‘Act strips
tenants of
protection’

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The Residential Tenancy Act
introduced into the provincial
legislature on Agust 17 by Rafe
Mair, minister of consumer af-
fairs, will effectively abolish
whatever limited protection B.C.
tenants received under the Lan-
dlord and Tenant Act and under
legislation limiting rent increases.

The new act gives the cabinet
authority to raise or reduce rent
increase limits or to abolish rent
controls completely. The process
by which tenants may be evicted is
speeded up. The government
appointed rentalsman (who at
present is Barrie Clarke who has
the well deserved reputation of
being biased in favor of landlords)
will be given still greater powers.

Mair admitted that the intent of
the new act is to strengthen the
powers of landlords and to remove
rent controls as quickly. as
possible. He also indicated that the
Lower Mainland would be one of
thefirst areas to have rent controls
lifted.

The new act replaces the Lan-
dlord and Tenant Act and the
legislation passed last May (but
never proclaimed and made law)
limiting rent increases to seven
percent. Until now the limit has
been 10.6 percent although many
landlords have imposed much
higher increases with impunity.

The majority of apartments in
Vancouver are owned by big
operations. They will be the
beneficiaries of this legislation.
Well over half of the citizens of
Vancouver are tenants; they will
be the victims and the losers.

This new act is consistent with
the philosophy of the provincial
government, which is to take more
money out of the pockets of
working people and the poor, and
hand it over to corporate interests.
Almost every piece of legislation
introduced by this government
since it assumed office has been
aimed at increasing corporate
handouts and decreasing services
to the people and charging more
for any services they get.

Under the Social Credit govern-

ment, corporate welfare has
become B.C.’s biggest industry.

Tenants ask

BCHMC
probe

A full scale: investigation of
public housing being administered
by the B.C. Housing Management
Commission and its general
manager was demanded last week
by the Vancouver and District
Housing Tenants Association.

Charging “‘blatant abuse’’ of 25
percent of income _ rental
agreements by BCHMC and
“outright arrogance’”’ in dealings
with tenants, as well as neglect in
maintenance of public housing, the
B.C. tenants group charged in a
public statement that ‘except in a
few minor cases” attempts at
negotiations have been ‘“‘almost a
total failure.”’

The tenants said that at-
tempts over two years to deal with
tenant problems through direct
negotiations have failed.

RESTRAIN =
URGES 3

Feat

Kelly Douglas, which operates Super Valu stores, and is part of the
George Weston monopoly, announced last week that its net earnings in
the six months ended June 18 were nearly double the earnings for the
corresponding period of 1976. Profits were doubled on total sales of
$450 million compared to $405 million the year before, aes the
much greater profits realized on sales in 1977.

Alcan decision queried
as talks near deadline

Negotiations are proceeding this
week between Canada and the
building of the Alcan natural gas
pipeline as the September 1
deadline approaches.

The U.S. Congress gave
president Jimmy Carter until that
date to reach a decision on which
line the U.S. favors. If a decision is
not reached by that time, Carter
has the option of taking another 90
day period to reach a decision.

There is no indication at this
time whether the current
negotiations can be concluded by
then. The talks between U.S. and
Canadian negotiators is being kept
in the deepest secrecy from the
public. Prime minister Pierre
Trudeau gave president Carter a
commitment that Canada would
give its final decision by the
September 1 deadline. He said last
week that of negotiations reach a
deadlock he and Carter may have
to hold an emergency meeting.

While the Canadian government
is pressing ahead with the Alcan
pipeline deal, which would sell out
Canada’s national interests to the
U.S. by granting a corridor
through Canadian territory for a
line serving only U.S. interests,
concern continues to grow among
the Canadian ‘public.

The latest trade union to express
doubt over whether the pipeline
will bring any benfits to Canada is
the United Electrical, Radio and
Machine Workers Union (UE). In
the August 15 issue of UE News the
union said that ‘‘deep concern is
being expressed that the Liberal
government acted with undue
haste in coming toa decision on the
(Alcan) pipeline.”

At the height of the pipeline
controversy last month, UE
secretary-treasurer George Harris
sent a letter to Trudeau posing
three questions which the union
thought were basic to whether the
Alean line should go ahead. The
three conditions were:

e Is a specific project needed
and will it be of benefit to the
Canadian people?

© Have the land claims and other
interests of the native people of the
area been negotiated and agreed
on?

o Is there full assurance of
environmental protection?

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 26, 1977—Page 2

In his letter Harris said that ‘‘it
would be another crime against the
native people if their land claims
and environmental demands were
not settled by mutual agreement
prior to any major construction
development in their ancestral
homeland.”

UE News reports that following
the cabinet’s decision to go ahead
with the Alcan pipeline, Harris
said that ‘“‘Canadians are wary of
the decision of the federal cabinet
to go ahead with the Alcan natural
gas pipeline, and rightly so,
because while the prime minister
has publicly promised that the
need for a pipeline and its benefits
to Canadians would be a prime
consideration in coming to a
decision, the cabinet has failed to
take the country into its confidence
and explain how this is so.

‘Tn faciliating the flow of natural
gas to the industrial collossus to
our south, how is this in the in-
terests of Canada? What are
Canada’s present and future
natural gas needs, and how can
they best be met?

“These are questions that
demand straight answers, and yet
the government continues to be
vague and, in essence, is saying
‘trust us.’ ”

Noting that the National Energy
Board recommended a Dempster
Highway lateral to bring out
Canadian gas in the future, Harris
said he tended to agree with a
recent piece written by Globe and
Mail columnist Geoffrey Stevens,
in which he cast serious doubt on
the Dempster proposal.

‘*As Stevens states, the Demp-
ster lateral sounds great but it’s
never been studied in depth, except
Berger warns about the en-
vironmental complications and
Lysyk finds serious doubt that the
highway is compatible with a
pipeline.

“This is why Stevens ends his
column with a bit of common sense
advice that Trudeau would have
been well advised to heed,’’ Harris
said.

“So what do we do?” Stevens
asked. ‘“‘Maybe the one thing we
don’t do is rush into a decision
before we are sure that we know
what we are doing.”

Security policies
cause of concern

The recent disclosures that a
large number of lists of ‘‘security
risks” are being compiled by the
Solicitor General’s Department
and the Security Planning Analysis
Branch of that Department
“should cause deep concern among
democratic Canadians” says a
statement issued last week by the
central executive of the Com-
munist Party of Canada.

“It is distrubing to note who is
considered a security risk. CUPE,
NFU, the Indian Movement, the
NDP, these organieations and
others are, according the the
RCMP and the Security Branch the
security risks. This raises an in-
teresting question. What con-
sistutes a threat to Canada’s
security,”’ asks the CP statement.

Pointing out that the lists do not
include the Establishment or any
member of it, the multi-national
corporations, or the racists and
pro-fascists, the CP statement says
that “according to the RCMP and
the Security Branch any
movement which opposes the
status quo and which, in one way or
another advocates social change,
is a security risk, a threat to
Canada’s security. Otherwise why
would trade unions, farm
movements, Indian Movements,
‘social reform movements be under
investigation and labelled a
security risk?

A recent story in~the Toronto
Globe and Mail on the Security
Branch reveals that Colonel
Bourne’s group, which is in charge
of the program, privately briefs
new cabinet ministers, deputy
ministers, important government
officials and industrialists ‘‘about
possible dangerous organizations
and people in the country.”

The Globe and Mail story says
that its information source says
that ‘labor groups and their

traditional political affiliate, the.

New Democratic Party, have
always been a primary concern of
the Bourne group and the RCMP.”

Charing that the link-up between
the government, the Security
Branch, the RCMP and the cor-

CUPE is one of the trade unions
that the Solicitor General and the
RCMP considers a security risk.
Also included are the NDP,
Indian, farm and social reform
movements.

‘carefully scrutinized.

porations has nothing to do with the
security of Canada but much to do
with maintaining the status quo,
the CP statement says:

“Tn the opinion of the Communist
Party of Canada, the threat to
Canada’s security comes from
those who support aggression
abroad and voilence against the
people in Canada. Such voilence
can take on many forms. It in-
cludes advocacy of racism, of
genocide, of anti-Semitism, of
fascism. These forces combined
with those who connive in the U.S.
takeover of Canada and thereby
undermine Canada’s in-
dependence, threaten Canada’s
security.

They are the forces to be wat-
ched and acted against.”

Posing the question: Why are the
lists being published at this time?
the CP statement asks: ‘“‘Could it
be related to the continued
economic crisis for which the
government and_ those it
represents have no real answer,
except to load it on the backs of the
people? Could it be related to a
forthcoming federal election and
the effort insome quarters to do a
red-baiting, McCarthy-type with
hunt on opponents of the status
quo?”’

The CP statement warns that the
recent disclosures should not’ be
‘Jaughed-off.”’ It urges constant
vigilance and united action by
democratic Canadians in defence
of democratic rights.

The present security lists should
be destroyed because they are an —
affront to Canada and democratic
rights, says the CP statement. It
calls for complete overhaul of
Canada’s security forces.

Pointing out that Canada’s
security must be upheld, the CP
says that this requires a fun-
damental re-appraisal of who and
what consistitutes a security risk.
It also calls for parliamentary
control over security bodies and
thir memberships, which should be
“Recent
events in connection with the
RCMP clearly underscores this,”
says the CP statement.

Civic gov't
hit by Bill

At tempts by the Opposition in the
B.C. Legislature to hoist the
Municipal Amendment Act for six
months failed this week as the
Socred government indicated its
intention to push through with Bill
42.

The new Act would permit the
provincial government to interfere
in local government decisions and
overturn any by-law adopted by
civic governments. The act has
been criticized as downgrading
civic governments, and as a boon ~
to developers who have sought the
legislation.

A hot debate on the act is ex-
pected at the Union of B.C.

Municipalities conference in
September.

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — FRED WILSON
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