CANADA / BRITISH COLUMBIA

Peace poll continues anti-cruise fight

As testing of the cruise missile resumed
over northern Canada Tuesday, Canadi-
ans all across the country participated in
the “Real Cruise Test” and proved once
again how hopelessly out of step the
government is with the real public senti-
ment for disarmament.

Ina national campaign co-ordinated by
the Canadian Peace Alliance, the “Real
Cruise Test”” saw peace organizations in
every province and the North West Terri-
tories take to the streets Tuesday morning
to test public opinion on the simple ques-
tion “Should Canada stop cruise testing?”

At press time, Sheena Lambert, cam-
paign co-ordinator with the Canadian
Peace Alliance in Toronto, reported that
results were in for half the country and the
average vote was 87 per cent opposed to
cruise testing.

Testing of the cruise missile, a nuclear
weapon with first-strike capabilities, has
been touted by the federal government as
part of Canada’s military obligation to
NATO.

But Lambert said: “Since the INF
treaty between the U.S. and the USSR the
government has run out of excuses for
testing the cruise. It’s time they get in step
with the worldwide opinion.” In Van-
couver, the End the Arms coalition had

volunteers downtown from 10 a.m. to 1
p.m. asking the lunch time crowd their
opinion of cruise testing. With the stated
opposition of the Liberal and New Demo-
cratic Parties and an obvious majority of
the public, EAR called on the federal
government to “stop the tests... and start
directing Canadian energy towards peace.”

Committees of End the Arms Race are
busy organizing public support around a
number of other peace related actions.

The call for the Port of Vancouver to be
declared a nuclear weapons free zone has
long been a demand of the peace move-
ment in the city. Now the city’s special
committee on peace, acknowledging that
every time a nuclear-capable ship enters
the Port of Vancouver the lives and health
of tens of thousands of residents of the city
are put at risk, has forwarded a resolution
that calls on council to urge the federal
government to be consistent in its policy of
no nuclear weapons in Canada and to
declare the Port of Vancouver a nuclear
weapons free zone.

Noting the danger of accidents or fire
involving nuclear vessels, the resolution
also calls on the “individuals or organiza-
tions responsible for inviting vessels to the
port to respect the city’s nuclear weapons

End the Arms Race representative John Broderick (r) solicits passer-by’s opinion

in Vancouver during national poll on cruise missile testing sponsored by peace
organizations Tuesday. Opinion was running against the tests of the first-strike

nuclear weapon.

free policy and the frequently voiced
wishes of the residents of Vancouver.”
The special committee on peace and
End the Arms Race are asking for delega-
tions to appear at city council on Feb. 2 to
speak in favour of the resolution. Individ-
uals who are unable to attend the meeting
can express their support by calling the

~

city clerk’s office at 873-7276.

EAR is also conducting a letter-writing
campaign to MPs and MLAs in an
attempt to bring a larger profile to the
demand for public hearings on the
Defence White Paper, released last May,
which in part proposed that Canada
acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

It’s not too late
a sub

to sell

How time flies.

When we began this subscription
drive early last fall, British Columbia’s
labour and community groups were
just gearing up for the fight against free
trade. Now the free trade deal has been
signed by Mulroney’s stars-and-stripes
Tories, but the fight against the pact has
not ended.

Those who know what’s at stake
with this sellout — nothing less than
Canada’s sovereignty — are not the
type of people to give up, even when the
agreement appears to bea fait accom-

Li .

Neither do our key supporters.
While our sub drive got off to a less
than auspicious start, they’ve perse-
vered. The result is some top subscrip-
tion sales, garnered by individuals, that
are nothing short of impressive, if not
record-setting.

We'd be remiss in not mentioning
some of them. Kudos go to and Bert
Ogden with 18 new subscriptions; Ernie
Knott with 13 new subs and 13 renewals
apiece; Heather Keely with nine and six,
respectively; Sam Vint, six and three;
and Betty Griffin, seven and one.

Those people are doing their level
best to ensure that we make a good
showing in the sub drive, in which we
set a.goal of 300 new subs and 500
renewals.

They are the ones who stand the best
chance so far of winning the prizes in
the drive which ends in only two short
weeks.

The top prize, we remind our readers
and supporters, is a weekend for two at
Harrison Hot Springs resort. Other

prizes include dinners, tickets to
Canucks games and several others.
And there are prizes for new subscrib-
ers as well.

Additionally, the top sub-getting
press clubs win the shield award for the
most subs garnered within Greater
Vancouver and outside the regional
district.

While the gap between the goal and
the “zero” we started with is closing,
there’s still a way to go. :

In the fight against free trade — and
privatization, deregulation and other
Tory-Socred measures — everyone
knows that perseverance is the only
route to victory. Even when battles are
lost, the war can be won — and must
be won, if we are to survive as a nation
and a class — as long as we don’t give
up.
While the stakes may not be as cru-
cial in a single Tribune subscription
drive, over the long term your efforts
count. Please make them count now.

We need 300 new subs

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 20, 1988

Sunshine Coast dwellers ©

hit Socred ferry cut

The latest cancellation of a ferry run
between the Sunshine Coast and Horseshoe
Bay means the Konopasoks must spend
extra on hotels and baby sitters when they
take their handicapped daughter to Van-
couver General Hospital.

Francis and Elizabeth Konopasok,
accompanied by their wheelchair-bound
daughter, Ula, and another parent and
handicapped child, were part of a crowd of
some 150 Sunshine Coast residents who
turned out at the Langdale ferry terminal
for a protest Saturday.

Residents cheered as regional district
board member Gordon Wilson pledged to
take the protest over the cancellation of the
10:30 a.m. daily sailing to Premier Bill
Vander Zalm’s home at Fantasy Gardens in
Richmond if necessary.

B.C. Ferry Corp. dropped the 10:25 a.m.
sailing, with no advance notice to local resi-
dents, Jan. 1. It is to be reinstated in the
spring. The corporation claims the cut saves
$720 per day in fuel costs.

Speakers from the labour and business
communities were among those who took
to the microphone to hit the cutback out-
side the terminal’s administrative building,
scant yards away from where the Queen of
Cowichan ferry lay idled, its engines run-
ning and with its crew aboard.

The cutback means residents must wait
four hours after the 8:25 a.m. sailing until
the ferry departs at 12:25 p.m.

But it also entails complications for resi-
dents of a rural area who depend on the
nearby Lower Mainland for a variety of
services — including medical services.

“The children’s clinic at VGH is only
open in the mornings. That means I have to
leave the day before and book a hotel
room,” Elizabeth Konopasok said.

Outings and medical visits for pensioners
are either cancelled or involve additional
expenses, commented Joy Maxwell, direc-
tor of the Harmony Hall Seniors Group in

. Gibsons.

“They say that labour doesn’t pull its
weight. But who’s responsible for labour
laying idle in this case?” remarked resident
Bob Maxwell.

Resident Gail Frederickson complained

that the corporation “didn’t even have the —

decency to inform us of the cancellation in
the papers.” She said a trip to the eye doctor
in Vancouver is now a day-long affair.

Wilson received cheers when he told. the
crowd that more than 500 letters to Trans-
portation Minister Stephen Rogers protest-
ing the cut had been signed, and that some
800 names have been gathered on a petition
initiated by senior citizens.

He noted that in 1974 there were 16 sail-

ings daily to the Lower Mainland, incom- _

parison to seven sailings this year.

“We have a government which has liter-
ally whitewashed the inquiry into the
Coquihalla highway ... and this is just one
more example of that kind of problem,”
Wilson, who is also the new leader of the
B.C. Liberal Party, charged.

“When we see a situation where service is
disrupted because of a labour dispute, the
government is very quick to establish this as
an essential service and legislate people back
to work. But they’re very slow to put it back
to work when in fact we find a schedule that
is inadequate,” he said.

Judy Wilson, president of the Sunshine
Coast New Democrats, regional district
board chairman Peggy O’Connor, several
business representatives and Bill Peterson of
Sunshine “Coast Labour Council also
addressed the rally.

Rich Mennie, president of the Gibsons
Chamber of Commerce, said local Socred
MLA Harold Long has been told by local
business people that ferry service is the
number one issue in the region.

Lynda Olsen, president of the Canadian
Union of Public Employees Local 801,
commented later: “The growing consensus
is that if Long’s trucking business had to use
the 10:30 sailing, it wouldn’t have been can-
celled.”

Gordon Wilson said residents will be
seeking an audience with Vander Zalm
when the premier visits the region early next
month. If those attempts fail, and the pre-
mier refuses a Victoria meeting, he will be
visited “at the real seat of power — Fantasy
Gardens,” Wilson vowed.

iliac

et