Friday, September 26, 1975

a > 48. :
(15c VOL. 37, No. 39

RiBUNE

Dr, Alan Inglis, chairman of Canadian Aid
Cuth Vietnamese representative Truong
ontributed by the audience to help the people of South Vietnam. Story page 3.

for Vietnam Civilians, shown presenting a $5,000 bank draft to
Tan at last Sunday’s rally in Vancouver. Another $2,700 was

—Sean Griffin photo

TENANTS DEMAND:

<a as yet unreleased report
eed for the provincial
ent shows that a 5.2 per
Increase is more than

. ee Bruce Yorke, president
a € B.C. Tenants’ Organization
2 ased the contents of the 237
i report this week. The report
; Prepared for the Rent Review
Mmission by Strong-Hall
Boies from data obtained
th m 198 apartment blocks
yehout the province.
as Said that both the BCTO
He the landlords were given
wes of the Strong-Hall report
‘no after its completion in August.
have not released its contents
by ele since we were informed
‘shorty commission that they would
a Y make it public. So far they
ve not seen fit to do so, even
ae the report was produced

public funds.”

ae report shows that operating
ro S of rental residential
ois have increased by 11.6

3 a from June 30, 1974 to June
bs a but that the ratio between
Ng costs and rent is only 45

per cent. ‘‘Consequently, the
justified rent increase, that is the
figure that would leave the lan-
dlords with as much profit as a
year ago would be 11.6 multiplied
by .45 or 5.2 per cent,’’ Yorke
declared.

During the study period, the
average allowable rent increase
has been 9.3 per cent, nearly
double the ‘‘justified’”’ figure.
Yorke charged that ‘‘The landlords
are a super greedy lot. They have
received rent increases in the past
two years which are nearly twice
the size of increases in operating
costs. Now they want increases
three or four times on top of that.

“Not only have they received
substantial unjustified rent in-
creases, but they have accrued
large capital appreciation gains on
their property which average 30
per cent a year for the past five
years. These are pure windfalls for
which they have contributed
exactly nothing,” Yorke declared.

He said that the BCTO does not
favor the approach of basing rents

Council ducks move
by Rankin on housing

vancouver City Council squir-
vo of a hot spot last Tuesday
: coe by voting to defer a motion
one aay Alderman Harry Rankin
Sippore won widespread popular
and w Motion dealt with housing
ne ould have made it mandatory
fear » developer who wished to
oe Wn or demolish low rental
ing to secure a permit by

=

which he would be obliged to
construct a greater number of low
rental units.

Nineteen briefs were presented
to Council in support of Rankin’s
motion. COPE, the Downtown
Eastside Residents Association,
Hastings Sunrise Action Council,

the Vancouver, Hastings Sunrise, -

See HOUSING, pg- 12

on operating costs, but would
prefer to see rents set on the ability
of tenants to pay. ‘“‘Rents should be
set at 20 per cent of the net average
disposable income in the com-
munity.

“However, if the government
continues to opt for the operating
cost approach, the Strong-Hall
report convincingly shows that
such an increase must be limited to
avery small figure. As a matter of
fact, no increase at all would be
justified in view. of the over-
charging in the past years that this
report reveals.”’

See TENANTS, pg. 11

Only answer to high
rates, poor service

By MAURICE RUSH

The hearings going on in Van-
couver this week before the
Canadian Transport Commission
(CTC) into B.C. Tel’s application
for a 20 per cent rate boost con-
firms once again that the only way
the public can be protected from
exorbitant rates for one of the
poorest phone services in Canada
is by a public takeover of this U.S.-
owned monopoly.

In July, B.C. Tel was granted a
10 per cent interim rate increase
by the CTC with an agreement that
hearings would be held in Sep-
tember on the full 20 per cent being
asked for by the company. These
hearings are now taking place at
Vancouver’s Holiday Inn on West
Hastings.

A few days after the rate hike
was: granted in July, B.C. Tel
released its ‘financial statement
which showed that its net earnings
rose 15.4 per cent in the three
months ending June 30. Not
satisfied with that profit per-
formance, B.C. Tel applied for and
got a 10 per cent interim boost and
is now seeking another 10 per cent.

A major issue at the hearings is
that B.C. Tel does most of its
purchasing among the subsidiary
companies of its parent, General
Telephone and Electronics (GTE)
in New York, and that the company
hides its profits in the inter-
corporate maze to the detriment of
the B.C.: public. A study by the
federal department of com-
munications earlier this year found
that B.C. Tel placed 82 per cent of
its total business —.about $250

million — wht the GTE-controlled

companies with which it is linked.
In a special feature article the

Tribune on January 24, 1975,
charged that this corporate link
has resulted in B.C. Tel holding
back technological innovations,
chiefly newly developed switching
equipment, because they were not
available from GTE manufac-
turers.

The failure of B.C. Tel to switch
several years ago to a more
modern system called crossbar, an
advanced control system, came
under fire from lawyers repre-
senting the provincial government.
The more advanced system has
been introduced by other telephone
companies in Canada but B.C. Tel.
held back since the necessary
equipment was not available from
a GTE company. Lawyer Martin
Taylor, representing the B.C.
$ttorney-general’s department
said that failure to adopt crossbar
had cost the company many
millions of dollars.

One of the government lawyers
asked, ‘‘shouldn’t shareholders
pay part of the price”’ for installing
the new equipment rather than
attempting to pass the cost on to

phone users in the form of higher -

rates?

Obviously, the public in B.C. are
being forced to pay twice because-
of monopoly control in the
telephone : industry; first, higher
rates for poor service over many
years because B.C. Tel would not
install modern equipment because
they had not yet been manufac-
tured by its affiliated companies;
and now again to finance the in-
stallation of modern equipment
which has now become available
through GTE-controlled com-
panies.

See TAKEOVER, pg. 12

“Don’t destroy good housing” reads the banner in Vancouver City Council chambers Tuesday night as
tenants demonstrated their support for Ald. Harry Rankin’s motion.

—Sean Griffin photo