HALT U.S. ENCROACHMENT

Encourage Canadian TV programs

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Alderman Art _ Phillips
(TEAM) introduced a motion at
City Council meeting, April 21,
calling on Council to present a
brief to the Canadian Radio and
Television Commission protest-
ing steps being considered by the
commission to curb the import
of American TV programs and to
increase the Canadian content
of both radio and TV.

The commission is conducting
public hearings on changes in
regulations governing TV and
radio in Canada which would:

. Allow no more than four com-

mercials an hour on TV and

limit their time to 12 minutes per
hour.

. Compel AM radio to carry at
least 30 percent of Canadian
music and programming.

. Compel all TV stations to
increase the Canadian content
of their programs to 60 percent.

. Allow cablevision com-
panies to bring into Canada only
one commercial American
channel in areas that already
have it and allow new companies
to carry only Canadian stations.

Alderman Phillips charged
that this would interfere with
the right of Canadians to decide
what they want to watch on cable-

RENT REVIEW BY-LAW

vision. But what he didn’t admit
was that when cablevision
companies (many of them are
U.S. controlled) bring in only
U.S. programs and ignore Cana-
dian programs and do nothing to
produce Canadian programs,
they are themselves already
deciding what Canadians ‘may
and may not watch.

Every country in the world
with an ounce of self respect
sees to it that its radio and TV
carry mainly home produced
programs.. Only in Canada do we
find business interests willing to
sell out our country to foreign
corporate interests. This
applies not only or even mainly
to radio and TV. It applies even
more to our rich natural
resources, almost all of which
are now in foreign hands. Even

= US: photographers and

directors are brought into
Canada to make TV com-
mercials for the Canadian
market. :

I’m strongly of the opinion that
Canadian-produced programs
should be encouraged. We have
a distinctive Canadian culture
and our own sense of values
which should be preserved and

promoted in the face of U.S. .

encroachment. We can _ get

along without the violence,
exploitation of sex and war glori- ~

fication that characterizes
American TV today — produced
by the same interests that

Surrey takes first step |
to check runaway rents ©

Surrey Municipal Council has
taken the initial step to establish
the province’s first municipal
rental review board.

On Monday, April 20, council
by a six to two vote gave first
reading (adoption in principle)
to the Surrey Rental Review
Board By-law (3129). Final
readings will take place on May
4.

Ed Gassman, chairman of the
newly formed Surrey Tenants
council, led an_ overflow
delegation of citizens to the

council meeting. He presented a
brief in support of the proposed
by-law which was sponsored by
Alderman Ron Ross.

The proposed by-law was
drawn up under the enabling
provisions of the provincial
Rent Control Act of 1954. This is
the same provincial statue
under which the Vancouver city
council set up a Rental Accom-
modation Grievance Board.

However, the proposed by-law
gives Surrey Rental Review

HOSPITAL CRISIS

Hospital services in B.C. face
severe curtailment as a result of
recent announcements’ by
Health Minister Ralph Loff-
mark that the Socred govern-
ment will cut grants to hospitals.

Loffmark said recently that

‘the provincial government will

meet only 70 percent of salary
increases recently awarded
hospital employees. He followed
this with another statement that
staff cuts will be needed to
reduce hospital costs in B.C.

The B.C. Hospital Association
has estimated that that the
proposed cost-cutting measure
would lead to curtailing hospital
staffs by about 1,200. B.C.
hospitals are already operating
with insufficient staff. Recent
federal statistics show that B.C.
has the lowest staff-patient ratio
of any province in Canada.

.. The Registered Nurses Associ-
ation of B.C. called for a full
public inquiry into financing of
health care in the province. Ina
brief presented to the Cabinet
last fall the association called

for action to halt the deteriora-
tion of provincial health
services.

The nurses’ brief pointed out
the growing crisis in health care
had led.to the removal of public
health nurses from some senior
secondary schools at a time
when students are becoming
increasingly involved in such
problems as drug use and
actually require more, not less,
attention from public health
nurses.

In some school districts the
provincial government has no
permitted more public healt
nurses despite the fact that they
experienced an unusually great
increase in population. The areas
affected are Surrey, Delta,
Coquitlam, New Westminister
and Kamloops. .

Hospital employees received
an eight percent increase from
January 1 which is in line with
those granted by the provincial
government to its other
employees, but in the case of the

See HOSPITALS, Pg. 11

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-—MAY 1,-19706- Rage 2°" 4"

Board considerably more power
than the Vancouver grievance
board.

The Surrey by-law would
enable its board to establish
guidelines to deal with unreason-
able rent increases. Its
regulations provide that any rent
increase must be shown to be
commensurate in operating
expenses, interest rates and
taxes.

The Surrey by-law also
provides that its board shall
revoke any notice to quit
(eviction notice) given by a land-
lord unless the landlord proves
that the tenant is causing
excessive damage; two months

~ arrears in rent; is a nuisance to

his neighbours; is using the
premises for illegal activity, or
that the landlord requires the
premises for the use of his own
immediate family.

Bruce Yorke, secretary of the
B.C. Tenants Organization
welcomes the initial action taken
‘by Surrey Municipal Council.

“This is an important first
step. Surrey tenants and their
supporters throughout the
province will do everything they
can to assure final passage of the
by-law when it comes up for final
reading in two weeks time.
Delegations of Surrey tenants
plan to visit every individual
alderman to make sure that the
bylaw goes through as is.

“When passed, the Surrey
Rental Review Board By-law
will serve both as a model for all
B.C. municipalities, and as a
very important addition to the
reforms, recently enacted in the
Provincial Landlord and Tenant
Acts.

continue the brutal war against
the people of Vietnam.

We have the talent, lots of it,
and the creative ability. We have
all the necessary facilities.

-Canadian produced programs

(TV shows and films by the
National Film Board) have won
world-wide acclaim and awards.
Private broadcasters insult
Canadians when they keep
saying that we haven't the talent
and that if we increase Cana-
dian content we will replace
good U.S. programs with bad
Canadian ones.
But even though they say this,
I don’t think they believe it them-
selves. What they really object
to is spending some of their very
high profits in the production of
original Canadian programs.

The misleading and stupid com>
mercials now inflicted on
viewers should be cut down.
Even 12 minutes an hour is twice -
too much.

More and better Canadian
produced programs would be
good for Canada and its people.
Since our privately controlled
radio, TV and cablevision

“ companies haven’t enough sense

of public responsibility and
concern for our country to do SO
voluntarily, they must be com:
pelled to do so by law. If they
keep on objecting and putting up
roadblocks, the whole business
should be taken: over by the
government and operated as 4
public enterprise for the public
benefit.

’ sales office, with appropriate decor and frock-coated-striped-

Pp rosecution of the United States by Canada, oF
Canada by the United States for pollution of the
Great Lakes will have to be ‘considered in the future” says J.
L. MacCallum, legal adviser to the International Joint Council
on pollution.

Mr. MacCallum tells us in one of his recent oratories on the
subject that ‘‘when your own hands are not entirely clean, you
are reluctant to tell somebody else to wash his.”’

How very true, Mr. MacCallum old chap, how very true.
On both sides of this great ‘“‘undefended”’ border stretching _
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the giant monopoly free-
enterprisers are, and have been engaged for sometime now
poisoning and polluting the land and its’ people, outraging all
nature, and all for the purpose of amassing a mountain of profit
dollars. And while:the gutless and puny So called “Jegislators”’
in senate, congress and parliament make loud noises on and
about this deliberate polluting and poisoning of all nature, the
evil grows apace.

There are always problems cropping up when the pot
accuses the kettle of being black, just as if Herr Pierre
Trudeau were to tell Herr Richard Nixon to go and wash the
blood of Vietnamese mothers and children from his hands —
with his own far from clean. It’s the same with pollution, sO
both sides cover-up with high-sounding speeches about making
the world a fit sewer to live in — according to monopoly
standards. A good step would be to wash your own hands
first—then tell the other fellow.

More polluted pot pourri. According to a lengthy editorial
in the March 14 Toronto Star we learn that lacking money “iS
only one way to be poor.”’ We can also suffer from “‘poverty of
purpose”’ or a “‘poverty of spirit,” or a “‘poverty of feeling for
the people around us.”’ No end of ideas on how to be poor. On
that last score we could even deduce that M. Trudeau and his
ilk across Canada are ‘‘poverty-stricken”’ indeed. None worse.

But when the average Canadian housewife goes to the Big
Chain for the week’s groceries, no matter how loaded she may
be with “‘purpose,”’ if she doesn’t happen to have the “Jong
green”’ to cover the prices demanded, her bag of groceries iS
an impoverished package indeed. As far as the Star’s homilies
on “poverty” are concerned, it-might have mentioned that
Canada suffers no poverty at all of long-winded political
orateurs who excel in tightening the nation’s belt — while
loosening its own, but little else, except perhaps that
““poverty”’ of morals the famed Mafia is said to suffer from.

Recently it has come to my attention through the
publication of a ducky little monthly magazine entitled Canada
Today/Aujourdhui, which goes out in large numbers to
businessmen gratis, that the real role of the Canadian —
Embassy in Washington is that of a well-stocked grandiose

trousered salesman to make due salaams before the
customers, of course.

Vast and rare deposits of rich minerals, great areas of
timber wealth, mighty rivers, lakes and streams (many not yet
contaminated), great hydropower resources are on display —
all readily available at basement-bargain prices, or just @
quick grab or a neighborly ‘‘give away.” As they say in the Big
House (jail), ‘“‘the joint has been cased’’ and now all that
remains is to pick up the boodle coveted.

The old U.S. annexationists and their Canadian bagme?
who sought to grab off B.C. wholesale just prior to 1871, never |
had it so good. Now we provide them with a sales office "ea

facilitate. the plundering. still
Ain't life (for some) grand? \ Yor
a