43 is married with two Som)

studying forestry at BCIT. He has}
worked as a plumber an cial
trician and is now a commere’y
fisherman and member of A

which is the North Welli
district. !

The three labor candidates ay
running on an 8-point proBle |
which highlights the need et
Nanaimo and district

et
BERT OGDEN

program call for cutting
load on homes; return: of
part of the provincial gas tax
municipality ; protection |
Nanaimo’s environment
proper sewage treatment; ™
day care centres; strengthen 4 ‘¢
democracy by retaining “tie
representation; action to getaur
root of the drug problem by

__ ae

Ps Following up on_ policies 5
big S vanced during the Vancouver C
election campaign, COPE

and arms, an Adolph Hitler! aa gree
Can inflation create a similar havoc in this great Py ‘of
West. The question begs an answer — and soon. Inve

ne |S

is not something ordained by an alleged divine provide! a
to aid mankind in seeing the error of his ways. Nor 1S
phenomenal accident in our economic structuring)
world-wide in its scope, since over one third of that ab
world is under socialist leadership where inflal® the
unknown and the basis of exchange is predicated i, if
gross national product of its people and not upon t g if’
vestment greed of monopoly which adds spirallit
flation to already soaring prices. pel
No wonder some of these corporate moguls and 4 q
selected politicians find it difficult — and occasi0 al
embarrassing — to explain their gigantic profits * the
they may sound plausible to those being robbed. A.
days of German inflation, the monopolies had a nal? 7d!
it — expropriation. ‘‘What’s in a name,”’ wrote the b# vale .
Avon, “‘a rose by any other name would smell as SW oi |
Precisely. And make no mistake about it, inflatio™ jp |
by any other name, will ultimately reduce Canadi “i it
the poverty level just as it did in the last days wet
Weimar — perhaps more so as the end is not yet any
in sight. : t ie
Just as the wordy diarrhea of our Establishme™> jg¢
the Watergate coverup, is intended to hoodwl vot 6
common people on the legalized robbery of inflab int
with the common people there comes a breaking P®
this cycle of extortion. ‘ an
Shall we wait for it to break as it did in the Germ® (1

He is running in Zone 1, Petrogly™ Le
|

one working for Harmac and OW}
|

UFAWU. He is running in Zone ie

the profit out of the sale of drug*) &

COPE CANDIDATES |*
APPEAR AT CITY |=
SCHOOLS HEARING

the 1930s or shall we meet it head on and en masse

board candidates appeared belt 4
the recently-appointed Vancol of l|
School Board Task Force |
English last month to P rf
COPE’s position on the so © |
“English” problem. 4
The problem — manifested bye :
apparent decline in proficien’y 4
reading and writing skills a™ vot th
students — has captured ti
siderable public attention rect ty
and was an issue of some. oo 10
portance in school board elect! :
in Vancouver. te U
Attention was drawn t0 af | 8
decline following tests amt in
Grade 6 students for gram th
spelling, reading and punctua re
Fg In most cases, results ¥ Jy,
W. R. THOMPSON See Schools, pg. 11 h
ee si gunna or
produced dead factories, nation-wide destitution, ‘ th
ultimately, with the help of international finance C8?" Jy,