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‘Keep Carnegie library
for use of community’

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

What to do with the old museum,
(also known as the Carnegie
Library), at the corner of Main and
Hastings is still an unresolved
issue at City Hall.

Mayor Art Phillips wants it sold
— to private interests, of course.
That’s hardly surprising.

The Downtown’ Eastside
Residents Association (DERA),
wants it renovated and turned into
a community centre for the people
of the area. In making this
recommendation it has received a
wide spectrum of public support.

Wyder Properties, owned by
Wyder, the developer who has
announced his candidature for
mayor, wants the property for
commercial offices, a bank and a
restaurant.

As for City Council, it has gone
through its usual exercise of
manoeuvring and mind-changing
aimed at giving the appearance of
inviting suggestions from the
public when all the time the

City NDP rejects unity

By JACK PHILLIPS

According to reports from last
Sunday’s annual meeting of the
Vancouver Area Council of the
New Democratic Party, the
prospects for unity between the
NDP and the Committee of
Progressive Electors in the
November election have not im-
proved. This was borne out by a
press release issued after the
meeting.

According to that statement, the
meeting voted ‘‘almost
unanimously to field a full slate of
NDP candidates in the December
election, but also left the door open
for co-operation with other com-
munity groups which support NDP
policy.”

Judging by the informal reports
of some who were there, the go-it-
alone resolution was adopted in
principle. This could be construed
as a concession to those in the
party who do not favor running
NDP candidates on a straight
party ticket; or as a manoeuvre to
set the stage for ‘a discussion with
officers of the Vancouver Labor
Council who are instructed to
explore the possibility of a united

SS Se : SS

slate involving COPE and the
NDP. :

The intentions of the new
executive are spelled out in the
statement of principles endorsed
by the 13 executive members, all of
whom ran and were elected on the
so-called socialist slate. A few
quotations will illustrate this point:

“1. Run candidates as the NDP
in municipal elections.

“9. Work for the elimination of
the executive city and the creation
of a socialist Vancouver.

“3. Fight civic issues on the
basis of NDP civic policy. These
policies have been developed over
six years by dedicated party
workers. They have been used

McEwen in hospital

Tom McEwen is in Vancouver
General Hospital where he un-
derwent an hernia operation on
Tuesday. He is in Rm. 888 at the
Centennial Pavilion. Tom waited
for weeks for a hospital bed to

= undergo the operation. The staff of
the Tribune and our readers wish

Tom a speedy recovery.

and/or misused, mainly by COPE,
and also by TEAM. We must
continue to be the only party in the
city which arrives at decisions and
socialist policy by open and
democratic procedures.”

Judging by the slate of officers
elected, the Trotskyites remain in
control of the VAC and can be
counted on to obstruct every
genuine move toward unity of the
labor and democratic forces.

Names like Phil Lyons and Brian
Campbell, the two past presidents
in that order, do not appear in the
new list of officers. But with Hilda
Thomas as president, Tom Hanson
as first vice-president and Jim
LeMaistre as second vice-
president, it is not likely there will
be any fresh approach to unity,
unless the trade union movement is
successful in bringing about a
change.

Clive Lytle, assistant secretary-
treasurer of the B.C. Federation of

Labor, and Hans Brown, business’

agent of the Hospital Employees
Union, were elected on the so-
called socialist slate. Both have

-See UNITY pg. 3

Se

dominant faction on council — the
TEAM-NPA coalition headed by
Mayor Phillips and alderman Jack
Volrich — intend to turn it over to
private interests. The political
step-dancing engaged in by council
included the following:

o June 5, 1973 — Council ap-
proved in principle renovation
costs of $697,000 and preparations
were begun on working drawings
for the renovation.

o April 23, 1974 — Council
resolved that tenders be called for
the use of the building.

o July 2, 1974 — The city ad-
vertises Carnegie Library for sale
or lease. ;

o April 15, 1975 — Council moved
that $650,000 be appropriated for
renovations to the building in the
1976 budget estimates.

o Nov. 6, 1975 — The mayor, ina
letter to council, recommended
that the building be sold.

Nov. 18, 1975 — Council resolved
that the City solicit bids for lease of
the Carnegie Library for any legal
use, it being made clear that the

‘building is a designated heritage

structure; further that these bids
be in the hands of the city by the
end of January, 1976. (In the
meantime — September 9, 1974 —
the building had been declared a
‘Heritage Structure’’ by the
Vancouver Heritage Advisory
Board.) :

The old museum was built in 1902
by means of a $50,000 grant
received from the steel magnate

(or industrial pirate, you can
choose your own term), Andrew
Carnegie. It was then called the
Carnegie Library.

Inits early years it also provided
aroom for “‘poor’”’ boys, 50 to 100 of
whom came in daily to read and
play games; another room was
used as a reading and games room
for “ragged”? men, 200 to 500 of
whom came in daily.

Later another storey was added
for a museum.

After the new library was built
on Burrard and a new museum if
Kitsilano area, the building was
closed down. It’s been gathering
dust, cobwebs and pigeon drop
pings since that time.

Structurally it is still a sound
building, and architecturally it is
an historic monument. To sell it of
lease to some private developer for
personal money-grubbing pur-
poses would be both shameful and
irresponsible.

To my mind there is no better
way to use this building than
turn it into a community centre fol
the people who live in this sectioll
of the city — many of them single
and poor, with no place to spend
their days socially except in sleazy
beer parlors.

I think the city should renovaté
the place, I believe this would cost
around $650,000, and turn it over t0
the people for use as a communily
centre. This would be in keeping

SEE RANKIN, pg. 11

Entrance to the Soviet Red Cross hospital in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis

Ababa is shown here. The hospital is very popular among the
inhabitants and is now being enlarged and will have 2% times mole).
beds. Surgeons, internists and other Soviet specialists work in thé

hospital.

ith sadness and a deep sense of great loss we dedicate

this column to the passing of Dora Bjarnason. In her
3rd year and active until just a few short weeks ago, Dora
was a loved and respected member of the Broadway Club
of the Communist Party of Canada. When she left us to
cross the Great Divide she left in-our hearts and minds the
pattern of a brave and courageous woman, cheerful and
lovable and beyond all else, devoted to the cause of
Communism which was her life’s ideal.

Despite her years and the infirmities of age, Dora very
rarely missed a club meeting, and if she did it was only
because the failing health of age had been unkind to her.
Yet, even despite this Dora was always cheerful, always
keenly interested in the ups and downs of daily life, and
always devoted to the struggle, whether it was of a local
nature, or international in its scope and direction.

For many years before moving to British Columbia
Dora Bjarnason and her husband Paul (predeceased)
were active in the cultural and political movement in the
Wynyard district of Saskatchewan, identifying them-
selves mainly with the cultural and revolutionary
traditions of the Icelandic peoples. (Never out of his

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 27, 1976—Page 2

native Canada, Paul Bjarnason later translated the
poems of Iceland’s foremost poets and published these in
his books, Odes And Echoes. To this outstanding tran-
slation Paul Bjarnason added many of his own, thus
contributing to the multinational culture of Canadiana).

In this atmosphere of enlightenment and struggle, Dora
Bjarnason blazed a trail that will not soon fade as part of
the heritage of the Prairies and of British Columbia. And
as though that weren’t enough, this unique woman reared
a big family of sons and daughters, with much of the
burden in the Depression days of the Hungry 30’s, when a
mother’s lot to keep her family clothed and fed was not an
easy one. Yet Dora Bjarnason met this test as she did all
others, with a mother’s love for her children, and a
Communist’s love of justice, human brotherhood and
peace.

Dora Bjarnason belonged to the great world and
national party of Marxism-Leninism. Her devotion to this
Party expressed the epitome of her being. She rejoiced in
its victories, no matter how small, and remained un-
daunted by its temporary defeats. To Comrade Dora these

~ latter only meant a new challenge, to do better the next

time around.

In the titanic world struggle for lasting peace and
detente — or the lesser struggle for adequate bread for a
neighbor family, Dora was always in the front line of
battle. To her, one was-part of the other, as the immortal

Lenin once projected in his demand for “‘Land, Peace and

Bread.”
How is one to assess the sad loss to the party and the
working class of a member like Dora Bjarnason? When

you have said all that the heart dictates, it still seems
pitifully inadequate. It would seem therefore that only 4
younger generation of youth can answer this momentous
question: to take the banner from Dora’s aged and loving
hands when death commanded that she lay it down, and to
carry it forward with the same consistency, devotion and
courage as she herself displayed in all the adult life of he!
83 years.

In that setting, with the vigor and revolutionary elan of
youth, her dreams and activities and sterling devotion to #
cause will be realized, and all the Tomorrows would be a5
she would have hoped them to be.

Dora Bjarnason has crossed the Great Divide, but the
magnificent example she left with us, remains. Let us
keep that trust as we pay a brief tribute to her Memory, 4
last hail and farewell to our beloved Dora Bjarnason. An!

~-as she would have wished it: :

“No work begun shall ever pause for death.”

RiIBUNE

Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA

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