By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Police Chief Don Winterton, has
asked City Council to increase the
city’s police force by 322 men.
That’s a 38 per cent increase in the
force’s present strength of 853
men.

City Council’s finance com-
mittee, headed by Alderman Jack
Volrich agrees, but wants the in-
crease spread over two or three
years with 120 more men added
this year. The NPA members of the
committee — Aldermen Ed
Sweeney and Warnett Kennedy,
(as well as Alderman Helen Boyce
who attended the meeting), -all
supported the proposal: declaring
that this was one of their priorities.

Alderman Jack Volrich claims
that the cost to the city of each new
policeman is only $12,500 while
Alderman Fritz Bowers claims
that if equipment and housing are
added the cost is only $18,500. I
think both estimates are way out.
My estimate is that it costs-us at
least $30,000 for each new
policeman, if we include wages,

Richmond fights for Day Care centre

By JERRY EDWARDS

Day Care is a common topic
these days, especially in the homes
of low-income groups and single-
parent families, those who are
trying to find a way to support
themselves and care for their
children at the same time.

A good example of the en-
couragement these people get from
~ their school boards and municipal
government can be found in Rich-
mond where the school. board
trustees Madeline Noble, Alex
Waterton and Larry Hillman who
are attempting to snuff out a day
care project which an organization
of parents living at the Lindsay
Garden government-subsidized
apartment complex have © been
fighting to establish through the
bureaucratic red tape for over a
year.

There are upward of 100
children, most of whom are turned
outside at 8 a.m. and cannot get
back into their home until their
parents arrive home from work at
6or7 p.m. These children range in-
ages from four to 14 years, and
there are children four years old
who have already been in trouble
with the police.

There are a great number of
people living on social assistance

who want to go to work but cannot

get day care or baby sitters.
Municipal law states no more than
two children to an apartment and

no amount of organization so far |

will relieve any number of tenants
to enable them to go to work. The
apartment manager won’t
cooperate either, in allowing the
use of an empty apartment.

This organization of parents
could get no cooperation from their
apartment manager and could find
no suitable facilities in the area at
nominal rent and came up with the
alternative of a portable building.

Human resources commission
promised to look into it in March of
1974. May 24 the group requested
help from. Dave Williams, an
alderman, and he prepared a
report for this committee. It turned
out that school property would be
the cheapest. On October 21 their
report went to the school board and
the group’s leader, Maria
Schlakoff, was repeatedly warned
not to go to the newspapers. The
group requested 2,925 sq. feet of

school property at $1.per year for:

five years. The school board
referred the request back to
municipal council. The project
then went to the Health and
WelfareDepartment, and they sent
a request to council for $2,500. The
request was granted though Mayor

Blair, Aldermen Linda Cliff and
Robert Hobbis all voted against it.

The provincial government has‘

promised. $20,000 for construction
of the building and a construction
firm has offered to build for that,
but only under the winter works
program, which means it will have
to be built_by Feb.. 15 and com-
pleted before the end of the month.
It will cost $40,000 if it is to be built
other then under the winter works
program, and this will rule out the
project altogether.

One trustee,. Alex. Waterton,
termed the project esthetic, and
stated that the building should be
constructed on municipal
property, and closer to. Lindsay
Gardens, but the group’s
spokesman says this would put
servicing too high, and be out of
reach since municipal council only
voted on $2,500.

The proposed Day Care Centre
has been referred back to council
for their meeting on Monday night,
Feb. 10, and even if okayed will
likely make it too late for the
winter works program.

The Richmond Electors Action
League and the Richmond Tenant
Council have promised full support
to these determined families in
their attempts to establish proper
care for their children.

a8 y ‘More police no solution
Ror! j ANY | 5

| to city crime’ - Rankin

equipment, training and _ other
facilities and this does not include
the additional backup staff that
would be required. Three hundred
and’ twenty-two more policemen
would cost us about $10 million
more and that’s a lot of money to
add to your tax bill. 5
It is very easy to say, as the
Police Chief does, that the crime
rate in ‘’ancouver is increasing
and therefore we need more
policemen. The assumption is that
the more police we have, the less
crime we will have.
Unfortunately, there are no facts
to back up this assumption.
Montreal has a lot more
policemen per capita than we have
but its crime rate is even worse
than ours. Many more examples
could be cited from American
cities.
The key question is not how
many policemen, but how they are
used to control crime.

FIGHTING FOR
DEMOCRACY

_was itself implicated in the traf-

Rentals reach zero
The Central Mortgage and

Housing Corporation this week ,

released a report which showed
that the apartment vacancy rate in
Greater Vancouver has reached
zero.

CMHC surveyed some 90,000
private rental apartments and
found fewer than 100 vacancies.
This makes Vancouver’s vacancy
rate the lowest in Canada, in fact,
it can’t get any lower. And still
there is no government action on
housing.

This is a question that is never |
raised by the advocates of a bigger
police force. I think it is time we
asked this question and demanded
some answers. We are spending
$16 million a year on our police
force, just what are we getting for
it?

A reorganization of the police
force itself is long overdue, to see |
what economies can be affected |
and what improvements made in
police efficiency. For one thing, the
paper and office work done by
police in uniform should be turned |
over to civilians and all policemen
released for active duty. I, also
doubt very much the «need of | —
providing the Chief of Police, who |
already has three deputies, with a —
new assistant of the rank of in
spector. 7

We all know that the drug traffic —
and drug related killings and other
crimes have increased at an
alarming rate in our city. It’s
hardly any secret that the main
source of these drugs is in U.S.
controlled countries of Asia. Public |
allegations were recently made
over TV that the RCMP drug squad

ficking in drugs. j
The question must be asked: why |
is it that small-time pushers and
drug users are frequently arrested —
but never the heads of the syn |
dicates that operate the drug
racket? This question must now be |
answered by those in charge of
police administration not by the
rank and file policeman who pretty
well has to do what he is told. —
And what about tackling some of
the social causes of crime and
vandalism — the lack of
recreational facilities, the lack of
decent paying jobs, and the
violence portrayed in the media?
I think a case can be made for
some increase in the size of the
police force, although a modest
one. But it should be examined in —
the light of some of the questions I _
have raised. The Chief of Police |

and the Board of Administration of |
the police force should be required
to discuss and answer them if |
public, not behind closed doors. —

Happy birthday, Tom

The editor and staff extend |
warmest birthday greetings 10
Tom McEwen on the occasion 0
his 84th birthday Tuesday, Feb. 11.
Vancouver Communist Party clubs
will honor Tom on Feb. 22 at the
Ukrainian Hall starting at 7:30
p.m. °

TOM
McEWEN

ven though there has been an interval of some 40 years

some basic lessons and experiences from the days of the
Hungry 30’s are still valid in this deepening depression of
the 70’s.

Central of these is labor and peoples’ unity; at the .

negotiating table, on the picket line, at the ballot box,
knowing the enemy, and knowing above all that while
things may get worse before they get better, with a
maximum of unity they can and do get better.

In the old days, left and progressive workers had a
positive attitude toward sweatshop bosses, mass unem-
ployment with its multiple Establishment excuses and
“cures,” deliberate starvation policies and rampant
éxploitation. Strike back — and the greater the measure
of unity, the greater the assurance of ultimate victory. :

In those days, ‘“‘strike’’ was a very bad word, earning
for its participants mountains of slander and calumny
and, not infrequently, a stretch in prison on trumped-up

es

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1975—Page 2

‘

Now all that has largely changed. Of course, our

Establishments change too, but as an old adage goes, “the
more they change, the more they remain the same.”’ They
still rely heavily on court injunctions, threats of com-
pulsory arbitration, etc. and etc. to cripple or break
strikes. But today strikes have become popular, even
occasionally respectable and to a large extent, highly
effective. Doctors, scientists, teachers, white collar
workers in all professions and industries recognize the
value of the strike in pursuit of their social and economic
improvement. How times have changed since those
haleyon days of the Hungry 30’s.

Yet-as wide and sweeping as the strike movements of
today are, they are still no match for the united monopoly
powers and their subsidized Liberal or Tory governments.

Today it may be said, offhand, that the issues con-
fronting labor and the people are much more complex,
much more difficult to understand, much more confusing
than in the old days. The so-called energy crisis, the in-
flation-interest-rent-and-profit crisis, all covered up with
a million or more plausible excuses to keep this gigantic
skin game going — and ‘prophetic’ forecasts of more of
the same. ;

Thus it must be said that the wider and more popular
strike movements of today require a much greater in-

jection of that essential element which workers of half a .

century ago learned from hard experience — the need of
unity and more unity! The age of “rugged individualism”:
has passed, (if it ever really existed) and for labor the
widest unity must become the watchword and the
assurance of victory. There is no other road.

Lenin used to teach that ‘“‘every strike should be 4
stronghold of revolution.” In our day, unfortunately, the :
strike often becomes a school of opportunism in which thé
student aims to become a labor bureaucrat, learning t?
parrot the trite excuses and ‘“‘sweet reasonableness” of a0
oil magnate or his political spokesman.

If we are to take on a powerful monopoly giant, whethe!
it be an oil company, a chain store, a transport, com
munications, land shark or what have you, the Lenill
formula is historically correct, since working class unity
would always be regarded as a prior consideration, not a§
a belated afterthought. In the strike struggles of the time
we have had some fine illustrations of inter-union a?
peoples’ unity. In the struggles of tomorrow against a |
entrenched and ruthless monopoly that unity needs to Dé
increased fourfold to win the desired goal.

%* * *

. If a widely-touted rumor is true that ‘ex-president
Richard Milhous “Watergate” Nixon is being monopoly.
groomed as U.S. ambassador to the Peoples’ Republic of
China, the Chinese people as well as the peoples of thé |
world are in for a new round of ‘“let-me-make-this
perfectly-clear’’ alibis.

What with Chairman Mao’s “Thoughts” and Tricky
Dicky’s unequalled talents in criminal ventures:
credibility gaps and the like, such a combination will sur€
as hell keep the local Maoists doing some tall explaining of |
their political “line.” But in the con game of splittiNe-
unity and creating a greater confusion, they will manas’
it. ae