*% BRITISH COLUMBIA 2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 30, 1986 Concert, highlight visit The Canada-USSR Friendship Society has an open invitation to all who want to help greet a high-leve! delegation of Odessa city officials and renowned artists arriving in Vancouver Aug. 7. The delegation, which is being hosted by the city of Vancouver as an official sister-city visit during the city’s centennial celebrations, will make several public appearances and present concerts during their six day stay. They will meet with city officials and several peace groups, and are expected ing future exchange vis- its and strike a statement regarding world peace, reports Ald. Bruce Yorke. Yorke heads ths special commit- tee to welcome and host the Odessa delegation. Odessa’s sister-city relationship with Vancouver goes back to World War II when Vancouver citizens petitioned for aid to the Ukrainian port city as part of the Allied war effort. “In this era of another war danger, it’s equally important to maintain that relationship,” Yorke commented. Included in the 12-member dele- gation are Valentin Simonenko, chair of the Odessa city council — the equivalent of mayor — along with Odessa State University chemi- cal professor Tatyana Rakitskaya, council members Anatoly Volchenko and Viktor Kuzmin, and translator Galina Movchan. They'll be accompanied by sev- eral Odessa artists, including singers, dancers and musicians representing the city’s top theatres and operas. ‘The artistic contingent will perform in a concert hosted by the Canada- USSR Friendship Society and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians at the Russian People’s Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., on Aug. 9 ~ at 7:30 p.m. The delegation will .meet on Tuesday, Aug. 12, with council’s sister-city committee at city hall, and be officially welcomed by council in the chambers at 3:30 p.m. that day. A highlight of the visit will be an all-day meeting Saturday, Aug. 9, with peace groups and other organi- zations. at city hall. From those meetings the Odessa officials, Van- couver city officials and participat- ing organizations will likely produce a consensus statement on world dis- armament, said Yorke. The delegation arrives at the Van- couver International Airport on Thursday, Aug. 7 on Air Canada ilight 129 at 9:19 p.m. BRUCE YORKE VICTORIA — Citizens: here made it clear to convicted hate literature peddler Ernst Zundel and his local backer that the “right to free speech” does not allow the promotion of racism and anti-semitism. Some 100 demonstrators followed the West German citizen as he and some 25 supporters moved around Beacon Hill park Monday ina bid to promote an alleged right to propagate hatred against people in the name of free speech. The members of the Coalition for Responsible Free Speech carried signs with the messages, “Responsible Free Speech,” and “Canadians died in the war against Nazism,” and maintained a vigil around Zundel and his lawyer Doug Christie, who had invited the speaker in the name of Christie’s organization, the Canadian Free Speech League. Christie, who has also headed the right- wing separatist Western Canada Concept, has defended both Zundel, who was con- victed of promoting hatred through a publi- cation disputing the fact of the mass murders of Jews in Nazi Germany’s con- centration camps, and convicted hate- monger and former Alberta school teacher, Jim Keegstra. Zundel’s Beacon Hill park talk was a last-ditch effort to hold a public speaking event. An earlier booking at the Empress - Hotel was cancelled after hotel manage- ment received community protests. Hotel spokesmen said they had not been aware that the league had booked Zundel as its speaker. Zundel’s Victoria talk proteste An attempt to speak Monday at the farmer-run Luxton Hall in the nearby community of Colwood was also cancelled after the hall’s:directors received similar protests. Victoria mayor Gretchen Brewin subse- quently refused the league’s request to use the park bandshell, prompting the leagueto » announce that Zundel would simply be in the park for his speech. The Coalition for Responsible Free Speech was formed to protest Zundel’s vsit. It is chaired by Victoria Labor Council secretary Andre Pel, and includes in its membership groups such as the Canadian Jewish Congress, Poverty Groups, the Greater Victoria Council of Churches’ human rights branch, the social justice commission of the local Roman Catholic diocese, and several other organizations. The coalition distributed some 500 lea- flets around the Victoria area telling citizens that, “Any society must institute rules to ensure that people can live together in har- mony, not infringing on the rights of others. “The right to express one’s opinion does not imply the right to spread known false- hoods which may engender fear, hatred and violence against specific groups and indi- viduals,” the leaflet stated. Peter Ramsey, an unemployed youth worker and coalition member, said Zun- del’s response to the coalition’s efforts was to term its members, “ ‘hooligans, terror- ists, communists’ — he’s really been foam- ing at the mouth.” the Federated Anti-’ Ramsey reported that Christie led a demonstration through 4 some 300 participants at “Fiesta nista,” an event in Beacon Hill pay brating the seventh anniversaly Nicaraguan revolution. The lawyet” accused Mayor Brewin of “et commies” because of council’s allow the placement of a cairn in the commemorating counter-revolution the 1956 uprising in Hungary. Zundel’s visit, promoted by the through ads in the local press, als0P ted a protest from community, re ligio labor groups in Vancouver. In a statement, the groups — Federation of Labor, the nel ct Congress, the Canadian Council 0 tians and Jews, the Committee fo" Justice and the Solidarity Coalition ~ Zundel’s claim to represent free SP’ in itself a mockery of this concept: In an interview B.C. Fed presid Kube said the public should be made of the “number of fascists coming province lately.” 8 Solidarity Coalition representatives, of Shearer, a former B.C. human rights missioner, said human rights acti been monitoring the activities of ult H and racist groups which have bi@ speakers promoting racial intolera% , She said such groups set up? front” in claiming to represent free St and “pull in people who are not ® through their doors.” Harry Rankin Should large retailers in Vancouver be allowed to keep their stores open seven days a week up to midnight every day? Is this really necessary? These questions were argued before Vancouver city council by a number of delegations voicing pro and con opinions on July 22. At issue was whether to maintain, amend or rescind the city’s shop-closing bylaw. It stipulates that large retailers may keep their stores open only until 6 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Sat- urday. On Thursday and Friday they may stay open until 9 p.m., and on Sunday they must stay closed. Safeway, Super Valu, London Drugs, Shoppers Drug Mart and the Downtown Vancouver Association (representing big merchants in the downtown area) de- manded that we rescind the bylaw. They claimed that restricted hours unfairly res- tricts their freedom to do as they pleased, that the “market place should decide” the hours, and that they are losing business to adjacent municipalities which have no res- trictions on hours. They presented no fac- tual evidence, however, to back up this latter claim. It should be added that some of these big retailers consider themselves above the law. Super Valu, London Drugs, Safeway and Shoppers Drug Mart, for example, are openly defying the city’s shop-closing bylaw ignoring the restrictions on hours. Apparently they’feel that if they do not agree with the city bylaw they may break it with impunity. Small business owners pointed out that if the big retailers had unrestricted hours, they too would have to stay open at night and it would interfere with their right and Closure bylaw should be maintained « ar} ot that of their employees to have evenings and weekends off. It would, they argued, only compel them to work longer hours without any increase in business. Citizen groups noted that unrestricted hours would bring more traffic, noise and park- ing problems, to otherwise quiet neigh- borhoods, far into the night. A brief from Ingledews Shoes made another significant point. “Because of the increasing number of high density ‘retail developments in the Lower Mainland,” it pointed out, “an ever growing number of these independent retailers are becoming tenants with leases obliging them to open at whatever times their landlord specifies. Many of these people already work long hours in their businesses but currently enjoy the protec- tion of the Shops Closing Act which gua- rantees them at least some time away from: the responsibilities of work. With no res- trictions of store hours of operation these independent merchants will be completely at the mercy of their landlords with no opportunity to choose at what hours or on what days their stores may remain open.” It seems to me that the real issue at stake Big chain stores such as London Drugs are in violation of Vancouver $ closing bylaw. Small merchant should be protected, says Rankin. ‘their economic lives. is this: the big retailers want to us¢ tricted hours to squeeze out the sm@ chants; the small owners are fighti® An additional issue is the righ employees in the big stores to have € nf pr ings and some weekends with theif resi lies. I also suspect that the big hou would like to use unrestricted msi chip away at the wages and ar their employees presently have, ? grounds that longer hours will make ji necessary to stay in business. i I do not believe that the big retaile® in any real trouble simply beca¥?y hi i can’t stay open every day until mid And I do believe that the small me will be the victims if the bylaw is re5° [also believe that small merchan' some protection in the market f There is really no free enterprise © competition in the market placé - The big retailers have a virtual mone. The little guys get what’s left. It’s 4 and-Goliath situation. tee This is why I and my Comm! eve Progressive Electors colleagues bel bylaw should stay as it is.