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First public hearing ©
on rent review set —

The first of several hearings

throughout the province called: to

hear tenants’ proposals to the
provincial Rent Review Com-
mission has been scheduled for
Friday, May 23, 2 to 10 p.m. at 1655
Robson at Cardero. .

The hearing, organized by the
B.C. Tenants Organization, has
been financed from money made
available to the B.C.T.O. and the
Vancouver Tenants Council by the
Rent Review Commission.

The Rent Review Commission,

appointed some months ago
following an extensive campaign
by tenants asking that fair rents,
related to income, be established,
is slated to bring down its report by
August 1. Legislation is expected to
follow.

The B.C.T.O. pointed out that
landlords as well as ‘‘some people,
like Barry Clarke, the ren-
talsman’”’ have been attempting to
use the Rent Review Commission
as a means of abolishing the
present system of rent control,
inadequate though it is.

Poor kids stay poor in Canada

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

All children born in Canada do
not have an equal chance to rise as
far as their abilities will carry
them. If they are born poor, the
likelihood is that they will die poor.

This is hardly news to anyone
actively involved in movements for
social change. But it’s refreshing
and encouraging to hear it ex-
pressed in a report entitled “Poor
Kids” prepared by the National
Council on Welfare.

This report has some revealing
characteristics.

One quarter of Canada’s children
are living in poverty today. (The
definition of poverty used here is
that of Statistics Canada — where
more than 62 per cent of family
income is required to provide the
minimum necessities of life —
food, clothing and shelter). In B.C.
a total of 116,000 children, or 18 per
cent of all children in this so-called
rich province, live in poverty.

What may be surprising to many
is that 80 per cent of the children
living in poverty are in families

where both parents are present. In:

single-parent female-headed
families, 69 per cent of the children
live in poverty.

The government of Canada
produced a working paper on
health last year which stated that

‘welfare,

“good health is the bedrock on
which ‘social progress is built.’’ But
good health and poverty seldom go
hand in hand. Many poor kids
begin paying the price of their
poverty in stunted growth that
begins even before they are born.
Poor kids suffer from various
forms of ill health and retarded
development to a much greater
degree than other children.

Educational levels achieved by
children from poor families are
also lower. The desire to leave
school early and get out and get a
job and earn some money is far
stronger among children from poor
families. They really haven’t had
much choice. Their aim is lower
and they’re among the first to drop
out.

Only a few poor families manage
to get into public housing. For
those who don’t the result is rooms
in some overcrowded, under-
heated, rundown building.

The cruel barbs levelled against
people on welfare by our redneck,
well-fed politicians and by the
corporate owned press (who fail to
mention that only about three (3)
per cent of people on welfare are
employable and for these there are
no jobs available), have their ef-
fect on the children too. For kids on
summer

camps or

summer holidays with their
families are out. ;

I doubt that delinquency is
greater among poor kids than
among others. But I know that they
have to get tough and be ‘“‘street
smart” to survive. :

The list of the disadvantages suf-
fered by poor kids is endless. More
to the point, though is — what can
or should be done about it?

The authors of the report ‘‘Poor
Kids,’ the National Council on
Welfare, believes that the solution
lies in a guaranteed income that is
not below the poverty line. A
guaranteed annual income is a
good thing, one that has been
supported and advocated by the
trade union movement for some
time. Those who need it are not
only the people on welfare, but the
hundreds of thousands of people
working full time whose wages are
so low that they are below the
poverty line.

Personally I doubt that the
solution is that simple. I think a
whole number of other social
problems are involved here — the
low minimum wages across our
country, the laws which make it
extremely difficult to extend trade
union organization to the majority

of those employed, the lack of

housing and the refusal of
governments to do anything about
it, the steady rise in prices caused
by corporate price fixing among

‘the giant multinational cor- -

porations that have an economic
monopoly on just about everything
we buy, and most important of all,
the control of governments and the
whole apparatus and bureaucracy
of the state by corporate wealth to
make sure that we always have the
poor with us because this helps to

See RANKIN, pg. 10

~ report to the cabinet every Sep

_ parents. Apply to Rm. 4, 199 E. 8th,

“Tenants must make sure thal
their voices are heard and that the
Commission brings in a report the
protects and extends our
terests,” a B.C.T.O. release stated

The tenants’ organization
outlined a program as the basis f0
rent control legislation:

e The B.C. department- %
housing to establish a provinc®
wide Rental Housing Authority

e This authority to prepare

tember after holding publit
hearings, recommending

maximum allowable rent for
the different classes of premis

e The cabinet to set the rates 1
each different class with tht
proviso that municipal rental |
authorities be invested with the |
power to vary these rates eithet
upward or downward, subject !@ |
veto by the Rental Housing
Authority. |

e The municipal
authorities.to be appointed by th
Rental Housing Authority fro
nominees presented by both lal
dlord and tenant organizations !) ”
the area concerned. Equal repr® |
‘sentation with a chairman a
ceptable to both groups. =

e Tenants to have the right to bé
represented collectively before 4°
government bodies. f

The B.C. Tenants Organization is
also conducting a drive for neW |
members. Annual membership
fees which, in Vancouver, includé

embership in the Vancouvel
Tenants Council as well as the |
B.C.T.O., are$10 regular and $5 fot
senior citizens, students, those 02
social assistance and _ single

Vancouver.

Electrical workers in Rome protesting living costs and layoffs. Strike>
and demonstrations have taken place throughout Italy and othe!
European countries as inflation cuts deep into the standards of living 9"
the people and unemployment rises. The European Econom
‘Community (EEC) recently reported that the number of jobless in thé |
nine countries making up EEC has passed the four million mark. :

TOM
McEWEN

ne of the problems, in fact, the main problem facing

Socred leader Bill Bennett, is the unhappy recollections
of most British Columbians, that they had over 20 years of
Socred pontiff Wacky Bennett before him, and whatever
changes may be in store for this banner province, they
want no more of this monopoly-dominated shenanigans.
Undoubtedly the reality has missed William Jr.

Of course it’s a common habit with political hacks of
every vintage to forget (or ignore) the administrative
messes they have made in the past, to gloss these over by
devout promises to make better messes in the future. Just
look what we now have in lieu of a MackenzieKing, or
Maurice Duplessis or George Drew. :

The combined campaign against the NDP government,
which mining, logging and various other tycoons’ have
mounted to obstruct or otherwise nullify all that it has
been done for the common people, (and it has done a lot
despite its political shortcomings), is now being reflected

by the political gyrations of partisan nondescripts within’

the Legislature.

They may appear to be disunited in their search for
unity to oust the NDP government, but in their diligence
at digging up dirt, any kind of dirt, they have well earned

PACIFIC TRIBIUNE—

the title of a new role, that of loyal manure spreaders. The
vulgar have another word for manure in case the reader
prefers it.

Not that the Barrett government has done all or even’

half of what it should do, in keeping with its pre-election
pledges. But it holds tight to the theorum that the
Legislature is a democratic institution of the people,
where deliberate anarchy, disruption and obstruction of a
monopoly-controlled Establishment is not permitted. So it

is the heave-ho for the professional manure distributors,

whatever their label and get on with the peoples’ business.

Gawd knows, it costs the taxpayer enough anyway

without waiting time over a label-changing ceremony.

Nevertheless, should those who are critical of Socred
and Liberal behavior in the Legislature, as many of their
own partisan supporters are, just imagine the uproar that
would have ensued had there been a sprinkling of Com-
munists in the House to leaven the NDP baking. It would
have resembled a whole bevy of anti-Communist, anti-
NDP and anti-labor yodellers let loose to prove the
country was going to the dogs; a setting of the stage for
violence against the NDP as well as monopoly-concocted
hot air. Come next election that is an omission the elec-
torate should repair — to give point to the socialism of the
NDP — and monopoly with its political bellhops,
something to howl about.

British Columbia is not unique in this respect. In Quebec
and Ontario, the industrial heartland of Canada,

_ Creditistes nod their approval. —

monopoly capital along with its political jackrabbits is

already conspiring on how best to replace collective
bargaining with a system of all-inclusive compulsory |
arbitration, just as Trudeau did for the Vancouve!
longshoremen, with more finesse than common decency; |
plus a hell of a lot less freedoms and rights for the trade |
union movement. A sort of a creeping conspiracy to 10”
tegrate all unions in a corporate or police state after the
pattern set by Messrs. Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini. An
as Premier Bourassa of Quebec threateningly barks, “ff
the unions want violence I’ll give them violence,’’ thé

In B.C. or Quebec, the crisis effects may differ in slight
decree, but never the loyal manure spreaders regardless
of their partisan differences. The snarling of the Bennetts,
Phillips, McGeers et al is primarily at the NDP, but
basically, in both Houses, as across all Canada, it §
basically aimed at labor in motion and looking ahead.

~~ JIRIBONE

Editor — MAURICE RUSH

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