British Columbia

Gov'tslow

in acting
on spill

Continued from page 1

The criticism echoed the comments
of clean-up volunteers and local resi-
dents on the west coast of Vancouver
Island who have stated repeatedly
that the government failed to move
quickly to prevent environmental
damage and downplayed the effects
of the spill.

Although the 875,000-litre spill
fouled the shoreline on Washington’s
Olympic Peninsula and killed thou-
sands of birds, federal and provincial
government officials continued their
assurances that the spill was not a
threat to the Canadian coast since it
would break up at sea.

But even after the thick oil sludge
began appearing on beaches in Pacific
Rim National Park early in the New
Year, the response was slow in com-
ing. Initially, not even garbage bags
were being provided by either level of
government, forcing volunteers to
find their own supply.

The clean-up work has been led by
hundreds of volunteers, from the
Friends of Clayoquot Sound as well
as local residents, who have put in
long days on the beaches, shovelling
the oil into bags and storing them for
later disposal. They have far outnum-
bered the 65 paid workers — later
increased to 105 — brought in by two
clean-up companies, Burrard Clean
and Sprayaway Disposal Services
Ltd., hired by the Oregon-based
ocean towing company whose barge
caused the pre-Christmas spill.

But there are many areas which
volunteers cannot reach, prompting
calls for the federal government to
bring in the military to aid the clean-
up effort — calls which were not even
acknowledged until late this week.

“They’re flying politicians all over
the place but we can’t get helicopters
to get to the places we can’t reach,”
said Dave LeBlanc, a coast guard
search and rescue worker who has
been co-ordinating the work of volun-
teers from the headquarters set up in
the Tofino fire hall.

The politicians he referred to were

provincial Environment Minister
Bruce Strachan, acting federal Envir-
onment Minister Lucien Bouchard
and Fisheries Minister Tom Siddon
who visited the area affected by the
spill Jan. 9 and admitted that it was
“much worse” than initially thought.

It was only after the tour that more
federal and provincial assistance was
pledged, including coast guard moni-
toring to determine the extent of the
oil damage, increased staff and co-
ordination and helicopters. But there
were no plans to bring in the military
to assist in the clean-up.

Still at issue.as well are regulations
governing the transportation of oil
and other potentially damaging sub-
stances in Canadian waters. The oil
was reportedly dumped when the tug,
owned by Sause Bros. Ocean Towing
of Coos Bay, Oregon, punctured the
oil barge it was towing as it tried to
retrieve a tow line.

The accident has raised questions
about the safety of the oil barge,
whether its design and maintenance
was in compliance with current
regulations — and whether the regu-
lations themselves are adequate.

2 Pacific Tribune, January 16, 1989

Socred tenant

‘unclear &

The Social Credit government has
apparently bowed to long-time demands by
promising two key changes to tenant
legislation — but tenant advocacy groups
are sounding a cautionary note.

During the Christmas break Labour and
Consumer Services Minister Lyall Hanson
announced pending legislation that would
relieve tenants of the onerous task of pursu-
ing unreturned security deposits through
the courts: Additionally, the minister
pledged to bring some measure of tenancy
status to long-term hotel residents, many of
whom live in Vancouver’s downtown east-
side.

But changes are not forthcoming until at
least the opening of the spring session of the
legislature, and the ministry’s statements are
ambiguous, the Tribune was told.

Stephen Learey of the Downtown East-
side Residents Association said the prom-
ised changes could answer DERA’s 15-year
demand that tenants in the low-income
neighbourhood finally get treated as such.

“Some hotels play a game of tenancy.
They charge occupants a damage deposit,
but when they leave the deposit is not
returned, and if they get evicted, it’s without
official notice,” he said.

More than 10,000 downtown eastsiders
live in the area’s 380 hotels virtually as
tenants — paying monthly rents in occu-
pancies that frequently last years — but are
denied rights accorded by the Residential
Tenancy Act.

“People live in terror of the hotel man-
ager, who has all the power. (Under tenant
legislation), they won’t be able to do those
things anymore,” Learey said.

Noting DERA’s long campaign to get
downtown eastsiders covered by tenancy
legislation, Learey said such a development
would be “a great step forward.”

If, on the other hand, the government
establishes a system similar to the “designa-
tion” process that was in effect six years ago,
it would be discriminatory and of little use
to hotel dwellers, he cautioned.

The designation system required tenants
to apply to the now-abolished Rentalsman’s
Office for tenancy status. That status
became invalid when the tenant moved, and
in a campaign DERA was only able to

TRAC’S DAVID LANE...

persuade about six to seven per cent of the
hotel dwellers to apply, Learey said.

David Lane of the Tenants Rights Action
Centre cautioned that the government has
passed no legislation at present and has
made ‘“‘no committment to bring in what
we’ve been asking for.”

Lane said the ministry’s press release
provided no details, merely stating that
amendments to the Residential Tenancy
Act would remove claims for returned
damage deposits from Small Claims Court
and would provide “better protection” for
hotel dwellers. Deputy minister Jacqueline
Rice gave the centre no further information
when asked, he said.

For tenants in general a system of arbi-
tration to retrieve unreturned damage or
“security” deposits would end an estab-
lished system of abuse that has seen big
landlords garner millions of dollars at
tenants’ expense.

Lane said the process would be an
improvement, but noted it will still allow
landlords to arbitrarily decide who gets
returns and who doesn’t.

“We demand the abolition of security
deposits. But if that isn’t the case, we pro-
pose that security deposits be paid to the
Residential Tenancy Branch. It would be
returned automatically to the tenants when
they move, unless the landlord filed a claim
and proved his case.”

Both DERA and TRAC have charged
that big rental corporations have purchased
buildings with money amassed from unre-

Vancouver backs Japanese
peace monument project

Vancouver city council has backed a pro-
ject by a large Japanese peace movement
dedicated to removing nuclear weapons and
military bases from the area containing
Yokohama, a sister city.

Council wasted no time Jan. 10 in adopt-
ing a recommendation from its special
committee on peace to support the effort of
the Campaign for a Nuclear Free Kanag-
awa.

The campaign in the Kanagawa prefecture
—an administrative area similar to a
province — aims to
erect a large monu- |
ment to stand at the |
entrance to the pre-
fecture government
building in the capi-
tal, Yokohama.

The campaign is
asking the support
of “all the peoples in
the rim of the Paci-
fic,” campaign secret-
ary Takeshi Asami

ASAMI
stated in a letter to the peace committee.
Asami, who visited Vancouver last spring
en route to Oregon to plan an international

peace conference, said in a letter to city hall
that 27 of Kanagawa’s 32 municipalities
have declared themselves nuclear-free.

The: campaign was established in Janu-
ary, 1984, launching a petition that gathered
1.5 million signatures and successfully over-
seeing the adoption of nuclear-weapons free
declaration by the prefectural assembly in
July that year.

An industrial area, Kanagawa is the most
heavily militarized of Japan’s 47 prefec-
tures. Its population of 7.7 million must
share space with 20 U.S. military bases,
which are frequently visited by U.S. war-
ships capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Despite its declaration, the Kanagawa
prefectural government refuses to ban
nuclear-weapons carrying warships from its
harbours, Asami stated.

The monument is a two-meter high bronze
statue of a mother and child, sculpted by
artist Nobumichi Inoue. It will be mounted
on a two-metre stone base — which the
campaign hopes to place at the main
entrance to the governor’s office — which
will bear the names of individuals who con-
tribute to the project.

Cressey the landlord who generates the most complaints.

turned security deposits, or by making what
Lane calls “phony deductions” from the
deposit.

He pointed to a recent case where a
former tenant of Nacel Properties, owned
by landlord Norm Cressey, was charged for
clean-up work on items that his apartment
did not contain. Nacel, which owns more
than 60 apartment buildings in the Lower
Mainland, is the cause of most outstanding
complaints TRAC receives, Lane said.

Lane said it could be months before any
legislative changes are effected. But he said
the announcement is “an overall admission
that the government has been wrong all
along.”

He said there appears to be a trend in
which the Socreds take something away and
then return it, pointing to the recent rein-
statement of a $50 cutback for 20,000
GAIN recipients, and that fact that deposit
grievances were handled by the Rentals-
man’s Office before it was abolished and the
issue dumped on to Small Claims Court.

Meanwhile, the recent frantic land specu-
lation coupled with cutbacks in social hous-

ing construction has pushed rents up —

drastically around the Lower Mainland.
TRAC, DERA, the Vancouver and District
Public Housing Tenants Association, End

Legislated Poverty and the tenants of 1770 —

Barclay Street in Vancouver are appearing
before Vancouver city council Jan. 17 to
urge the city to press Victoria for permission
to establish a city rent review board.

Counting
on you

With less than three weeks to go
before our subscription drive ends,
we’re counting on you.

We’ve also been counting the days,
and we’re looking at how far we are
from achieving 300 new subs and 525
renewals by Feb. 1.

The figures are modest. Readers
and supporters have sold 107 new and
303 renewals to date.

To say we’ve got a way to go is an
understatement. But we’re still hoping
to make a respectable showing by
drive’s end.

Some readers have been more than
active, bringing in dozens of new subs
and renewal. But we want to be able
to count on the rest of you.

Please make that extra effort. Then
we can all count on a successful future
for the Tribune in 1989.

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