Continued from page 1
Stabilization Program (CSP) ad-
Ministered by commissioner Ed
Peck who will be empowered to roll

_Wage settlements back.

In addition, all public bodies, in-
cluding municipalities, school
boards and hospitals will have their
budget increases held to 12 percent
for 1982-83 with further restric-
tions to be imposed in 1983-84, de-
pending on the cost of living and
‘the availability of tax revenues.”
Bennett couched his address in a

Populist appeal, urging ‘“‘British

Columbians, as Canadians, to join
the battle for economic stabil-
] y.?

At the same time, in a bid to en-
hance that appeal, he held out the
Possibility of some as yet unan-
nounced program ‘‘so that home-
Owners. . . will not be asked to pay
the horrendous tax increases fore-
Cast by assessment notices and ini-
tal cost estimates.”’.

€ government program was
also a political echo of the policies
Pursued by the former W. A. C.
Bennett Socred government which,
between 1970 and 1972, imposed a
Series of restraint measures includ-
Ing six percent guidelines for the
Public sector, ceilings on school
board budgets and the establish-
ment of the Mediation Commis-
sion.

Then, as now, the policies were
enacted at the urging of the prov-
Ince’s major employers which have
favored public sector curbs as the
Main means of combatting what
they consider to be the main prob-
lem, inflation.

“But while Bennett is asking the
workers and public to tighten their

Its and to accept lower living

BENNETT AT PRESS CONFERENCE . .

aa : BRITISH COLUMBIA
Restraint program will pare jobs,
depress the economy, declares CP

gram welcomed by major employers.

standards and reduced public ser-
vices, what is he asking the multi-
national corporations to sacri-
fice?”’, Communist Party leader
Maurice Rush demanded.

‘“‘Nothing,’’ he said. “‘Is it any
wonder they are hailing his
speech?”’

Employers’ Council president
Bill Hamilton, who apparently was
apprised of the contents of Ben-
nett’s speech before the TV address
was made, said he was “‘very posi-
tive’? about the program, praising
Bennett for ‘‘giving the kind of
leadership people have been look-
ing for.”

Rush blasted Bennett for “‘com-
pletely bypassing the legislature in

announcing his unprecedented at-
tack.

“But that doesn’t matter to
premier Bill Bennett and his Socred
government which is assuming
more and more the mantle of a dic-
tatorial government ruling by cabi-
net order-in-council.”’

NDP leader Dave Barrett also
criticized the government for an-
nouncing the program outside the
legislative process. ‘‘The place to
announce this was in the throne
speech, not on_prime time televi-
sion,”’ he said.

He declined, however, to make
any statement in principle against
wage restraint.

Rush emphasized that the whole

TRIBUNE PHOTO— JOSHUA BERSON

. public sector controls pro-

thrust of the Bennett program was
wrong and would have the effect of
‘making the economic slump worse.

“Tt will not provide a single new
job at a time when 140,000 are out
of work,”’ hesaid. ‘‘Nor will it fight
inflation. —

“In fact, it will have the opposite
effect. By cutting people’s purchas-
ing power it will further depress the
market. And it will lead to massive
layoffs in public services which will
swell the unemployed rolls.”’

Rush urged ‘‘overwhelming
public opposition’’ to compel the
Social Credit government to cancel
its wage freeze and cutbacks in so-
cial services.

“Tn their place collective bar-
gaining must be restored and sub-
stantial wage increases granted to
public service employees whose
wages have been eroded by infla-
tion.

‘“At the same time,”’ he said, ‘‘a
provincial program should be
undertaken to provide jobs, includ-
ing a massive housing construction
program.”’

As astart, the $1 billion expendi-
ture to subsidize Northeast coal de-
velopment should be cancelled and
the funds used for such projects as
housing, he noted.

“Some real anti-inflation mea-
sures would include cancelling the
increases on electricity and natural
gas rates,’’ he added, calling on the
government to take such action. -

The CP leader also urged trade
unionists to put together a “‘united
front’’ to meet the new attack on its
wage standards by the Bennett gov-
ernment and to work with other or-
ganizations to create a coalition to
defeat the government’s restraint
program.

COPE calls ‘conference on priorities’

as aldermen, trustees hit bu

3 Vancouver’s three progressive
factmen have fired the first volley
Tetaliation for the provincial gov-
tient § announced two-year
t On municipal budget increas-

$s, demanding the Socreds instead
Scrap their favored mega-projects.
Feb a city hall press conference
sie 22, councillors Harry Rankin,
pe Yorke and Bruce Eriksen of
a Committee of Progressive Elec-
95 also said they will seek the ad-
~© Of “‘all citizens and organiza-

“ons in the city” at a “citizens

ties f » Were we can set the priori-
. -» {OF Civic spending.’’ The meet-
th 1S slated for Mar. 7, 1 p.m. in
€ Plaza 500 hotel.
ann © Meeting is the first action
Bill Ounced in response to premier
i ett’s plans to limit yearly
the woes to 12 percent annually in
ste 83 budgets of the public
MS Or, including municipalities,
Sols and hospitals.
Sorte COPE aldermen said the
ed limits of 12 percent per
+, Ol municipal budget increases
has Mean cuts to a city budget that
ce 0 fat whatsoever’? to trim.
haya ere exactly would Bennett
“We Us cut?’”? asked Rankin.
be ‘a he force us to pare our po-
5 Sg to reduce fire protection,
tion hour engineering and sanita-
edu Maybe he has in mind
by dont the two percent of our
Sag which goes to social ser-
»” said Rankin, citing the

Stroke Club, Family Place and the
Downtown Eastside Residents’ As-
sociation as examples. ze

Instead of forcing municipal
governments, school boards and
hospitals to slash services, the So-
creds should cut back on mega-
projects like Expo *86 or the Nor-
theast Coal deal, he said.

Expo ’86 drew most of the
COPE councillors’ fire since it in-
volves not only massive expendi-
tures of public funds but also en-
tails inestimable expenditures for
the city in the upgrading of roads
and public transportation. Eriksen
in particular pointed to servicing
charges on loans the city will have
to take out to pay for these services.

Yorke charged that the Socreds’
expenditure freeze, which will also
limit wage hikes to 10 percent per
year for public sector employees,
was “completely wrong’’ and
“would only make things worse
by causing layoffs and reducing
peoples’ purchasing power.

COPE has. gis the apie

eeting on expenditures “‘so
eerican tell their elected repre-
sentatives what they want, said
Rankin, adding that other mem-
bers of city council are invited to
participate. The aldermen plan to
present resolutions hea a ea
i motions to ci :
eanwhile, school trustees also
received notice Feb. 22 that their

budgets will be limited to 12 percent
in 1983, and to the 1983 cost of liv-
ing, “‘provided that tax revenues
are available to the province and
school boards to commit that level
of increase,’’ in 1984. The educa-
tion ministry announcement also
said the 1982 budget will be recal-
culated to restrict increases in the
last quarter to 12 percent above the
1981 budget.

At press time most school
boards had yet to discuss the fund-
ing cuts. But those trustees who
could be reached said they would
urge their boards to fight the freeze
program.

“Tt just makes me sick — I’m
furious,’’ said Richmond school
board member Lorraine Hocking,
who added that the freeze means
“‘a complete loss of local auton-
omy” for school trustees. We
should fight it,’’ she said.

North Vancouver. District school
trustee Dorothy Lynas said the
freeze will havea ‘‘disastrous effect
on education.’’ Lynas, whose dis-
trict under the freeze program
would likely receive less than 12
percent increase because of declin-
ing enrolment, said ‘“‘there is not a
shortage of money, but a shortage
of priorities, and education is a pri-
ority.””

The trustees’ comments were
buttressed by those of B.C. School

Trustees Association president _

Gary Begin, who said, ‘The child-

d

get curbs

ren of B.C. will be the victims of
government controls on school
board budgets.’ He added that
many school boards had already
pared their budgets weeks prior to
Bennett’s announcement.

Student representatives are also
responding to the freeze as it affects
colleges and universities. Gordon
Moore of the Pacific Region of the
Canadian Federation of Students
said his organization has already
been waging an ongoing campaign
against government cuts to post-
secondary education. _

Moore said the freeze is the latest
stage of the provincial govern-
ment’s ‘strong shift from balance
funding to a build-up of vocational

training’’ at the expense of liberal .

arts and sciences programs. In
“‘playing up to the federal govern-
mient’s desire for an overhaul of the
education system’’ the Socreds are
favoring short-term vocational
training that only contributes to
unemployment and further educa-
tion expenses because the programs
offer ‘‘very narrow skills’’ to stu-
dents, he said.

The CFS has been working with
the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and
the college instructors’ association
in fighting education cuts, and
plans a demonstration in Vancou-
ver Mar. 12, he said. Participants
will march from Beatty and Geor-
gia streets at 1:30 to a rally at Rob-
son Square. ~

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEB. 26, 1982—Page 3

> rrr ee

Housing
co-op cut
‘political’

Federal cuts to the Canada
Mortgage and Housing Cor-
poration’s 1982 budget have
caused planners to shelve their
co-op housing projects and cut
back on others, while a CMHC
official has accused the federal
government of political
favoritism.

“*The federal government has
slashed low-interest money go-
ing to the CMHC to help
finance low-cost housing and
co-operative housing in western
Canada. At the same time they
are still granting CMHC money
to Quebec and Ontario ridings
— all of which happen to be
areas where Liberal MPs hold
seats,” Bob Henry, CMHC
representative for the Interior,
has charged.

“‘The federal government is
playing a cruel game of politics
at the expense of the people in
need of housing in the western
and maritime provinces,’’ said
Reg Walters, a Sorrento, B.C.
resident whose housing co-
operative recently cancelled
construction plans following an
unsuccessful attempt to secure
CMHC funding. He added that
even the favored eastern areas
received ‘‘a mere trickle’’ of
CMHC funding.

Walters, who is secretary of
the Salmon Arm and District
Co-operative Housing Associa-
tion, (SADCHA) said his group
was “one of many western
Canadian groups to have its ap-
plication for low-rate loans
turned down.”’ He added that
the construction of the SAD-
CHA co-op would have meant
about 125,000 man hours of
work in an area hard hit by
unemployment in the construc-
tion and wood industries.

‘People looking for good,
affordable housing with all the
nearby facilities couldn’t have
asked for more,” said SAD-
CHA chairperson, Carol Hut-
chinson, adding, ‘‘For the
federal govkernment even to
think of playing politics using
money intended for housing is
nothing less than an atrocity.”’

Walters said the government
should cut military spending
and corporate giveaways “‘in-
stead of removing the roofs
from over the heads of
thousands of Canadian work-
ing people.”

In recent press reports the
Co-op Housing Foundation of
Canada, the umbrella organiza-
tion for Canadian housing co-
ops, cites a backlog of 10,000
units awaiting construction,
while this year’s CMHC alloca-
tion will allow for only half that
figure. In the lower mainland,
the CMHC has allocated 575
units, half of last year’s alloca-
tions.

CMHC officials in the Lower
Mainland admit the picture is
bleak here. This year’s alloca-
tion for all types of social hous-
ing has been slashed to 1,200
units from last year’s 2,800. The
575 units allowed for co-op
housing this year is half last
year’s figure.

a,
Fee