GREATER VANCOUVER

COPE. Harcourt forces
united in ’84 campaign

Continued from page 1
city an equal opportunity employer “pre-
pared to negotiate women’s rights.”

The jobs issue is furthered in a broad
policy statement on economic development
which stresses the establishment of manu-
facturing industries and “key social and
economic services” within Vancouver's
boundaries.

That section also calls for the expansion
of the city’s property endowment fund,
valued at about $400 million. The interest
from the fund, accrued through the sale of

city properties, was used by the progressive
majority to maintain jobs and services in
1983 and 1984.

Major tax reforms are the third plank in
COPE’s platform. Last year the provincial
government introduced the variable mill
rate, long a demand of municipalities desir-
ing relief for small property owners. But by
placing ceilings on the amount local
governments could tax commercial and
large business properties, the amendment
was rendered meaningless.

COPE’s solutions include using property
tax revenue only for direct services to
homeowners and tenants..Additional poli-
cies call for the city to receive a share of all
income, liquor and gas taxes collected in
Vancouver, and a negotiated revenue-
sharing agreement with the province. (Dur-
ing the last three years the province’s $31
million revenue grant to Vancouver has
been reduced to $16 million.)

- Two policy areas deal with the ongoing

battle against developers and their mega-
project visions that would see the down-
town core engulfed in skyscrapers and
affordable housing all but vanish from the
city.

COPE calls for planning at the neighbor-
hood and the regional level (planning power

was taken from regional districts by provin-
cial legislation two years ago), and proposes
several policies regarding the B.C. Place and
Expo 86 megaprojects, commiting COPE
aldermen to:

e Ensure that B.C. Place is not over-
crowded with unnecessary office space;

e Ensure that at least 50 per cent of all
housing constructed in Vancouver is affor-
dable family and low-income housing;

®@ Work for a provincial guarantee that
Vancouver will not be saddled with debts

_ from Expo.

Key among the housing policies is one
calling for the establishment of provincial
rent controls, including a possible city-run
“fair rent review tenants’ rights board.” Pol-
icies also demand the province allow the city
to amend its charter to prevent the demoli-
tion of older, useful housing and support
tenants’ rights services.

Citing Victoria’s refusual to allow charter
amendments which would grant Vancouver
the ward system approved by citizens in two
plebiscites, COPE calls for greater auto-
nomy for the city from the provincial
government, and promises a campaign
around the issue of civic democracy.

The members also reiterated COPE’s
commitment to world peace, with pledges
to promote peace as a central theme during
the 1986 centennial celebrations, and to
work for stronger links with Vancouver’s
sister cities and other Canadian cities for the
advancement of peace.

COPE members ratified policy state-
ments on transit, including commitments
that COPE councillors would pressure Vic-
toria for full compensation for victims of
the advanced light rapid transit construc-
tion, and oppose all fare hikes and bus ser-
vice cutbacks.

They also backed the demand for a full,

WES KNAPP, JEAN SWANSON. .

public inquiry into the management and
financing of transit, as demanded by the
Independent Canadian Transit Union,
whose president, Colin Kelly, received a
standing ovation when he gave a brief
address to the meeting. —

Kelly said the union would do everything

“to make sure you’re extremely successful .

in the upcoming November elections.”
For the separately-elected seven-member
parks bodrd, COPE set several policies
around the theme of ending the increased
-commercialization and big-dollars tourism
approaches practised by the current board,
dominated by the right-wing Civic Non-
Partisan Association~ Policies include the
acquisition of park land for neglected
neighborhoods, a freeze on and in some
cases, removal of, user fees for park services,
and the “democratization” of the board.
The nine candidates for school board
have united around the theme and slogan of
“save our schools.” They call. for the resto-
ration of funding for programs such as Eng-
lish as a Second Language, improved class
sizes, increased consultation with commun-
ities, improved relationships with employees

The Real Estate Board of Greater Van-
couver sent city council a letter asking us
to proclaim the week of Sept. 30 through
Oct. 2 as “Private Property Week.”

The real estate board in Vancouver and
elsewhere represents the big real estate
speculators and developers across the
country. The biggest among them —
Daon, Genstar and Cadillac Fairview —
are affiliated to the Fraser Institute.

They make their hefty profits by buying
and selling land and property. They do not
create any wealth or any values. They area
parasitic growth on the economy. We
need them like a dog needs fleas.

Why do they suddenly want city council
to proclaim a private property week?

The reason they cite is that the new
Canadian Constitution “expressed protec-
tion for all the fundamental rights and
freedoms to which our citizens are
entitled, except the right to private
property.”

In the first place, that statement is
untrue. The constitution does not guaran-
tee the rights of citizens to some of the
most basic rights of all — the right to a
job, the right to an education, the right to
decent housing. And the real estate board
doesn’t seem to be worrying about these
nights.

Second, the real estate board makes no
distinction between the private property of
the ordinary citizen and the private prop-
erty of big business.

The private property of the individual
citizen consists of his or her personal pos-
sessions, perhaps even a house or a car, a
farm or a small business. This type of
private property is being lost right and left
today by people who can’t keep up their
payments and mortgages.

What about the right to a job?

The real estate board is not proposing
that laws be passed protecting the individ-
ual against evictions and foreclosures due
to his or her inability to meet payments.
That’s due to the state of the economy, for
which big business and government, not
the people of this country, are to blame.

Let me provide another example,
related in detail in the Vancouver Sun,
Sept. 14. The ALRT line is cutting across
the home of a couple on Stainsbury
Avenue. The use value of their property
has been completely destroyed; it has been
rendered unlivable.

The couple are. only asking that B.C.
Transit relocate them so they can enjoy

Harry
Rankin

—

their retirement. B.C. Transit, which is run
by Grace McCarthy, the minister of
(in)human resources, takes the stand that
in building the ALRT there are some los-
ers and some winners.

If somebody’s house happens to be on
the right of way selected by B.C. Transit,
it’s just too bad. “Everybody can’t win,’
says the head of B.C. Transit.

The fact is, though, that wherever real
estate sharks or developers had a big piece
of property, they did win to the tune of
millions of dollars. B.C. Transit compen-
sates them well. The same doesn’t apply to
homeowners.

I haven’t seen the real estate board

jumping to the defence of this couple, des-

pite its pronouncements about the sanctity
of private property.

The real estate people, in boosting their
proposition that private property rights be
included in the constitution, are speaking
for the banks and big corporations. What
they are after is laws which will abolish all
existing public property (they want every-
thing privatized) and guarantees that no
industries or banks will be placed under
public ownership.

What these people are proposing is a
direct threat to the rights and powers of
municipal councils in Canada. These
would be abolished if they had their way.

Vancouver city council considered this
question some months ago. We tabled the
matter, which is another way of turning it
down. The mayor laid it on the line when
he replied to the real estate board.

“We have been advised,” he said, “that
enshrining property rights could have a
profound effect on our powers respecting
zoning and land use, property acquisition
as well as building and maintenance pow-
ers. In fact, virtually all fundamental
municipal powers could be affected.”

If property rights are enshrined in the
constitution, the next thing that the real
estate interests and developers will go after
is the power of the city respecting building.

Spokesmen for the Fraser [Institue are
already speaking out for the repeal of all
zoning bylaws, and against the building
code. The developers want the unfettered
right to build anything they like, wherever
they like regardless of how it affects the
city or the community.

Private property already has far more
rights in law than people. It should be the
other way around. :

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 26, 1984

\

join COPE incumbents on city council slate.

_ Onstad and two new faces: community

threat to park

weeks —

and “fair and equitable evaluation pro-
cedures.”

As predicted earlier, this year’s election
will see little, if any, division among right-
wing forces. The COPE-and-Harcourt
unity slate will be matched this year as the
NPA — which was to nominate its candi-
dates Monday night — had already declared —
it was leaving two aldermanic spots open
for the centre-right incumbent aldermen
from The Electors Action Movement, May
Brown and Marguerite Ford.

Members also ratified a revised list of
candidates for council, school and parks
boards. They dropped three names from the
aldermanic slate, including Sol Jackson,
Carmela Allevato and Jim Quail, and
added incumbent school trustee Wes
Knapp.

‘In addition to Knapp, aldermanic con-
tenders include incumbents Harry Rankin,
Libby Davies, Bruce Eriksen and Bruce
Yorke, and Solidarity staff member Jeap |
Swanson.

They will comprise COPE’s contribulgail |
to the unity slate, filled out by Harcourt’s | |
team of Ron Johnson, Reva Dexter, Carole
Walker and incumbent Bill Yee. ]

Allevato and Quail have moved to the
school slate, joining incumbents Pauline |
Weinstein and Phil Rankin, as well as Chris
Allnutt, John Church, former trustee Gary

activist Bill Darnell and Charles Ungerliter,
a member of the school consultative
committee..
The park slate remained untouched, with —
incumbent Pat Wilson runaing with Sue
Harris, Connie Fogal, Mike Chrunik, Tim
Louis, Joe Arnaud and former school trus-
tee Mike O’Neill.

Aquarium plan

COPE candidates for Vancouver’s parks
board are urging everyone concerned about
the future of Stanley Park to attend a special »
meeting on a proposed expansion of the -
Vancouver Aquarium, Sept. 27. |

The meeting, held by the parks board at
the insistence of the city’s development —

permit board, continues a meeting last week

in which forces pro and con the proposed -
extension lined up at the microphones.

Incumbent COPE parks commissioner
Pat Wilson tied the issue with the practice of -
the parks board, dominated by the right-_
wing Non-Partisan Association, to “com-
mercialize and privatize” Vancouver's
public park space.

COPE parks candidate, Sue Harris said
the Stanley Park citizen’s advisory committee
of which she is a member is angry at the
board’s ready acceptance of the aquariums |
proposal without recourse to public meetings. _

The development permit board will
decide on the issue within about six —
possibly after the Nov. 17 elections
— or it may turn the case over to ag |
council.

Thursday’s PesGARE takes place at the:
Robson Square Media Centre, at 7:30 = a =