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VANCOUVER

Roadwork, housing

top COPE policies
in 1986 election

Continued from page 1

It will be the task of COPE’s candidates
and publicity people to see that the policies
get aired in an historic election battle against
the big-money campaign of the NPA and its
realtor mayoral candidate.

In his speech Rankin stressed that
COPE’s policy on planning holds that
council “must recognize economics of
development and balance it with the social
and planning needs of the city to ensure
public interest is served.”

He said the mayor and council must be
free of “links” to developers and “in touch
with people in their local communities.”

In addressing the question of develop-
ment after Expo 86 ends, Rankin pledged
that under his mayoralty the city would:

@ Put $40 million into the construction of
the Malkin Bypass, a two-phase higtiway
project designed to connect the Trans Can-
ada to Vancouver’s downtown core via the
railway right-of-way known as the Grand-
view cut;

@ Put $5 million into a $95-million six-
lane roadway connecting the Trans Canada
highway to the Second Narrows -bridge
(Plans for design of the “‘Cassiar Connec-
tor” were subjected to the scrutiny and
approval of local residents by city council at
several planning meetings three years ago.);

© Contribute $2 million toward a service
roadway linking the north foot of Renfrew
Street with Cardero Street along Vancouv-
er’s waterfront. Rankin stressed that the
roadway, built largely with federal money,
should be in accordance with the wishes of
Vancouver citizens a service roadway and
not a commuter highway;

@ Aid in the construction of 7,500 hous-
ing units on the Expo site. Plans for the
development of the site under the B.C. Place
Crown corporation provide, through nego-
tiations with the city, for 20 per cent low-
income housing, but “that isn’t good
enough for COPE,” Rankin said. The civic
alliance calls for negotiations among the
city, the province and the federal govern-
ment with the aim of achieving a combina-
tion of co-operative, low-income and
market housing, with one-third of the units
government-subsidized.- ;

In an interview Rankin said the com-
bined projects would provide 7,500 new
jobs, including 3,500 jobs for one year,
“enough to put all of the unemployed con-
struction workers in the Lower Mainland
back to work.”

Rankin said a COPE council would press
the senior lelvels of government to institute
the city’s fair wage policy, by which all con-
tracted work pays at least the wages earned
by the city’s unionized workforce.

COPE’s council candidates, in a detailed
position paper for workshop debate,
stressed similar policy initiatives. They listed
as priorities jobs and services, lower residen-
tial taxes, public participation in planning,
low-income housing construction, munici-
pal autonomy, peace issues and affordable
public transit.

In public debate Ald. Bruce Yorke
emphasized what COPE calls its “‘corner-
stone policy” of preserving jobs and servi-
ces: the yearly practice of balancing the
city’s operating budget with fiscal transfers
from the interest accrued to Vancouver’s
lush property endowment fund.

“That practice has allowed us to keep
jobs and services, and taxes well below the
rate of inflation,” he said.

Yorke said some 1,000 city jobs — 250 in
the last year — have been saved, while
Vancouver’s property taxes are among the
lowest of major Canadian cities.

Colleague Libby Davies pledged that a
council with a COPE majority would con-
tinue its commitment to “local area plan-
ning,” and targetted as priorities the
establishment of a city-run Transition
house for battered women and a transit
system under local control. -

COPE Ald. Bruce Eriksen noted council
has, under the majority of COPE’s four
aldermen and their civic unity partners on
council, established special committees
dealing with Native issues, peace, race rela-
tions and women.

A strong advocate of financial and admi-
nistrative autonomy for municipalities, he
said council “must push for autonomy as
far as we can.”

Under the general heading of jobs and
services, the council candidates’ position
paper pledges COPE aldermen to pursue a
policy of preserving jobs, pursuing equal
opportunity in employment and ensuring
equal pay for work for equal value.

The paper argued for a “new deal deal”
from Victoria to reflect less emphasis on
residential taxes and more on commercial
properties. COPE’s planning policies call
for local input into development around the
Skytrain rapid transit line and regional con-
trol over planning to ensure that Vancouv-
er’s downtown core does not become
glutted by overdevelopment.

For parks board, candidates targetted
the cheap rents paid by private enterprises
operating in the city’s parks and increasing
fees for park services as areas needing
change.

Board candidate Tim Louis said COPE
calls for rents based on the value of property
taxes — from which long-term leases are
exempted — increasing “services for peo-
ple,” upgrading the city’s parks and better
labor relations.

With a big business press that seldom
goes into detail about policies in civic elec-
tions, COPE will have its work cut out for it
in attempting to make policies — rather
than: personalities — the key factor in the
Vancouver race.

The widely expected provincial election
call also raises the possibility that the civic
race may be eclipsed. But, according to
Eriksen, that election could help promote
COPE’s platform.

The COPE aldermen said that candidates
could be present at provincial all-candidates
meetings and raise civic issues.

East Broadway.

Harry Rankin puts finishing touches to sign at COPE election headquarters at 108 —

Banquet for COPE set

Mayoral candidate Harry Rankin is the special guest speaker at a dinner
sponsored by the East Indian Workers Association on behalf of the Committee of
Progressive Electors’ election campaign, Oct. 4.

Other speakers, and cultural entertainment, will also be on hand for the event,
which takes places at the Victoria Drive Community Hall, 2026 E. 43rd Avenue,

beginning at 6 p.m.

Tickets to the event cost $10. For further information, phone~ 325-8006,

325-1362.or 327-6461.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 24, 1986

Election poll is a scam

The poll conducted by Marketing
Research Ltd.,.last August on the may-
oralty of Vancouver came up with the
figure that 41 per cent of the public
favored Non-Partisan Association can-
didate Gordon Campbell and 29 per cent
supported Committee of Progressive
Electors candidate Harry Rankin.

A little investigation reveals that this
poll was not only ascam and a sham but
a real phony. Consider these facts:

® The people polled were not a cross
section of voters in Vancouver reflecting
the composition of the population in
terms of age, sex, education, occupation,
language and residential area. Those
polled consisted of 502 people whose
names were selected at random from the
Greater Vancouver telephone book.
Because of this, it was an unscientific
opinion poll. To claim that it represents
the voting preferences of Vancouver
voters is therefore completely false and
politically deceptive.

@ It was not a Vancouver poll. Some
36 per cent of those polled did not even
live in Vancouver. They lived in the var-
ious municipalities that comprise the
Greater Vancouver area. To claim then
that this poll represents the view of Van-
couver voters is totally untrue. If Market-
ing Research were to take a poll on
whether the next premier of B.C. should
be Bill Vander Zalm of Bob Skelly,
would it poll Alberta as well as B.C.
voters?

© The poll was not even centred
around the question of the Vancouver
mayoralty race. It was a Social Credit
poll sounding out public opinion about
the upcoming provincial election, with a
throwaway question about the Van-
couver mayoralty race just tacked on.

@ The poll did not go into the issues of
the Vancouver mayoralty race or the pol-
icies being advanced by NPA candidate
Campbell or COPE candidate Rankin,
yet these issues are the only sensible
means for voters to make a choice.

Can it be that the poll was released on
the NPA’s nomination day so that it
could make some political hay out of the
results?

All the evidence points to the fact that
this poll was not only unscientific and
inaccurate, it was also a cheap and politi-

cally dishonest election ploy designed to '

manipulate voters in the interests of the
NPA.

Marketing Research, in lending itself }

to this type of political trickery, did not

bring any credit to itself. Perhaps it is”

able to conduct polls about consumer
preferences for products on the market
such as toilet paper, but if this poll is any
example it knows nothing about con-
ducting a political public opinon poll.
There can be no substance to its self
serving claim that its polls are subject to
only an error of about five percentage
points.

The suspicion is growing in the public
mind that public opinion polls are often
contrived to servé the results that its

sponsors want. Public opinion is being —

manipulated by poll results. How they

are used for political purposes is illus-
trated by the recent poll concerning the
popularity of Jean Chretien versus John
Turner as leader of the Liberal Party. The
name of the client who commissioned
this poll remains a secret and it is being

used for disruptive and divisive purposes.

within the Liberal Party.

Another example of the inaccuracy of

these polls is indicated by two recent —

gallop polls concerning popular support

for the three main political parties. The
first one gave the Tories 31 per cent, the
Liberals 35 per cent and the NDP 33 per
cent. Someone didn’t like this result so
another one was taken by the same firm.
This time the results were Tories 33 pet
cent, Liberals 33 per cent and the NDP
34 per cent. Which poll wes correct? You
can take your choice. I wouldn’t accept
either of them at face value.

In COPE we are doing an intensive
house-to-house canvass in East Van-
couver. Our findings are that support for
COPE and its mayoralty candidate is
growing. We concentrated on our pro-
gram and our record and we find that the
voters are responsive to both.

The NPA can win its own contrived
election polls. We intend to win the elec-
tion.

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