“Stop agitating . . . Don't you know we have to fight inflation?” Save Boundary Bay for people’s needs A major confrontation is shaping up between people who want at least a small portion of land in the Lower Mainland kept for parks and recreation, and developers who see in the Boundary Bay area a veritable gold mine through land speculation. BACM Development Corpor- ation, according to reports, has spent some months and many thousands of dollars doing a “‘preliminary’’ report on how the Boundary Bay area can be made profitable — to them. Conservationists and ecologists have also made a long-time of the situation and are opposed to any development. BACM’s scheme calls for a project that would see some 50,000 people living in the vicinity of Boundary Bay. Ecologists say that many-people would put an end to hope of retaining even a semblance of a natural environment. During the hot spell Vancouver has experienced this summer, the few parks within driving distance of the city see more people than trees by a Saturday morning. Cultus, Allouette, Aldergrove and the Squamish area, as well as the beaches at Kits and NDP names candidates Paddy Neale, secretary of the Vancouver and District Labor Council, was chosen to run for mayor in this fall’s civic elections by delegates attending an NDP nominating convention ’ last week. Others chosen were John Stanton, Paul Sabatino, Hilda Thomas, Harry Winrob and Angus Macdonald ‘as alder- manic candidates; Norman Read, Jake Rempel, Lillian Whit- ney, Amy Dalgleish and Nigel Nixon for school board. Parks board candidates are Peter Dent, Roy Lowther and Peter Davies. The remaining candidates -to make up a full slate on an NDP- COPE-LABOR ticket will be nominated by the Vancouver Labor Council. Alderman Harry Rankin, Ron Gomez and Bruce Yorke were chosen in June at a COPE nomin- “ating convention to run as aldermanic candidates, with Peggy Chunn, Paul Mitchell, Donald Greenwell, Sid Sheltor. and Ed Leong chosen as school and parks board candidates. A joint program is being worked out by the three groups -coneerned. Les English Bay are awash with bodies trying to escape the heat and noise of city streets for a few brief hours. As Vancouver grows there will be increasing need for more parks and more islands of nature left untouched. Boundary Bay must be one of them. Mayor Dugald Morrison of Delta is in the position where he must weigh the development, with its consequent revenues, against leaving the Boundary Bay vicinity as a park for people. The government at Victoria gives no help-in strengthening the financial situation so the lures of commercial develop- ment would be less enticing. Boundary Bay has never been set aside as a park although it has long served as a recrea- tional area. Obviously the govern- ment, as usual, prefers high risers and factories over parks. Wildlife — fish, fowl; and even seals which inhabit the area would suffer from development. Boundary Bay would be lost permanently as a mecca of recreation and relaxation, no matter how well planned the development. Howard Paish, a former direc- tor of the B.C. Wildlife Feder- ation, has this to say in his report: ‘‘From a purely ecological standpoint there are strong and technically sound arguments to support the reten- tion of Boundary Bay ina natural state for park purposes. It would be extremely difficult to refute these arguments on ecological grounds.” Provincial government cabinet ministers Kiernan and Williston are scheduled to meet with the Delta Council on July 24. In the meantime thousands of people are signing petitions against the threat of losing this area to smoke, smog and the pollution that goes inevitably - with modern exploitation. Civic Housing Authority needed for quick action By ALD. HARRY RANKIN I believe the best way to tackle the urgent problem of low cost housing would be for City Council to set up a Municipal Housing Authority under its _ direct control. The Authority would not only be responsible for all low rental housing projects in the city — more important, it would be charged with taking advantage of all existing powers and legis- lation to initiate new low rental housing projects of various kinds. The Authority should, of course, include representatives of labor and other community groups. There is no valid reason why such a Municipal Housing Authority could not go into the house building business itself. Why give private contractors a profit of 10 percent or more? Why shouldn’t the city make this profit and re-invest it in more housing? The Municipal Housing Authority should buy up old properties such as houses and hotels and renovate them into clean, modern low rental units. The Hilton and Stanley Hotels in Goastown, for instance, could be renovated for the people who live there now. Furthermore, the present inhabitants could be given some employment in helping with the renovation. There are many similar old properties in the city that could be converted. It would be one way of replacing slum housing with modern, live- able homes and suites. The Five Year Plan passed by referendum vote last year includes $1 million for low cost housing. Council only agreed to this after I made it clear that I would not support the Five Year Plan unless it did include some provision for low cost housing. The Municipal Housing Authority could make use of this fund now. The National Housing Act, Section 35A, provides funds for low rental housing with the fed- eral government putting up 75 percent of the capital cost and the provincial government 25 percent. The city’s share is limited to 12% percent of the operating deficit. Under Sections 35C and 35D long term loans are available for 90 percent of the construction costs, bearing an interest rate of 8% percent for a term of 50 years. Furthermore, under Section 35E the federal govern- ment will contribute up to 50 percent of the annual operating losses incurred. Under Section 16 of the National Housing Act loans of up to 95 percent with interest rates of 7% percent may be secured for senior citizens low rental housing. Furthermore, the provincial government has a one third capital cost grant if the city puts up 10 percent of the overall cost of such a project. As is evident from the above, funds are available if we will only go after them. Our Muni- cipal Housing Authority could take advantage of this legis- lation and initiate a large scale low rental housing program, to build 2500 new units a year, with at least 500 of these for senior citizens. What it all boils down to is this. We have the means but City Council hasn’t the desire. The pressure of real estate interests and apartment owners 0D Council is great. They want to perpetuate the housing shortage because-it means higher prices and higher rents. This will only be changed when either the pressure of the people for low rental housing becomes greater than that of real estate interests or apartment owners, or when new aldermen aré elected to Council who will respond to the needs of the people and not just servé CELEBRATE CUBA’S NATIONAL HOLIDAY — SUNDAY, JULY 26 Garden Party at 3882 Yale, Vancouver, 2:30-7 p.m. Dinner 5-7 p.m. Adults $1.50 Children 75¢ ~ Proceeds, Cuban School for Blind corporate interests. 4 E very law placed on the statute books containing pro- visions directed against labor and the people is, as the lawyers say, ipso facto; in short it means that in a so-called democratic society the party in power has ceased to govern by the authority by and from whom it derives its power to do so, (the people), and substitutes arbitrary partisan decrees in place of just laws. In a class society, dictated by the whims and interests of a — privileged monopoly class, this ‘‘legal’’ usurpation of power, even though it may be dressed up to ‘“‘serve the interests of all the people’’, is primarily applied by government to serve the interest: of powerful monopoly, and has nothing in common whatsoever with the general wellbeing of the people. Governments having to resort to the application of such laws and statutes, and again particularly with respect to labor, do not demonstrate a position of strength (wide popularity) when doing so. On the contrary every government having to resort to such measurés illustrate their weakness, irresponsibility, and political bankruptcy. The history of all so-called democracies is replete with such illustrations of legislative and/or extra-legal enactments. Laws like Section 98 of the Criminal Code and similar enactments, largely by Order-in-Council (O-in-C); that is decrees not passed by act of parliament of legislative assemblies, where the elected ‘‘voice’’ of the people can be heard, but by secret sessions of members of a ministerial cabinet of ‘‘governor-in-council,’’ who assume an authority — never conferred upon them by an electoral body. Canadian “‘law-makers’’ have been notorious for this sort of rump “‘laws’’ designed to restrict, curtail, or destroy entirely, various and numerous freedoms which. workers in particular come to regard as inviolate; until bang, some tin-horn magistrate with one stroke of his pen, can cancel out or annul _the rights of hundreds of workers. The injunction racket, highly used and “‘legalized”’ in B.C., is one of the more common illustrations of this type of legal abuse against working people. Some years ago we used to have a few prominent so-called labor leaders who tried to tell us our modern society in its class divisions was just ‘‘one happy family’’, that there was no class struggle, that all such ideas were poppycock, and that Marxists who argued there was such a struggle were all haywire, trouble- makers, etc., etc. Now these voices are all happily very silent. The injunction record in B.C. alone has silenced them. They are learning the hard way, thanks to the ‘‘legislative’’ goon squad we have in Victoria called Social Credit, elected in the last electoral farce to ‘‘save B.C. from Socialism’’. How many Bills W.A.C. Bennett may invoke against labor and the people during this ‘‘long hot summer”’ is anybody’s guess, but with the Employers’ Council of B.C. egging him on, it may be expected WAC will throw the book at workers on strike or workers deprived of the right to work and demanding full compensation for their wives and children. And don’t look or feel surprised. That is precisely how Bennett and company regard their job of ‘‘saving’’ B.C. for Big Business, and consequently ‘from Socialism”’. Its time labor and the people got rid of their ‘‘legal’’ blinkers and got to see things as they really are. When they do, Bennett won't have enough jails in B.C. to hold the awakened ones — not even with federal aid from ‘‘Just Society” Trudeau. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1970—Page 2'' ey ae Lope tals Serb € 6925-4 THAT. DSUDAG, hehe