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PACIFIC TRIBUNE

denied franchise to 1500 voters

By JEAN SWANSON

Vancouver has the most outdated
system of getting and maintaining
voters lists in the entire province.
And the antiquated process has
serious results. It prevents people
who are eligible to vote from
exercising their franchise.

Did you know, for example, that
nearly 1,500 people who voted in
good faith on Nov. 15 will have
their ballots locked up in a cage and
marked ‘‘rejected’’ even before the
special envelopes in which they are
placed are opened?

This situation would not happen
in any other B.C. municipality
because these towns and villages are
governed by the Municipal Act
which requires that a permanent list
of electors be kept. Anyone can
walk in at any time and get on the
town’s voters list.

Not so in Vancouver where the
rules come from the Vancouver
City Charter. In order to get on the
voters list in Vancouver, you have
to either — 1. own property in the

‘city; 2. be enumerated by a city

enumerator in the spring of the year
before the election, or 3. send in a
pink card that’ the enumerator
leaves if you are not home.

Vacancy rate
down sharply

Using alleged “thigh vacancy
rates’’ as justification, the pro-
vincial government is continuing
with its program of ‘‘decontrol’’ of
rents in B.C.

Figures from the Rental Housing
Council of B.C., however, indicate
that there has been a sharp decline
in the rental housing vacancy rate in
the Lower Mainland during 1978.

In Vancouver, the Council’s
October 1 report says, the vacancy
rate for rental apartments had
declined by 43 per cent since April
1. It puts the Vancouver vacancy
rate at 2.6 per cent October 1, but
tenant spokesmen point out that the
vast majority of available apart-
ments are in the high income range.
The vacancy rate for low- and
middle-income earners is less than
one per cent, it is estimated.

Construction of new housing is
also down in 1978, the report states,
with a number of rental units
“‘completed”’ in Greater Vancouver
during the January to August
period down 36 per cent from the
same period in 1977. Throughout
B.C., housing ‘“‘starts’” were down
64 per cent in September over the
same month in 1977, and in Canada
down 33 per cent.

The problem is that many people,
especially tenants, are missed by the
enumerator and the pink card. For
these people to be able to vote, they
have to be on the previous list of
electors, or on the owners’ list from
the assessor’s office.

The nearly 1,500 votes that were
tossed out at the voters list office
were cast by people who declared
that they were eligible to vote, but
were missed by the eunumerators
and were not on the other lists.

This situation includes people
who were 17 or 18 years old in 1976,
people who were not citizens in
1976 but are now, and people who

were not residents of Vancouver in -

1976. All of these people would
have been able to vote in any other
city or town in B.C. had they been a
resident.

According to Section 80 of the
Municipal Act, which governs these
towns, if you are not on the voters
list, but otherwise qualified to vote,
you simply file an application to
register to vote with the clerk or re-
turning officer, and vote, Then
your vote is counted.

When the voter turnout in city
elections is usually around a dismal
35 per cent, it is up to concerned
citizens to do what they can to
encourage more pafticipation. One
way to get more voters in Van-
couver would be to get more people
on the list. Since owners are
automatically put on the list, the
main problem is with tenants.

The Committee of Progressive
Electors has set up a_ special
committee to research ways of
improving the enumeration
process. We plan to write to other
cities and provinces to find out
what methods they use, and to
make recommendations to’ city
council in the new year as to how to
improve Vancouver’s system.

Karl Jaffary, a former Toronto
alderman, has suggested that one
permanent list of voters for elec-
tions in all three levels of govern-
ment should be kept, and that
municipal clerks should keep this
list up to date. Members
of the COPE committee will be
looking into this suggestion, which
might actually be cheaper than the
present method which involves
bureaucracies at
levels of government.

But two other remedies to the

problem of disenfranchisement of
eligible voters are immediately
apparent. The first is that the city
should ask the province to change
the city charter so that eligible
voters who are not on the list can
apply to be on the list right at the
polling place, as they can in other
municipalities in the province.
The other is that the city should

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— DECEMBER 8, 1978—Page 2

three separate —

advertise its procedures for
compiling the voters list much more
widely.

How many of you knew, for
example, that there is a three-week
period in August before the civic
election in which you have the
opportunity to get on the list if you
are missed by enumerators? -

One problem COPE might have
when it attempts to present its
recommendations to city council, is
that NPA council members know
their own votes came pre-
dominantly from areas of the city
where turnout is high and
enumeration is not a problem

because residents own their homes.
In addition, they know that .

people who are left off the list and
voted by affidavit in the last
election are, statistically speaking,
more apt. to favor COPE policies
and candidates. COPE’s school
board candidate Dr. Pauline
Weinstein, for example, topped the
affidavit vote poll, but slipped to
i2th in the over-all vote.

PROVINCIAL NOTES

Third industrial .
death sparks job

action at Cominco

TRAIL — A mass demonstra-
tion at the gates of Cominco
here Thursday forced the
company to grant concessions
on safety after the third death in
four months at Cominco had
enraged workers the day before.

Twenty-year-old worker Dean
Hodgson became the third to die
on the job Nov. 23 when his arm
was caught in a conveyor belt in
the coal drying plant. Hodgson
was pulled onto the belt and
killed instantly.

The tragedy was dramatized
by the decision that day of the
Workmen’s Compensation
Board to levy a fine of $10,000
against Cominco as a penalty for
the death of another 20-year-old
worker, David Ford, who was
electrocuted Sept. 10 working in
the lead smelter.

The next morning, while
union officials were in Van-
couver attending the B.C.
Federation of Labor con-
vention, Cominco workers
massed at the main gates of the
smelter and refused to go on the
job while spokesman Doug
Swanson outlined worker’s
demands for a greater say by the
union over safety conditions.

Three specific demands that
emerged from the meeting were
for the company to hire two
nee Members on a full-time

b

asis to monitor working

Cabinet shuffle ©
fails to impress"

The new look of the provincial
cabinet was dismissed as ‘“‘more of
the same right wing policies” by
Communist Party provincial leader
Maurice Rush this week. “If
anything the new cabinet will be
worse than the old one,’’ he said.

The most significant move within
the cabinet was the shifting of
former human resources minister
Vander Zalm to the post of minister
of municipal affairs, Rush said. “It
indicates that the government
intends to carry though even more
vigorously than before its attack on
the municipalities and to load a
greater share of provincial taxes on
homeowners. That the government
followed up the cabinet change with
an announcement that
municipalities will be expected to
come up with an additional $62
million next year for education
underscores that point.’’

The appointment of Vander

Zalm to municipal affairs and the :

education tax hike ‘‘goes in an
opposite direction to which premier
Bennett promised in his speech at
the UBCM, when he said the
provincial government would bring
down measures to give relief to
hard pressed homeowners,’ said
Rush.

Municipal~ leaders were also
critical of the appointment of
Vander Zalm as Burnaby mayor
tom Constable expressed concern
that he would continue his ‘‘welfare
bashing’’ style against the
municipalities. Vancouver’s mayor
Volrich, however, was pleased with
the Vander Zalm appointment.

Downtown Eastside Residents
Association president Bruce
Eriksen said that his organization
‘was glad to be rid of Vander Zalm
from human resources, but in
municipal affairs Vander Zalm
would be an obstacle in the way of
achieving rapid transit. Erisken said
that he doubted that Grace Mc-
Carthy, switched from minister of
tourism, would be any better than
Vander Zalm in her new post of
minister of human resources.

Rush said that the appointm
of ‘‘hardliner Grace McCarthy
mark no change in the governm
attack on low income people.
can be expected to continue Vang
Zalm’s policies and if anything ad
a few innovations of her own wh
will not be to the benefit of poo
and low income groups.”’ :

It is what has not changed that
the most important about the

cabinet shuffle, Rush said, as the ©

‘*key portfolios involving resoure
and labor policy are left as the
were. This indicates that

government intends to continue

with its resource giveaway poli

and with its hard line against

labor.’’ .

More transit
cuts coming —

Continuing its cost cutting
cutbacks in Lower Mainland transit
service, B.C. Hydro this week

announced a new series of bus route
cuts that will be implemented in —

February of 1979.

Hydro has cut 15 hours and 49 —
minutes of daily running time for
buses on three major routes in Van- _

couver. Buses affected are on the

Main-Robson, Davie-Kingsway and —

Granville-Victoria routes.
The cuts are counterbalanced by

‘some minor improvements, but the
over-all effect will see Hydro save a :
total of $50,562 per year. Of the net —

saving, $45,944 will be in wages,

indicating that some jobs will be — ,

lost.

once again in 1978 by eight per

cent, making a 13 per cent drop in —

ridership over two years. The

declining ridership is directly at-
tributable to Hydro’s policy of —
cutting services and raising fares. |

conditions, that new employees
be given a one-day safety
Orientation by the union and
‘that no employees be allowed to
work alone in hazardous areas.

When a company official
agreed to meet with a repre-
sentative delegation to go over
the demands, the workers
returned to the job. By noon it
was reported that the company
had accepted the conditions.

While the committee of
Cominco workmen were
meeting company officials,
United Steelworkers of America
western director Monty Alton
told the B.C. Federation of
Labor convention in Vancouver
that Cominco had been fined
$750,000 over the previous two
years for failing.to meet safety
standards. ‘‘Obviously that
didn’t do the trick,’’ Alton said,
“the officials should be thrown
in jail.”’

When USWA Local 480
officers returned from the
Federation convention, im-
mediate talks were held with top
Cominco management which
produced a special task force on
industrial safety consisting of
four representatives from both
the company and the union.

Local 480 president Larry
Whyte said that it was only the
demonstrative actions of the
workers that won the con-
cessions from the company.
Whyte also criticized the WCB
fine against Cominco for the
death of Ford, saying that the

' prepared and smoked for the

' were rotten.

“Dog salmon’’ may be sent.

fine was inadequate and would
not force Cominco to improve
working and safety conditions.

Rotten fish sent

to Haquilget band
PRINCE RUPERT — The

federal Department of Fisheries } §

and a local Native band here are
stalemated in a dispute over
Indian food fishery which could
result in severe hardships for
Natives this winter.

Last summer the Department
of Fisheries cracked down on the
Indian food fishery and pre-
vented the Haquilget Band from
bartering to obtain salmon from
neighboring bands. The Haquil-
get’s own food fishery had been
seriously reduced 20 years ago
by the Department of Fisheries
when it detonated explosions in
the Skeena River. —

Left without a significant —
portion of their diet, the Haquil-
get protested and the govern-
ment responded by sending the
Band canned salmon for the.
winter. This year the Natives re-
quested fresh fish that could be

winter. But when the fish arrived
about a month ago, 80 per cent

The Haquilget have asked for
canned salmon to replace the
rotten shipment but federal
officials are stalling and have
suggested that a shipment of

instead, but as yet no agreement

- It was also learned ‘this week, by |
figures from Statistics Canada, that —

ridership on public transit in —
Vancouver and Victoria dropped |

has been reached. Py,