GREATER VANCOUVER

Communities
to fight

transit
levy hike

demanded.

adds $5.31 to each B.C. Hydro bill.

The “taxation without representa-
tion” that makes citizens bear an
increasing share of public transit costs
must be withdrawn, a newly-formed
coalition of community groups: has

The “transit levy campaign,” set to
be launched July 2, has targetted the
231-per cent increase in the Lower
Mainland’s regional transit levy that

Jean Swanson of the Solidarity
Coalition, one of the sponsoring

Remove ‘time bomb’ from cit
waterfront, coalition demand

_ Alarm and anger raised by a coalition of
citizens groups and trade unions over the
location of a hazardous commodities ship-
ment dock has highlighted the long-
standing demands for removal of all such
substances from Greater Vancouver’s
“inner harbor.”

The Vancouver Waterfront Coalition
has hit the federal government for breaking
a promise to remove dangerous cargoes
from the port by January of this year and
for relocating the transshipment point to
the aging Burlington Northern Railway
ferry slip.

Meanwhile, the Vancouver and District
Labor Council’s transshipment of danger-
ous commodities committee has demanded
that a plan for removal of the substances
from the region be struck and that regulat-
ing authority be ceded to a local body.

At a public meeting in Strathcona neigh-
borhood last week the coalition’s Shane

_ begins next year.

groups, says the campaign will also
focus on the demand to renegotiate a
transit-cost sharing agreement with
the provincial government that forces
municipalities to hike taxes to alle-
viate the staggering debt incurred by
the Skytrain rapid transit system.

. Last month the Council of Senior
Citizens Organizations passed <a
motion against the hike. Delegates to
the June meeting, representing some
120,000 B.C. old age pensioners,
charged that the levy was imposed
without public input.

“From what we can determine, this
is illegal under the B.C. Transit Act,”
said council representative Ed Apps.

Simpson pointed out the disastrous situa-
tion whereby three major chemcials —
propane, anhydrous ammonia and sulphur
dioxide — are being shipped through the
busiest section of the Vancouver port adja-
cent to thousands of residents.

The coalition warns that residents in the
Downtown Eastside are “living next to a
time bomb” since any of those chemicals, if
spilled and ignited, could engulf an area in
excess of a circumference of 800 metres.

The federal Vancouver Port Corporation
moved the transshipment point from the
Canadian Pacific ferry slip adjacent to the
new Pan Pacific Hotel and the Expo Can-

ada Pavilion. Ironically, the CP slip, of the
more recent vintage, is considered far safer
than the Burlington Northern slip, con-
structed early in the century.

But the CP slip is in an area slated for
redevelopment. Marathon Realty, CP’s real
estate arms, is known to be planning con-
struction on the site.

While thousands of office workers fill the
buildings next to the CP pier downtown, on
a 24-hour basis the Burlington Northern
slip probably exposes more people to the
dangers of a chemical explosion, says water-
front coalition spokesman John Shayler.

“There’s no one who supports the loca-

tion of hazardous chemicals on the Van- _

couver waterfront,” said Shayler, who notes
that the mayors of 14 Lower Mainland
muncipalities have urged the Railway
Transport Committee — a branch of the
Canadian Transportation Commission,
itself an arm of the federal transportation
ministry — to pull all shipments, storage
and manufacture of hazardous commodi-
ties from Greater Vancouver’s harbor.

The members of the waterfront coalition
— which include the unions associated with
port traffic, and community groups such as
the Downtown Eastside Residents Associa-
tion — state that the commission’s plans to
allow transshipment through the Burling-
ton Northern facility for the next five years
is unacceptable.

The coalition has an ally in RTC com-
missioner Mike Landers, who wrote in a
report dissenting from the decision to relo-
cate the chemicals to the BN slip: “I see no

reason why the residents of east Vane?
Surrey, Delta or any of the commun!
the lower Fraser River should be exp
any greater danger to which
already subject. at
“In my opinion, there has not bets
date a proper system of planning 40
' sultation among the carriers, municPe”
provincial (and) federal governmenls
citizens’ groups,” he wrote.

Paul Lawrence, a member of Local gl
of the United Transportation Unit ® | |
chair of the Vancouver Labor ©?
hazardous commodities committee
scores the need for a comprehensive F
for waterfront development. 7

“There must be an overall plan otf
gerous commodities, not just for the *
Mainland, but from Hope to Victonl®
Lawerence.

“Unless an overall plan is there, ©
companies will simply apply for 4%
five years (to run shipments throu e
slip),” he said. : 1

Lawrence said there are preceden ent ;
citizens taking control of such ship
citing as examples the powerful Oj)
groups in California’s Silicon Valleys’
closer to home, the control the 10
chief has over hazardous shipments ®
tle. ;

A conference of citizens’ group’ (4) |
trade unions is set for Nov. 8-9 at the? |
Edward campus of the Vancouvel 1
munity College. Lawrence said the ai™
produce proposals similar to the Vat
peace proposals which arose from the™ |
day peace festival in April.

Swanson charged that the levy is
discriminatory “because it makes
food bank users pay the same as a
millionaire.”

Apps said seniors at the meeting
signed a petition demanding the levy
be rescinded and the issue be debated
in public meetings.

“We warned when the government
was planning to put in the costly
ALRT system that we’d be forced to

- pay for most of it. Now that our pre-
dictions have borne fruit, the govern-
ment is trying to do this without
public input,” he said.

The current levy was announced
two months ago by the Greater Van-
couver regional transit commission, a
government-appointed body consist-
ing of six Lower Mainland mayors
and Vancouver Non-Partisan Associ-

~ ation alderman, Gordon Campbell.

Under the current cost-sharing
agreement, 35 per cent of the region’s
transit costs are funded through the _
fare box. (The recent hike in transit
fares is being fought by the coalition
through a,B.C. Supreme Court peti-
tion.)

The remainder is split 60-40
between the province and the region,
respectively. The region is allowed to
raise its share through a special gaso-
line tax, residential and industrial
property taxes, and the B.C. Hydro
bill levy.

It gets worse next year when the
share to be raised through fares goes
up to 42 per cent. And, Swanson
warned, transit costs for Skytrain
— already estimated at around $1
billion — will rise when construction
on the Surrey extension of the line

The coalition asserts that the pro-
vince can, if it desires, pay for ALRT
through general revenues, citing the
precedent in 1984 when the govern-
ment through its annual budget
retired B.C. Rail corporation’s $470-
million deifict.

Vancouver proposals show cities}

can lead in peace initiatives

The citizens of Vancouver can be justly
proud of the fact that in this, our centen-
nial year, the city is recognized across our
country as the Peace Capital of Canada.
Our annual peace walks are the biggest in
Canada. Our city has been declared a

nuclear weapons free zone by city council.

The nine day Peace Festival held in
April became the largest and most ambi-
tious event of its kind in Canadian history.
It brought together thousands of people to
develop strategies for preventing. nuclear
war and for working together to build a
secure world for the future.

The major highlight of the Festival was
a three-day symposium, addressed by
prominent peace spokesmen from all over
the world. The average attendance was
1,200 people per session — one more
demonstration of how concerned people

here are with the issue of peace.

Arising from the symposium was a stra-
tegy for peace which has now become
known as the Vancouver Proposals for
Peace, outlined below.

“1. A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,
stopping all further testing of nuclear
weapons. We urge the United States to
respond to the Soviet initiative by imme-
diately ceasing nuclear testing and urge the
Soviet Union to extend its moratorium.
We call upon other nuclear states to stop
all nuclear weapons tests.

“A ban on all weapons in space.

“3. A freeze on development, testing or
deployment of new nuclear weapons and
their delivery systems.

“4, Immediate and substantial reduc-
tions in the existing nuclear arsenals.

“5. The establishment of nuclear
weapons-free zones in Central Europe, the

Rankin

Nordic and Balkan regions and the Indian
and North Atlantic Oceans and com-
pliance by the nuclear-weapons states with
the newly established South Pacific
Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty.

“6. Renunciation by all states, and in
particular by the nuclear-weapons states,
of the use or threat of force and interven-
tion in the affairs of other states, and a
commitment to negotiate an agreement to
that effect. :

“7, Recognizing that the arms race is
having serious negative effects, both on
the nations involved and on the whole
world, it is now urgently necessary to
reduce substantially all military budgets
and transfer the resources thus saved to
the promotion of-human well-being.”

These Vancouver Proposals for Peace
were presented to city council on June 24
for endorsement by the council’s special
committee on peace, headed by Ald.
Libby Davies. The committee also pro-
posed city council forward the Vancouver
Proposals for Peace to the Canadian
government and to the leaders of other
political parties in Canada, to the UN
Third Special Session on Disarmament, to
the leaders of all NATO and Warsaw Pact
countries and to the heads of state of
Argentina, India, Tanzania, Sweden,
Greece and Mexico.

Council endorsed the Vancouver P#
osals for Peace plus the other recomm™
dations for action. But the vote Wa" |)
unanimous. Opposing it were aldert®?

Gordon Campbell, George Puil, M: '
ite Ford and Don Bellamy.
Ald. Campbell’s about face was ite |

esting. He walked in the front ranks % pot ||
peace walk in April, no doubt hoping ot |
this exposure would enhance his maye
alty campaign. But in city council, wh ov
came down to the nitty gritty of “are 4
for peace or the arms race,” he V9 ca
against the Vancouver proposals. YOU" |}
draw your own conclusions.

“The measures we have proposed of i
essential first steps back from the e
oblivion toward a peaceful world. aod

_ within the power of the people of each ot ) 4

every country to exercise their 1 |
determine and preserve their own futon
to intervene and to compel a chang? od |
course. ..Let us act together now t0 © » |)
the arms race and to fund human ne”

I am confident that the citizens of VE
couver will continue to support co"
and the labor-backed majority OF
council in any and every steps they take
help preserve peace in the world.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 2, 1986