POTD A a TG EE al

Pe ee ae hee bas Boas

was denounced this week as ‘‘an
autocrat attempting to frustrate
the will of the majority‘on the ward
system.” The charge came from
COPE president Bruce Yorke who
responded to Volrich’s first press
conference since the election in
which he told reporters that the
51.5 percent majority was ‘no
mandate for change.”

“The people have spoken and no
one, not Jack Volrich, not the NPA,
not Victoria, will be allowed to
subvert the rule of the majority,”
Yorke said Monday. “‘The new city
council is under a_ strong
democratic mandate from all parts
of the city except the one ward in
south-west Marine Drive to take
the necessary steps to implement
the full ward system.”

With the addition of about 2,500
affidavit ballots counted this week,

. . . tell them we've got a goddamn newsprint shortage. .. .

the margin of the ward plebiscite
victory widened to nearly 52

‘Reform Metro’ sweeps Toronto

percent, a clear majority and far
greater than the 35 percent that
voted for ‘the ward system in 1973.

Election results also revealed
that the ward plebiscite carried in

Vancouver mayor Jack Volrich -

Reform Metro, the progressive
civic coalition in Toronto, made
significant gains in last week’s
municipal election, electing half of
the 18 candidates it endorsed for
Toronto city council and electing
eight of 17 candidates for the board
of education.

For the first time in 28 years a
member of the Communist Party
won office in Toronto, as 28 year
old printer Pat Case topped the
polls for school trustee in the
ent concentrated Ward
our.

Reform Metro also backed

victorious John Sewell in the
mayoralty race, who beat his right
wing opponent, Tony O’Donahue
by 10,000 votes. Although not a
socialist, Sewell has supported
civic reform and ran on an issue
oriented program of transportation
taxation, and rational planning and
development.

Reform Metro also saw Gordon
Crann, their choice for major in
East York, beat the incumbent. In
York Borough, Alderman Oscar
Kogan was re-elected for a third
term.

Allan Sparrow and Dan Heap were
handily reelected in the downtown
Ward six, although Heap broke
with the reform movement during
the campaign.

In another close race, Reform
Metro’s Susan Atkinson won 3,500
votes and narrowly missed election
as alderman in Ward two with the
backing of almost 150 campaign
volunteers, despite a concerted red
baiting campaign against her by
right wing emigre organizations
and the daily press, stressing her
membership in the CP.

The advances made the
reform movement were held back,
however, by a go it alone policy of
the New Democratic Party and the
Toronto Labor Council which
refused to unite with Reform Metro
and instead nominated in-
dependent NDP candidates. The
NDP’s policy met with mixed
success at best and contributed to
the defeat of a number of good
candidates, such as Marilyn Mesh-
berg, an alderman on North York
council with an almost perfect pro-
labor voting record. The NDP ran
against the incumbent Meshberg
and narrowly defeated her.

In Ward four in Toronto, two
aldermanic candidates running on
a high profile NDP ticket, Joe
Pantalone and John Madeiras
were defeated while Pat Case in a!
broadly based Reform Metro
campaign won election in the same
ward.

95 out of the city’s 134 polling
divisions, showing support for the

ward system over most of the city. .

The plebiscite actually did not
leave any room for the mayor, or
council, to interpret the results.
Rather the plebiscite, as published

| Mayor disregards
‘rule of majority’

in newspapers throughout the city,
including the Tribune, stated
“Should the majority of voters

indicate they prefer a ward

system, the following would occur:
1. Council would appoint a Com-
mittee to consider and report on
the number of wards, boundaries
of each ward and any other related
matters; 2. Application would be
made by council to the provincial
government to amend the city
charter; 3. If granted by 1980, you

would then elect aldermen to —

council by wards.”’

Neither did the plebiscite make
an application to amend the city’s

charter conditional on the results —

of the council’s committee study of
the matter. The clear wording
indicates that council must ask for
the charter to be amended on the

basis of the ward system, if the |

majority favored it.

Volrich intends to sidestep the
issue by “‘conveying the results to
Victoria.” That is quite different,

however, than applying for a

change in the charter as the vote
instructed and would not likely
stand up if challenged in the
courts.

Yorke said that the COPE
executive would meet
Tuesday and map out a plan of
action to see that ‘‘the will of the
majority is carried out.”

Debate over affidavit votes
could result in city recount

The result of a far reaching
debate over 3,800 ‘‘affidavit
ballots” from the Vancouver civic
election could be a judicial recount
that may elect COPE’s Phillip
Rankin to the Vancouver parks
board.

Rankin finished runner up in the
Parks board vote last week, only
958 votes behind NPA candidate
Philip Mowat. But with the
counting of 2,303 affidavit votes
this week, Rankin narrowed the
margin to 577 votes, and another
1,497 disputed affidavit votes are
yet to be counted.

The disputed affidavit ballots
opens up a broad issue that may
have to be settled in the courts.
COPE is insisting that all 3,800 of
the affidavit ballots be counted,
instead of the usual practice of the
city clerk to count only those
ballots cast by voters on a previous
voters’ list.

The source of the problem goes

back to the decision of former city —

clerk Doug Little, now an NPA
alderman, to economize during
enumeration and not ‘‘call back’’
to homes of tenants. The result was

fter three years of shamefully refusing to

honor its commitment to provide over $2
million for Vietnamese children, victims of the
10 year U.S. war of aggression, our Socred
government can hardly claim credits in the
humanitarian aid department.

Against that record it was incredulous, to say
the least, this week to hear human resources
minister Bill Vander Zalm rush to-the aid of the
so-called refugees on a boat in Malaysia that
none of Vietnam’s neighbors want anything to
do with. ; :

Those “‘refugees”’ were supporters of the U.S.
invasion of Vietnam who found the war
profitable enough to be able to buy their
passage out of the country in gold when the
liberation forces swept Saigon. Regardless,
their plight has evoked the ‘‘mercy’’ of Vander
Zalm who says the B.C. government will put up
the money for education, health care and other
things for 600 ‘‘refugees” to live here.

If the provincial government has the money,
and “mercy’’, to dole out for them, why can’t it
find the integrity and decency to honor B.C.’s
outstanding commitment, since 1973, to assist
Vietnamese children.

It was in February, 1973 that the present
labor minister, Alan Williams, then a Liberal
member of the opposition, introduced a
resolution to send $2.25 million in aid for
children fallen victim to the war. The
resolution received unanimous support from all
parties in the legislature. :

In May of 1976 during the legislative
estimates debate, premier Bill Bennett reaf-
firmed the province’s commitment. “The
money will have to be found, there is no doubt

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 24, 1978—Page 2

~

Vancouver have Harry, for his years of

PEOPLE AND ISSUES"

that the people of B.C. have made a com-
mitment in this area,” the premier was quoted
in the legislature. That same day, Bennett told
a Vancouver Sun reporter that he felt per-
sonally involved in the issue because “‘the
misfortune of the children of Vietnam is urgent
to me.”’

Somehow it became less and urgent to
Bennett and the Socreds, however, and
numerous appeals from the Canadian Aid for
Vietnam Civilians, various people’s
organizations and from the Vietnamese
themselves, have since fallen on deaf ears.
Only recently a delegation of Vietnamese
women renewed the appeal to Bennett, but
received no reply. And three weeks ago, the
Voice of Women, in their national conference in
Toronto, again reminded the Socreds of it,
demanding it make good on the promise.

It says a lot about the Socred government
that it would spend public funds to settle more
right wing emigres in B.C., while the account
owing the children of Vietnam remains un-
settled. And on this. score, the government
should be particularly vulnerable to public
criticism of its continuing betrayal of the lawful
pledge of our legislative assembly.

* oe

: * 4 ~
hen the polls closed last Wednesday in |

Vancouver, for the second time in as many
years, alderman Harry Rankin emerged as the
most popular figure in the city, receiving more
votes than any other alderman and more votes
than the mayor.

The vote was the best possible expression of
the tremendous respect that the people of

10,000 fewer tenants on the voters’

service to them and for his characteristic
frankness in stating his politics bluntly.

The day after the election, as candidates and
campaign workers slowed down for deserved
holidays, Harry set out for his long awaited
vacation, a rather rugged respite from politics,
mountain climbing in the Himalayas.

It was all going fine until he arrived at the
U.S. border on his way to catch a plane in
Seattle and was told that he was classified as an
undesirable element and would not be allowed
to enter the country. Apparently, the same
qualities that have made him the most popular
civic figure in Vancouver have also made
Harry an enemy of the U.S. establishment and
have earned him a place of honor in their
“black book’ of ‘“‘communists and _ sub-
versives.”’

No doubt the border guard experienced first
hand Harry’s bluntness before he returned to
Vancouver and set off again to join his group,
but via London, England.

Harry will likely have more to say about it
when he returns, but the incident certainly
provides a vivid contrast between a growing
popular movement in Canada and the outdated,
McCarthyite policies of the U.S. State
Department.

* * *

R ecovering well from a recent heart attack

is Walter Gawrycki whose innumberable
friends in the progressive movement will be
pleased to hear that Walter returned home
from St. Pauls hospital this Friday. At 71,

Walter is still a fighter and should be back in
his old form very soon.

list this year than in 1976 and a
marked increase in the number of
affidavit ballots. Voters not on the
voters’ list can swear an affidavit
and vote, but the ballot is put aside
and counted last, only after
verification with a previous voters’
list.

In a statement to the city clerk,

Bob Henry, requesting: that no

ballots be destroyed, COPE

president Bruce Yorke said Sunday ~

that all the affidavit ballots should
be counted because each of the

voters has sworn to be an eligible.

voter and each are under the
impression that their vote will be
counted and none have been in-

formed of the possibility that their

vote will not be counted. Even
mayor Volrich stated repeatedly
during the campaign that any
eligible voter not on the list would
have their vote counted.

The practice of using only past —
voters’ lists as verification leaves —

out whole classes of people such as
those who have only come of age to
vote in the prior two years or those
who have moved to Vancouver in
that period.

COPE also sent a telegram to
minister of municipal affairs Hugh
Curtis requesting a judicial
decision be made on the 1,498
disputed affidavit ballots.

“The principle at stake is the
unfettered right of all citizens who
are eligible to vote to be able to
actually exercise this most fun-
damental of all rights,” it said.

The political signficance of the -

dispute is seen in the nearly two to

one margin that COPE has over ~

the NPA in the counted affidavit

ballots. If the same margin applied -

to remaining 1498, Rankin would
come within 439 votes of Mowat,

which may be close enough to ask °

for another count. But if a similar
margin was applied to the 10,000
tenants left off the voters’ list this
year, the result could be a
significant shift in the popular vote

towards COPE and the election ofa ~
___number of COPE candidates.

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