T here he stood at the curb on Howe
Street, a lonely figure holding up his
hand-lettered sign, ‘Peaceniks! Why
don’t you picket Moscow?’ And rank
upon rank, in a seemingly unending tor-
rent of humanity, his fellow citizens
Streamed by him scarcely bothering to
notice his pathetic protest, so intent were

_ they upon making their own.

At its height, last Saturday’s Walk for
Peace probably mustered 100,000 peo-
ple, men, women and the children for
whose right to a future they were
demonstrating. And virtually all of them
in their minds had answered the balding
little businessman’s question, knowing
that Washington, not Moscow, was
refusing to pledge not to be the first to use
nuclear weapons, that Washington, not
Moscow, was rejecting a nuclear freeze.

Had prime minister Pierre Trudeau
been in Vancouver he might still have
echoed the little man’s question, as he did
in the House of Commons this week,
simply because his refusal to take a firm

stand for an independent peace policy
allows him no other answer. But he might
have been less confident that people
would accept his answer.

True, the provincial Liberals, and fora
time the Conservatives, did take part in
the walk, seizing on it as an opportunity
to display their candidates’ names, as no

other parties did. Their blatant oppor-
~ tunism, however, was in obvious contrast
to the sea of ‘Refuse the Cruise’ signs sur-
rounding them, for those signs were
singularly absent from their contingents.

Trudeau, like the little man on the
curb, may choose to stand against the ris-
ing tide of protest. If he does, it will sweep
| him and his party to political oblivion.

* * *

We talked briefly this week with Agnes
Jackson, a lifelong supporter of the
Tribune, now living in retirement with
her husband Bob in Powell River.
Although she was still in the acute care
unit at UBC Hospital, unable to attend
the great peace rally at Sunset Beach last
Saturday, she told us how pleased she was
to find that seven nurses from the unit
took part in the walk.

Now discharged, her first concern in
talking to us was to thank her many
friends in and out of the city for their
cards and gifts during her 11-day stay in
hospital.

* *

F rom the results of a poll it conducted,
the North Shore News recently ran a
headline reading ‘Davis in Trouble’. And
little wonder. Throughout the two years
North Vancouver residents have been
campaigning for closure of the Premier
Street landfill, Jack Davis, Social Credit
MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour,
has acted as though he were unaware the
landfill was in his riding and, since it is
some years since he held the portfolio of

environment minister in the Trudeau -

government, as if the continued defile-
ment of Lynn Creek were no longer any
concern of his.

But let David Schreck, his NDP oppo-
nent, make a statement sympathetic to
residents’ demands and Davis sends a let-
ter around to them promising provincial
assistance but, in the time honored
fashion of passing the buck between
municipal and provincial authorities
which has so exasperated residents, in-
sisting that the problems of garbage
disposal must be solved regionally.
Anything. else, he asserts is
‘irresponsible.’’ We wonder what his
definition of responsibility is.

* * *

T he fact that you did not get atax break
in finance minister Marc Lalonde’s
budget is simply explained, if you use the
Trudeau line of reasoning. Since suc-
cessive Liberal governments have
facilitated U.S. acquisition of so much of
our manufacturing industry; so that in
some lines it is next to impossible to find
anything madein this country, you would
only go out and spend any additional
money the government allowed you to
keep on imported goods.

The other fact that you need more
money to keep up with still rising living
costs, never mind launching the new wave
of consumer spending on which the
government is counting for recovery, is
beside the point.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
PEOPLE AND ISSUES Socred grant-cutters

must be ousted May 5

The welfare of municipalities, in fact their
very existence in their present form, is very
much an issue in the May 5 provincial elec-
tions. Ever since Wacky Jr. took over the
Socred government in 1975, all its dealings
with municipalities have had three main ob-
jectives.

@ To undermine and undercut the
powers and authority of local government;

@ To reduce provincial grants to
municipalities;

@ To force local taxpayers to pay an ever
greater share of costs that should be borne by
the provincial government — for such mat-
ters as education and transit. When Bill
Vander Zalm was designated as Bennett’s hit
man and placed in charge of education and
transit, things went from bad to worse.

He tried to ram through his pernicious
and dangerous Land Use Act, under which
he would be given authority to override any
and all zoning bylaws that municipalities
passed. Developers could go diréct to Vic-
toria to get what they wanted. Municipal
government would be reduced to just a rub-
ber stamp for decisions made by the cabinet
in Victoria. The storm of opposition to this
dictatorial piece of legislation was so strong
that Bennett had to drop it, for the time be-
ing at least, causing Vander Zalm publicly to
charge his own government with being
“sutless.’?

He forced a weak-kneed GVRD board of
directors to drop its own plans for a conven-
tional light rapid transit system and adopt
the elevated system favored by him and his
corporate friends, a system that is costing us
hundreds of millions of dollars more than a
conventional system and that may yet turn
out to be a liability rather than an asset.

The provincial cabinet sets the mill rate
for school tax purposes and this tax has been
going up steadily with the result that
municipal taxpayers have been paying a con-
tinually growing share of education expen-
ditures while the province’s share has been
going down. In the case of Vancouver it is
collecting more in school taxes than it is giv-

"., ing back in the form of grants and using this
surplus for other purposes.

Grants to municipal government havé
been cut. Last year, for instance — and this
i$ just one example among many — the p!0 |
vincial government sliced $7.2 million from
its grant to the city of Vancouver. This com:
pelled the city in turn to raise taxes to meé!
expenses. A

For premier Bennett to state now that
taxes will not be raised this year and

Harry

Rankin

challenge the NDP to state that it will not i”
crease taxes is sheer political hypocrisy. —

The provincial cabinet went ahead with its
plans to build a new stadium without any
adequate provision for parking and is noW
forcing the city to deal with the horrendous
traffic problem that will result when 60,000
people jam into the stadium. This means
that Vancouver taxpayers will have to spend
more money to expand the entrances to the
Cambie Street bridge and so on.

Vander Zalm even announced that school »
boards would be abolished and replaced by
the county system, but again had to back off
when public opinion protested strongly
against this erosion of local government.

If the Bennett government is re-elected
you may be sure that municipal government

will be further eroded and our tax bills in-
creased, in spite of any promises to the con-
trary-by Bennett or other Social Credit can-
didates. Their. promises are worthless, a5
their own record shows.

Any alderman, any school board
member, any parks board member who has —
become a Social Credit candidate or works —
to elect Social Credit candidates is betraying
the people who elected him or her.

This government deserves to be defeated
and must be defeated.

e |
DERA

|LABOUR
MOVEMENT
All Use

Sa

I spent my whole life makin’ somebody rich;
[ busted my\ass for that son-of-a-bitch;

And he left me to die like a dog in a ditch
And told my I’m all used up.
SALUTES THE He used up my labour, he used up my time,
; He plundered my body and squandered my mind
And he gave me a pension of hand-outs and wine
And told me I’m all used up.

My kids are in hock

to a God you call work,
Slaving their lives out for some other jerk;

My youngest in Frisco just made shipping clerk
And he don’t know I’m all used up.

Young people reaching for power and gold

| j Lappe Don’t have respect for anything old
p U. Utah P. hillip s For pennies they’re bought and for promises sold,
Someday they'll all be used up.

Transportation for handicapped and elderly
to May Day parade — phone 682-9031 iy.

Dyer

UNITED WE STAND

May Day Greetings

MAY
DAY
GREETINGS

to our friends in
organized labor

Surrey
Alternative

MAY DAY
GREETINGS

to the labor movement

and all Tribune readers
| Let's keep up the fight for

a ward system, affordable
housing, rapid transit

Movement

SAM is a progressive
civic organization
which strives to make
working people the.
beneficiaries rather
than the victims of
municipal policy.
Phone us at:

596-1355

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 29, 1983— Page 2