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= & Rankin plan would cut

DAILY NEWS [T

LIVING CO.
UP~ PRICES
RISE.

“I'd feet we were getting ahead if we could just stay even.”

7
ee

housing costs in half ©

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN
The only way I ean see of
alleviating our present desperate

- shousing shortage is for the

provincial government to un-

_ dertake a massive program of

building public housing with rents
and costs geared to income.-: Yet
this is the one action the provincial
government has so far not un-
dertaken.

Housing minister Lorne Nicolson
has introduced a whole series of
measures aimed at making more
housing available, all of them
potentially useful. And _ the
government has allotted $115
million to finance them.

They include such measures as a
new Housing Act, land assembly,
aid to do-it-yourself builders,
reimbursing municipalities for the
cost of servicing land with water
and sewers, development of mobile
home parks, assisting non profit
groups such as churches and
service clubs to build senior
citizens housing, a grant of $10

Forestry: a good idea

Last week a U.S. economics B.C. government should expand
professor specializing in forestry — the Forestry Service to farm public
policies made a speech at the B.C. _ forests on a sustained yield basis
Institute for Economic Policy ane auction logs to the highest

i i rest 1ader.
st a initio ea -The Communist Party put for-
( came up with ward this plan as a substitute to
ey ee the Geawe present Forest Licence legislation
(that is the public) owns most of under which millions of acres of
B.C.’s forest it. should. stop the best Crown-owned forest-lands
disposing of these standing timber have been turned over practically
forests, and instead should farm _ in perpetuity for one cent an acre
and sell the logs to private com- per year to the major forest giants.
: The reason given at the time was

Walter J. Mead, of the Univer- that this was the only way to en-
sity of California, told the meeting sure a reforestation. program
his proposal would probably which would prevent
represent a considerable upheaval destruction of the forests.
for the forest industry — which it But it has proven a false
certainly would. He said the argument. Not only is there not
government would, by his method, adequate reforestation carried on,

companies back on their heels.

panies.

be able to maintain a sustained

but in practice, millions of acres of
Crown forest lands have been
alienated to the forest companies,
most of them U.S. owned.

With the B.C. government

having recently appointed a
special committee to probe into the
forest industry, the Pacific
Tribune would suggest that it study

the proposal put forward by Mr. >
Mead and that it give serious .

consideration to the plan of the
Communist Party of B.C. for a
complete overhaul of our forestry
legislation.

The aim of such an overhaul
should be to restore public control
over Crown forests, and to farm
our forests on behalf of the people

S0EB:C,

yield policy whereby the annual
cut would not exceed the yearly
growth.

This proposal, or variations of it,
is not exactly new. The B.C.
Communist Party presented a
brief to the Sloan Royal .Com-
mission many years ago in which it
elaborated on a plan for public
ownership and farming of crown
owned forest lands.

In the brief it pointed out that
since over 90 percent of B.C.’s
forest are Crown owned, that the

Just OUT!

BLOODY SUNDAY — 1938

order from
Tribune office or
People’s Co-op Bookstore

TOM
McEWEN

During recent weeks a whole number of political
conventions have been staged, accompanied by much
froth and ballyhoo. Tory talkathons have been “saving”’
the country no end. Liberal confabs have been wooing the
elite, while NDP provincial and federal get-togethers
have been busy honing up new ideas for painless surgery
on the system. Even a still-born Majority Movement, a
motley conglomeration of old-line political hacks looking
for new markets in which to peddle thier worn-out wares,
has tried its hand. :

While at most of these political talkfests — as indeed
they are whenever and wherever these politicos
congregate — there is a total absence of anyone who has
any resemblance to a statesman. On the contrary the
great majority seem to be endowed with no other
characteristic than a big mouth, constantly emitting

childish and/or assinine ideas.
A Burnaby correspondent in a recent letter to the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 19741

million to build senior citizen
housing ;

Encouragement of co-operative
housing, leasing province-owned
lands at four percent of their value,
first mortgages to enable
moderate income groups to build
new homes or strata title dwellings
on Crown land, pressuring
municipalities to rezone to enable
duplexes to be built in single family
areas, and acquiring Dunhill
Development Corporation to
perform the role of one of the
housing arms of the government in
Vancouver and Victoria.

*

These measures will enable a
relatively small number of people
to build or rent homes and it will
provide additional units for senior
citizens. But, and this is a big
“BUT”’, the fact is that a large
number of _ citizens ~-who

desperately need housing are not in

a financial position to take on a
$25,000 or $50,000 mortgage even
with government assistance. Nor
do all people want to own homes —
many for one reason or another
prefer apartments.

My solution would be to establish
a Crown housing corporation to
build homes and apartments,
especially the latter, on lands
owned by the province or the
municipalities. The corporation
could do its own developing and its
own contracting. The province
should provide funds at five per-
cent sales tax on _ building
materials and pressure the federal
government to do the same with its
Ji percent tax.

If these steps were taken,
housing costs could be cut in half.

All public housing provided by
the province or any other level of
government should be geared to
income, with no one required to
spend more than 25 percent of their
income on rent.

This is not such a radical idea. It
is done all over Europe, including
Britain. In Western Europe, rents
are often only 15 percent of income.
In the socialist countries of eastern
Europe, it is usually four or five
percent.

A massive program of public
housing geared to income would
quickly put an end to much of the
rent gouging that is now going on.

. Apartment owners would have to

provide competitive rates.

And let’s not kid ourselves.
Private enterprise will never build
low rental housing. Its only interest
is to make maximum profits, not to
provide the peoples with their

e
.city of Vancouver owns OV®

‘available for housing. Th

‘do not include interest —

needs. Only the governmel
provide this type of housiné;

In a speech on housing
legislature recently, ai
minister Lorne Nicolson, ® :
“this government is dedi¢
the proposition that good
at a reasonable cost is the
every British Columbian ;
added, “I will see that they

I'll buy that, Lorne. B
never get it by confining
your efforts to buildin
family homes. It will, 4
require a massive progré
cost public housing, wi
geared to income. d

There is no shortage of 14

acres of land it could.

some 30,000 acres available

Greater Vancouver
District.

I moved a motion in the oo
Vancouver Regional DJs foo
establish a housing corport ie
co-operate with the PF in?
government in making
housing available. I will
same in City Council. i

As far as I’m concerned
takes priority over 4
business of Council.

DID YOUKNOW!
The current average ° at
cost for Vancouver apar pa
$60.21 per suite per mon nd
rise, frame construction 47
per suite per month for
masonry construction. adi
These-are newer buil ne
fering contemporary 4”
and are located in. er
greater Vancouver area:

most cases, is declining #
cipal is paid off — and depret
which is only a theoretic’ gi
in the fast appreciating
real estate market.

Pity the downtrodden

MAY DAY ISSUE
This is your last chan
a greeting in the Bees, fl
Day edition being publi di!
the Pacific Tribune- ats
for all advertiseme
Friday, April 19. << {550
Special bundles of ca]
which will be in color a fi
many interestin wld
educational features, Sh®
ordered by phoning the
685-5288 or writing va ;
office, Mez. 3 — 193 E.
St., Vancouver 4.

Vancouver~ Sun laments _ this disproportion between
Statesmen and big mouth in our body politic. This
nostalgic dirge brings to mind the definition of a
statesman by Bob Edwards, late editor of the famed
Calgary Eyeopener. ‘

Bob had just attended the funeral of a notorious
Alberta politician whose crooked deals are still legendary
around Calgary. The afficiating sky pilot had delivered a
most touching and praiseworthy eulogy. ;

Back in Calgary over a beer with a friend, Bob ob-
served en passant, ‘‘Now I know what a statesman is. A
Statesmen is a dead politician. We need more statesman.”

Together or separate, these conventions of the party
faithful purported to deal with Canada’s ills, and what
that party proposed to do about it. But these political
pigmies had no solutions to the ills of their own making.
Only ponderous works full of panaceas, and patchwork
promises. - as

The Tory blowout got a big press coverage well larded
with optimistic drivel, away out of proportion to its im-
portance. Yet all it could come up with was that national
Tory leader Robert Stanfield had one central ambition
which he would now make public: he wanted to be
Canada’s next prime minister.

It is not the first time ambitious Tories have embarked
on a rule-or-ruin adventure. The CPR corporation lawyer

Re B- Bennett bought the Tory leadership in 1930, paid

Crisis of this era has far surpassed the ability oF rem

_ venerable institutions.”’

cash for it, and all but wrecked it. Arthur Meighe? at
for a few months before him, and distinguished } ash
passing Section 98 of the Criminal Code to ofan
Winnipeg General Strike. Old John Bracken of ;

took the Tory party leadership for a while but ins!
the term “progressive” be added’ to its igo iP
misnomer if ever there was one. Tory lence

never been famed for its statesmen but notori0r™
ambitious big mouths. So Old Underwear with 1”
freeze container strapped tightly in place yen

Canada’s next prime minister? That will be a 4
Canada.

e
The big mouth in Canadian politics today is a rf:
certain indicator that the political, economic 2%;

tb

or class interests of our “best people” to seek or aP
lasting solution.

Moreover, and just because of this abundance? ab
mouth rhetoric, plus an almost total absence red
Statesmen, society is not as yet ready or prepa’ 0
accept the one remedial solution, which meas
other things, dumping the big mouth and his payh
for good.

Then socialism will train its own statesmen, @
the big mouths. As a great socialist philosopher 0”
“socialism when she hath conceived shall br