Avent ratua ua ellic aD BI, it, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1957 2 fi 114} GNOL16 No 5 | VANCOUVER, B.C. | () ¢ . “S28 Authorised as second class mail by ——__ the Post Office Department, Ottawa ib PF We Us. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles-may be tired «th — but not as tired of the British and French people as g) _ '°Y are of him. In the House of Commons this week Prime f tnister Louis St. Laurent rejected a suggestion that Canada : Should Protest Dulles’ most recent insulting statement. (See ditoriay on page 7.) T GASE MAY L IN TAX SCANDAL By BERT WHYTE i If some CPR buildings in Vancouver are assessed as low as 25 percent of what they should be — as claimed by the city's former senior evaluator — what will the court of revision do about appeals for reductions coming before it next week from private homeowners? And if evidence presented before the court of revision proves that the CPR is under-assessed, what will Assessment Commission D. W. McQueen and his department do about other large business properties in the city which are also under-assessed? For the past dozen years the CPR assessment has not been raised. Has the company some good friends at Vancouver City Hall? é If CPR buildings and other industrial properties have been under-assessed, it means that small homeowners have been carrying an unfair share of the tax load for years — a situation that most citizens are aware of but haven’t been able to prove. The appeal against the CPR assessment made by J. S. Mul- eahy, former senior evaluator in the city’s assessment depart- ment, thus becomes the key action which might lead to public exposure of Vancou- ver’s assessment mess. Smack in the middle of the situation is Assessment Com- missioner Donald William Mc- Queen, for the efficiency of his department will be under re- view. What is McQueen’s back- ground? Is he qualified to hold down his important post? During a 1954 stock exchange building appeal, McQueen was under examination and out- lined some of his background. After taking two and one- half years of a general engin- eering course at.UBC, he left in 1923 and worked about a year for Dominion Rubber Company. Then he did sur- vey work for the B.C. Electric, worked as a tobacco salesman 18 months, and’ joined the Continued on ‘back page See TAX SCANDAL | Take the tax load off | anadians fired, Hungarians hired even if Pickersgill doesn’t approve Immigration Minister J, W. Pickersgill’s statement to the House of Commons last week that the government frowns on any employer laying off Canadian workers to hire Hungarian refugees does not alter the fact that this is happening in Vancouver and Alsewhere in B.C. One case drawn to the attention of the Pacific Tribune this week is that of a man laid off by a city plant early last month. When he returned later in the month to find out when he could resume work he was told that a Hungarian refugee had been hired in his place. Another case is that of an unemployed man who applied for work at a city plant. He was informed that there were two vacancies for men with his qualifications but they were being held for Hungarian refu- gees. Other cases have been re- ported to the Pacific Tribune from Vancouver Island where men have been laid off and Hungarians hired for their jobs. HAT CAUSES THE DEATH TOLL ON OUR ROADS? SEE PAGE 11 Pickersgill made his state- ment in the Commons in reply to a question placed by H. W. Herridge (CCF, Kootenay West). s “T can assure the hon. mem- bers that the placement service in my department would never knowingly direct an immigrant to any employer who was dis- placing his own workmen in order to take on immigrants,” he said, adding, “And we would do our best to see he did not get them,”