BRITISH COLUMBIA

Fight
for youth, ’
council

VICTORIA — After months of
campaigning by local community
organizations, city council has agreed
to provide downtown youth with a
special recreation centre — but it’s
not enough, an unemployment activist
and aldermanic candidate charges.

“Unfortunately, council’s offer does
not include any money for utilities or
staff,” said Peter Ramsey of the Victo-
ria Unemployed and Welfare Rights
Action Society.

Ramsey, who also runs as an
aldermanic candidate for the Victoria
Organization of Involved and Con-
cerned Electors, said the relative lack
of support for a fully financed youth
centre contrasts with council’s green-
light stance on a proposed downtown
Eatons’ megamall.

Despite its reputation as a retire-
ment city, Victoria among Canadian
cities experiences one of the heaviest
congestions of young people gather-
ing downtown.

urged |

More events mark $7 WD

“Women Everywhere Unite” is the
theme this year as the province’s women’s
movement gears up to celebrate Interna-
tional Women’s Day March 8.

Poster and photo displays, a march and
rally, and a conference sponsored by the
Women’s Committee of the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor are just a few of the events
scheduled for Vancouver.. And women’s
organizations in Nanaimo are planning that
city’s first march and rally to commemorate
the day and highlight the call for nuclear
disarmament.

Events in Vancouver begin on March 1
when poster and photo displays detailing
the history of International Women’s Day,
women in unions and women in South
Africa go on view at the Vancouver Public-
Library and the Carnegie Centre.

Vancouver’s march and rally will be held
on Saturday, March 7. Organizers are ask-
ing people to assemble at the Georgia Street
side of the Vancouver Art Gallery at 10:30
a.m. so that the march through downtown
can begin at 11 a.m. sharp.

The event is sponsored by the ines
tional Women’s Day Committee, a coali-
tion of various trade unions, concerned
women, and women’s organizations, inclu-
ding Women’s Economic Agenda, Con-
gress of Canadian Women, Women in
Focus, Office and Technical Employees
Union Local 378, North Shore Women’s
Centre and the Vancouver Society for
Immigrant Women. The rally at | p.m., also
at the Art Gallery, will feature a panel of
international speakers and focus on eco-

The B.C. Fed’s Women’s Committee
wants to explore new ways to increase the
effectiveness of women in their trade unions
at their conference entitled “Tapping the
Source.” The conference itself is open only
to trade union women who are required to
register through their union office at a cost
of $25. But the opening session on Friday,
March 6, and a “Feminist Happy Hour”
social scheduled for Saturday evening are
open to everyone.

The public meeting on March 6 will be
held at Robson Square Media Centre at
7:30 p.m. Featured speakers include Edith
Johnson, a retired activist from the United
Auto Workers, and Nancy Riche, an execu-
tive vice-president of the Canadian Labor
Congress. Saturday’s social begins at 5 p.m.
also at the Robson Square Media Centre.
Participants in the conference will be joining
the march and rally on Saturday morning.

The call for disarmament will be the
focus of a luncheon sponsored by the Con-
gress of Canadian of Women on Sunday,
March 8. Special guests at the luncheon will
be Elena Kamenetskaya from the Academy
of Sciences of the USSR and Connie Van
Pratt, of the Institute for Security and Co-
operation in Outerspace, from the United
States. The luncheon begins at | p.m. at the
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. Admis-
sion is $8.

Last year in Nanaimo some 400 women
participated in the events around Interna-
tional Women’s Day and this year organiz-
ers hope for an even greater attendance at
two days of events.

1986 march.

IWD in Vancouver .

Canadian Women and Women in Dialogue —

are working together to hold Nanaimo’s
first International Women’s Day march
and rally. The march on Saturday March 7
begins at 12 noon at city hall and will pro-
ceed to the court house for a rally featuring

local speakers, including: Maxine Zurbrigg,

president of the CUPE local at Malaspina
College.

A dance and social are set for the evening
celebration on March 7 beginning at 7 p.m.
at the Branch’10 Legion on Wallace Street.
Special international guest speakers include

Elena Kamenetskaya and Connie Von

Pratt.

Workshops, educationals on_ health
issues and economic issues, including free
trade, arts and crafts displays, and book
sales, are all part of Sunday’s events in
Nanaimo. Set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at

Malaspina College all events are free and

Procuring a drop-in centre for ) :
free childcare is available.

The Nanaimo Branch of the Congress of

young people has been the object of a
campaign by the 18-month old Asso-
ciation of Street Kids (ASK), who
have petitioned the mayor’s task force
on youth for a fully financed centre.

The city’s response was to donate a
building far from the area where

youth usually gather, placing it under
the administration of the more
recently formed Alliance Club.

While supportive of “any move” to
create a centre for youth, Ramsey said
funding problems may doom the cen-
tre before it is even started.

Ina letter Ramsey hit council for its
“bootstraps approach” — making the
community responsible for the bulk
of the funding.

He urged council to create a social
services branch for jobless youth and
to put pressure on the federal and
provincial governments to create jobs.

Meanwhile, opposition to the con-
struction of a gigantic Eatons mall
covering two blocks of Victoria’s
downtown — a move which would
mean the destruction of several
heritage-quality buildings — con-
tinues to be opposed in meetings and
rallies.

More than 3,600 residents have
signed a petition calling for a review of
the plan. An opinion poll contracted
by Cadillac-Fairview is being kept
secret, said Ramsey.

Council has established the office
of special development commissioner
to review the Cadillac-Fairview pro-

In a letter to the commissioner,
Gwyn Symmons, Communist Party
branch secretary Ernie Knott blamed
the economic decline in the city’s
downtown core on the loss of several
industries and jobs since 1979.

“What Victoria needs is ... new
job-creating industries and revitaliza-
tion of closed older industries to
supply the shopping dollars,” he
wrote.

In the event the project proceeds, it
should be built with union labor,
ensure “maximum heritage protec-
tion,” include a land sale and tax deal
that protects taxpayers, and include a
youth centre, Knott stated.

nomic and health and reproductive issues.

When does 40 per cent plus one consti-
tute a majority?

ANSWER: When the NPA determines
that 59.9 per cent of the electorate is not a
majority for change in a plebiscite on a
ward system for Vancouver.

This version of democracy as conceived
by NPA mayor Gordon Campbell is the
fate of the longstanding desire of the
majority of Vancouver citizens for a ward
system.

During the election when he wanted to
appear as a political moderate, Campbell
said that as mayor he would support a
ward system for Vancouver. Now the
mayor has presented a set of proposed

_ charter amendments which amount to a
manoeuvre to frustrate the implementa-
tion of a ward system.

Vancouver has already approved a
ward system in two plebiscites. But the
new plebiscite that the NPA has asked the
provincial government to allow requires
that 60 per cent of the voters approve the
plebiscite question. And the question itself
may beso cumbersome — possibly inclu-
ding the number of aldermen, boundaries
of wards, and the option for a full ward
system or a partial ward system — that a
60 per cent majority will be extremely dif-
ficult to achieve.

The ward system was one of several
issues before city council Feb. 3 when it
deliberated amendments to the City Char-
ter that the city will seek from the provin-
cial legislature. In addition to the 60 per
cent requirement in a new plebiscite, the

three year term for members of council.
They defeated a motion by Ald. Eriksen
for a charter amendment requiring public
disclosure of the amount and source of
campaign donations over $100, and also
defeated a motion from Ald. Davies to
change the title “alderman” to the non-
sexist term, “‘coucillor.”

QUESTION: When are 10 per cent cuts
in the budgets of city departments not
cutbacks in city services?

NPA fields ‘trick’ w

NPA also voted to ask the province for a

Answer: when the NPA pretends is
public that there won’t be cutbacks and
layoffs, but prepares for just that in pri-
vate.

The process to adopt the 1987 Van-
couver budget has now begun and it is
obvious that cutbacks in city services and
employment are being planned, in spite of
Gordon Campbell’s many assurances dur-
ing the election that the NPA would main-
tain services and jobs.

City departments have already pre-
pared lists of “reductions” of up to 10 per
cent. Before department estimates are
brought to the finance committee for
debate, these will be given a private politi-
cal screening by the NPA. There have
already been howls of protest from the

ward plan —

ment, and kept taxes low. Recent data
collected by the city of Edmonton showed
that Vancouver had the lowest property
tax increase (4.9 per cent) of any major city
in Canada between 1981 and 1986.
QUESTION: What is a fair wage?

ANSWER: The cheapest non-union
wage that the NPA’s contractor friends
can get away with.

The Vancouver Charter requires that “a
fair wage” be paid to construction workers
that do city business under contract. One
of the major accomplishments of the pre-
vious council was to define that fair wage
and stop contractors from making exces-
sive profits out of city contracts by paying
very low wages.

As expected, the NPA has now abol-
ished the fair wage schedule. They ignored

seven NPA park board members who
warned in a private letter to council that
political problems will result if the 10 per
cent cuts are applied to the park system.
The Committee of Progressive Electors

aldermen and COPE representative Bruce

Yorke will be carefully monitoring the
direction of the 1987 budget and will alert
the community to what cuts or changes
are proposed. The COPE aldermen were

successful in having council call a public .

meeting to hear delegations on the 1987
budget, on April 13. This will be your
opportunity to speak out in support of
services and jobs. Plan to be there.
Vancouver has been recognized as a
model of fiscally responsible government
that has maintained services and employ-

Libby Davies
Bruce Eriksen

the presentations of over 20 delegations
who demonstrated the social value of the
fair wage policy. The council will now

- include in tenders the humorous provision
that “fair wages” be paid. What is a fair .

wage? Whatever the contractor wants to
pay, of course.

COMING UP: The COPE show on
CJOR 600, Thursday, Feb. 26, Harry
Rankin will host a program on CJOR,
8:30 a.m. to 12 Noon, on the United
Nations Year of the Homeless, and hous-
ing and poverty in Vancouver. MLA John
Cashore will be there to discuss housing
and social services in B.C. and Harry and
David Lane of the Tenants Rights Action
Centre will receive calls on housing and
tenant problems.

—

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 25, 1987