BRITISH COLUMBIA

A public meeting of all groups inter-
ested in opposing B.C. Telephone’s
intent to raise phone rates 15 per cent will
be called by Vancouver city council
sometime in January.

Council voted 7-4 to contact “pen-
sioner organizations, trade unions,
tenants, consumer associations, anti-
poverty groups, women’s organizations,
small businesses and all other interested
parties” at the last regular meeting of the
1982-84 council Nov. 27.

Tle motion, from Ald. Bruce Yorke
of the Committee of Progressive Elec-
tors, cited the current application by CN-
CP Telecommunications for de-regulation
of phone rates as the context in which the
latest B.C. Tel application is being made.

The council was near-unanimous in its
opposition to the hike, agreeing to write
F. Belisle, secretary-general of the federal
regulatory body, the Canadian Radio-
television and Telecommunications
Commission (CRTC) and K.D.A. Mor-
“rison, secretary of B.C. Tel, serving
notice of council’s intention to oppose

B.C. Tel has filed an application for
another rate increase — this time for an
additional 15 per cent. It’s the second
application for an increase filed this year.
The first one was successful; we saw the
results in our increased phone bill on
July 1. ae

There is absolutely no economic rea-
son for this rate increase. It’s a clear case
of the company using its monopoly,
granted to it by the government, to
squeeze every cent it can out of
us — and remember that B.C. Tel is an
American-owned company and its prof-
its go out of the country.

The shameful thing about these appli-
cations, which have appeared twice a
year now for some time is that they are
invariably granted by the government-
appointed Canadian Radio-television
and Telecommunications Commission.
It is supposed to guard the public against
monopoly profiteering; instead it places
the stamp of approval on it.

Vancouver city council decided- on
Nov. 27 to present a brief in opposition
to the proposed 15 per cent rate increase.
A motion by Ald..Bruce Yorke to this
effect was passed, and as usual opposed
by Ald. Warnett Kennedy.

A 15 per cent boost in our telephone
rates is bad enough. But that’s not all. In
the background are proposals to: (a) de-
regulate long distance calls; and, (b) de-
regulate the whole telephone industry
across Canada. Let’s just look at what
these proposals would mean.

For the two big U.S.-owned telephone
monopolies in Canada, B.C. Tel in B.C.
and Bell Canada in Ontario and Quebec,
long-distance calls have been highly prof-
itable. They should be at the rates the
companies charge and the way the rates
are rigged. If oten costs more to phone
some community in B.C. than it costs to
phone New York or Florida.

Now CN-CP Telecommunications
want to muscle in on this profitable
racket, with the promise that it will bring
down rates on long distance calls. That
promise is worth about as much as Mul-
roney’s-election promises.

B.C. Tel and Bell Canada have both
stated that if they lose the monopoly on
long distance calls, they will raise all their
rates for residential users to make up the
difference. Bell Canada said it would
double its rates.

Council to call public
meeting on B.C. Tel hike

the hike at CRTC hearings Feb. 1-8.

The mayor and aldermen also agreed
to contact all other B.C. municipalities
urging councils to oppose the hike at the
hearings.

Additionally, they resolved to contact
organizations to inform them of the
deadline — Dec. 10 — for applications
to intervene in the CRTC hearings.

COPE aldermen, Yorke, Libby Davies,
Bruce Eriksen and Harry Rankin joined
with Ald. Bill Yee and Mayor Mike Har-
court in voting for the public meeting,
organized through the mayor’s office as
a means of exchanging “information
regarding positions to be taken.”

Yorke’s motion noted council aided
groups opposed to a B.C. Tel hike two
years ago in making representation
before the CRTC.

Council also voted earlier this year to
oppose de-regulation, which involves
opening up the long-distance market to
B.C. Tel’s competitors, resulting in huge
increases in phone rental rates and a pos-
sible “user pay” system for local calls.

Charges for local calls
likely if hike is granted

The CRTC is considering the issue
now, as is the Tory government in
Ottawa. Naturally the commission will
do-what the government wants it to do.

The Tory government is also consider-
ing completely de-regulating the whole
telephone industry. That would be a
catastrophe for residential users. It
would result in a whole new series of
charges to residential users, and a shift of
charges from business to residential.

The companies would then have the
right to close down any branch of the
service that they consider not profitable
enough. Many people who find a tele-
phone ah absolute need in their lives
would no longer be able to afford one.

If the telephone industry is de-
regulated, a new rate structure called
“unbundling” would be introduced. This
would include the following:

e A greatly increased charge for hav-
ing a telephone in your home and using
B.C. Tel lines for this purpose;

Rankin

e@A charge for all long-distance
enquiries;

e A special charge for the right to
make long distance calls, whether you
make any or not;

e@ A greatly increased rental fee for the

‘ telephone if you are renting it from the

telephone company;
@ A new charge called “Local Mea-
sures Service.”

In the U.S., telephone service has:

already been de-regulated. What are the
results? Basic local phone charges have
already increased by 40 per cent with the
prospect of them being increased to
between 200 and 400 per cent in the near
future.

If telephone service in. Canada is de-
regulated many people will be forced to
give up their phones. Community organ-
izations won’t be able to afford phoning
their members. It will be a disaster.

Are we going to let the new Tory.
government in Ottawa and the telephone
monopolies get away with this?

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 5, 1984

Anger and pledges of action have greeted
Education Minister Jack Heinrich’s scut-
tling of a plan to save teachers’ jobs for the
rest of the school year, said a Courtenay
school trustee.

Trustee Wayne Bradley was set to move
Dec. 4 that the board host a series of public
meetings on Heinrich’s refusal to allow
some “creative bookkeeping” that would
have prevented the layoff of some 25
teachers and an estimated similar number
of support staff in January.

Bradley said the —~
mood on the board ey
was such that the
motion, along with
a proposal to con-
vene an emergency
meeting of the Van-
couver Island Branch
of the B.C. School
Trustees Association,
was certain of suc- :
cess. WAYNE

“Tt’s the first time? BRADLEY
we’ve really been united. Last week we held
an all-day meeting and there was absolutely
no question about taking the government
on — we spent the day figuring out how we
were going to do it,” he said. ~

The uproar, felt far beyond the boundar-
ies of Courtenay, arose after the ministry
refused to co-operate with the board’s plan

to pay its teachers over a 12-month period,
rather than the traditional 10 months.

To do this the board proposed taking
money from the first two months of next |
year’s budget, which, due to changes in the
fiscal year for school boards, begins in July.

The move caught the imagination of the
other boards, since it would postpone the lay-

offs of more than 2,000 teachers across the |
province. It was a one-shot proposal, made
possible by the change in the fiscal year, andit —
would have prevented chaos arising fromthe
mid-term layoff of teachers and staff atno

additional cost to the ministry. =
Trustees were outraged when Heinrich

stated that although he wouldn’t stop the. ;
boards from taking this direction, the minis- _

try would alter the timing ofits fiscal transfers

to the boards, making the move impossible. _

“Heinrich has finally been flushed out in
the open on this one,” said Bradly, referring
to charges from teachers and trustees that
the minister is taking aim at school staff jobs
and salaries in this year’s financing.

Heinrich’s pronouncement also threat- —
ens a three-per cent wage offer the Courte-
nay board had offered teachers in recent
negotiations, said Bradley.

“It’s going to disrupt the entire system,”
he charged, pointing out the some 75 per
cent of the district’s students will be forced
to change classes in January.

The Socreds ‘tare definitely losing their
supporters on this one,” he said.

‘NPA is playing politics
with court case: COPE

Representatives of the Civic Non-
Partisan Association (NPA) are using pro-
‘ceedings before the court to expound
“political propaganda,” the Committee of
Progressive Electors has charged.

In a statement Monday COPE president
Jim Quail charged NPA members Philip
Owen, Pamela Glass, Brian Calder and
Jonathan Baker have made allegations
about ballot-box stuffing during the Nov.
17 civic election — charges not made in
petitions before the B.C. Supreme Court —
or have made unwarranted public com-
ments.

Owen, a well-known businessman in
Vancouver and an aldermanic candidate
for the right-wing NPA, filed a petition with
the B.C. Supreme Court Nov. 28 asking
that the election of COPE Ald. Bruce Yorke
be declared void. Yorke beat out Owen for
the 10th spot on council by 220 votes.

Earlier, the court had granted Owen’s
petition for a judicial recount of the ballots,
after a city recount confirmed Yorke’s elec-
tion victory.

Owen’s action was followed Nov. 29 by a
petition from defeated NPA aldermanic
candidates Calder and Glass, who are chal-
lenging thé last three council spots captured

by COPE Ald. Libby Davies, Marguerite —
Ford of The Electors Action Movement,

and Yorke.
Glass and Calder’s petition is being

handled by lawyer Jonathan Baker, the —
NPA’s successful candidate for Vancouver —

school board.
Both cases rest on the NPA’s allegation
that irregularities in the affidavit procedure

were committed at several polling stations. —
But in statements to reporters Owen has —
~ alluded to cheating at the polls “to under- —

mine Vancouver city council on the issue of
affidavit votes,” Quail charged.

He also accused Baker, who made com-
ments on the case to the Vancouver Sun
Nov. 29, with using “the court proceedings
for political propaganda.” ;

COPE respects the court process and will
not comment on the case, said Quail,
adding praise for the affidavit voting which
was allowed by provincially-approved —
amendments to the Vancouver Charter.

“For the first time, thousands of Van- —

couver residents who were missed by the
enumerator were eligible and allowed to

vote. We in Vancouver now have the same —
rights as people in all other municipalitiesin —

B.C.,” he said.

Seattle and Managua linked

SEATTLE — A stirring rebuff to the
policies of the Reagan administration was
given here Nov. 19 when Seattle city council
unanimously adopted a resolution declar-
ing a sister-city relationship with Managua.

The vote, which followed an earlier
council meeting during which dozens of
representatives of ethnic organizations,
community groups, Native bands and polit-
ical parties jammed council chambers urg-
ing a “yes” to the proposal, makes Seattle
the. second city in the state of Washington to
form a sister relationship with an urban
centre in Nicaragua. Port Townsend is

linked by a sister-city decree with Jalapa, -

Nicaragua.

Only one right-wing group had argued
for “postponement” of the motion, which
in its preamble acknowledges the several

cultural and fraternal links between Seattle
groups and Managua’s citizens. ~

The declaration, signed by Mayor
Charles Royer, who with council president
Norm Rice submitted the resolution, states
that the sister-city relationship does not
mean endorsement of a “‘foreign nation or
its policies, but rather expresses the hope
and desire of the people of Seattle for peace
and friendship with all citizens of Managua.

“Now therefore be it resolved that the

city council of Seattle, the mayor consent- —

ing, adopts as her sister city the city of

Managua, Nicaragua. To the mayor, city _

council and citizens of Managua go our —

friendship, our respect and our commit- =|

ment to establishing and maintaining a
long-lasting and productive sister-city rela- _

- tionship,” the declaration states. :

-

Boards set for action
against school layoffs —