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By FRED WILSON

The anti-people urban transporta-
tion policy of the Socred government
moved towards its predictable end
this week with the resolution by the
Greater Vancouver Regional District
that it would not sign an agreement
with the province’s Urban Transit
Authority to operate the transit
system in the Lower Mainland.

The end will come March 31, the
day that B.C. Hydro relinquishes
responsibility for operating the tran-
sit system in Greater Vancouver.
Unless there is a substantial change
in policy by the Socreds, March 31
will pass without anyone to assume
the responsibility for transit and the
Socreds will dictatorially impose a
cabinet order in council and an
undemocratic and discredited transit
agreement onto the GVRD — and a
massive transit-deficit onto local tax-
payers.

The end is predictable because the
deal which the government is trying
to force down the throats of the
GVRD is so bad that municipal of-
ficials will have nothing to do with it.

They would rather the agreement be .

imposed with the Socred government
taking full responsibility for it.

The deal will mean that:

e@ As of April 1, the GVRD will
be forced to operate the transit
system in the Lower Mainland,
establish a fund to pay for it, but
with all final decision making in the
hands of the Urban Transit Authori-
ty and the provincial cabinet.

@ The GVRD will be forced to

ay 25 percent of the transit deficit
for 1979 and 1980, 30 percent of the
deficit in 1981, 35 percent in 1982,

——

B.C Hydro Profits 1978

Electricity $82,584,000
Gas 4,921,000
Rail freight 1,761,000
passenger :
transportation 61,294,000

Total Net Income $27,500,000

—

and 40 percent in 1983 and each year
thereafter.

e@ In 1979 the deficit will be
about $62 million, with GVRD tax-
payers paying $14.6 million. But by
1985 the anticipated deficit for the
present system alone will be $173.2
million with the GVRD paying
$69.28 million.

Projected Transit Deficit

in GVRD
1978 Deficit $ 61,294,000
1985 Deficit $173,220,000

GVRD Share of Deficit
: Under UTA
1978 $15,323,500
1985 $69,288,000

e@ In 1979 local taxpayers will pay
mainly by a special gasoline tax of .7
cents per litre. For a 10 gallon tank
of gas, 31.5 cents would be paid to
the Urban Transit Authority.

e@ Also likely to begin in 1979 an
as yet unspecified surcharge on
hydro bills will be applied to Lower
Mainland users, with 50 percent of
the money raised coming from
homes, 25 percent from commercial
firms and 25 percent from industrial
users.

@ By 1982 the transit deficit will
be so large that it will be necessary to
apply a property tax increase to raise
the municipalities’ share of the
deficit.

The GVRD couldn’t accept an
agreement like that, no matter how
much its conservative leadership
wanted to avoid confrontation with
the Socreds. They would be reduced
to a collection agency, applying and
raising taxes, while the Socreds sit on
a $240 million plus surplus and make
all the decisions.

At the same time as forcing in-
creases in property taxes, the Socreds
have also imposed a ceiling on
municipal budgets and have frozed
the mill rate. If that dictate is still in
effect, as it likely will be, when it

becomes necessary to draw on pro-
perty taxes to pay the transit deficit,
it will leave only one alternative: to
vastly reduce municipal services.

It was in a desperate attempt to
avoid that scenario that the GVRD
proposed its compromise to the
government. It proposed that a three
year agreement be signed which
would grant the GVRD greater con-
trol over planning and decision mak-
ing, and wold share costs on a 75-25
basis for the first two years and 70-30
in the third year, with an agreement
that it would then be re-negotiated
without Provision for a property tax
imcrease. It was a poor compromise
which accepted the basic
undemocratic features of the Urban
Transit Authority and committed the
GVRD to the annual process of
bargaining over each turn of the

“Screw. The danger of that com-

Promise was put to rest, however, by
the Socreds themselves when Vander
Zalm told the GVRD Friday that
there was no room for compromise.

For the GVRD and for municipal
taxpayers there should be no room
for compromise. The province has
paid 100 percent of transit costs up
to this year, and it should have a
responsibility to continue.

While the GVRD and the Socreds
barter over 75-25 and 60-40 cost
sharing agreements, B.C. Hydro
has become the forgotten partner in
the opertion. The public has been
paying for transit all along through
the excessively high hydro bills paid
in the Lower Mainland and the
transit deficit in 1978 was more than
offset by the over $87 million in
profit that B.C. Hydro reaped from
sales of electricity and gas. The Ur-
ban Transit Authority will relieve
B.C. Hydro of the deficit, but the
hydro bills will remain, and even be
added to by a special transit sur-
charge.

It is not just that the Socreds have
abdicated their responsibility for
the transit system, but they have
done it in a way that ensures the
steady deterioration of the system
without any prospect for making
improvements. It may finally result,

Socred transit policy on rocks in GVRD —

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as it did in many U.S. cities and as it
almost did in Toronto, where the

transit system brings municipal
government to the brink of
bankruptcy.

If the GVRD sticks to its guns, on
the other hand, and refuses to back
down before the Socreds, the out-
come could be quite different. The
government’s entire transit policy
could end up on the rocks in
Greater Vancouver and that would
be no small contribution to the
defeat of the government and its
policies in the coming election.

Significantly, the weak sisters in
the GVRD are the NPA represen-
tatives from Vancouver — the only
group which voted against the deci-
sion not to sign the UTA agree-

ment. Mayor Volrich, the titular
head of the UTA, is in a particular-
ly compromised position and is
generally regarded by GVRD
representatives as a sell out. Van-
couver alderman Mike Harcourt,
strangely, has also allowed himself
to be compromised by membership
on the UTA board, but with his eye
on the provincial election as well, he
said this week that his “‘tenure on
the UTA board is on a daily basis.”’

The clear need now is for mass

citizen pressure to force the provin-

cial government to suspend the
UTA Act, and to let municipal of-
ficials and the GVRD know that
public. opinion is strongly against
the UTA death trap for urban tran-
sit.

A special meeting of the Com-
munist Party’s B.C. provincial
committee Saturday issued a call
for a united effort to defeat the
Social Credit government in the
next provincial election. :

The committee unanimously
adopted a resolution proposed by
provincial leader Maurice Rush
which said, ‘‘Considering the pre-
sent political situation in B.C. and
desirous of moving B.C. politics to
the left, the Communist Party calls
upon all working class and
democratic forces to unite their ef-

forts to bring about the defeat of

the Socred government and its anti-
labor and pro-monopoly policies,
as well as prevent the return of the
old line parties to government.

‘Bearing these objectives in mind
in the upcoming elections, the Com-
munist Party in B.C. will run can-
didates in selected provincial ridings
where it can make a maximum im-
pact,’’ Rush said, ‘‘It will campaign
around the slogans of ‘Oust the
Socreds’, ‘Defeat the parties of
monopoly’ and ‘Elect a progressive
majority including Communists to
the legislature.’ ”’

In ridings where the Communist

~

Communist Party provincial leader Maurice Rush outlined the
party's electoral policy this week, saying that the CP will run in

“selected provincial ridings.”

CP electoral Strategy: ‘uni

Party is not running candidates, it
will direct its main criticism at the
Socreds, Rush said, and urge the
NDP candidates to take a stand on
the major issues facing working
people. ‘‘In no instance will the
Communist Party give uncritical
Support,”’ he said.

The Socreds are becoming in-
creasingly unpopular, the CP leader
stressed, and there is ‘‘a significant
shift away from the Socreds to an
increasingly popular demand to
Oust the government in favor of a
more progressive, alternative
government. In the concrete condi-
tions of B.C. politics this is finding
expression in a strong shift to the
NDP which appears to many, pro-
gressive voters as the alternative.”’

_The Communist Party is not in-
different to the kind of government
that is formed after the next elec-
tion and the defeat of the Socreds
“will be a victory for labor,’’ Rush
said, “But while -associating our
Party with those who want to see
the defeat of the Socreds and who
believe that the alternative is the
election of the NDP, we maintain
that the presence of Communists in
the legislature is essential for the
defence of the vital interests of
working people.”’

Rush said that the Communist
Party consider its participation in
the next provincial election, and the
decision to run candidates in
selected ridings where it can make a
maximum impact with its anti-
monopoly program, as ‘‘an impor-
tant part of the fight to push
politics left, and as part of the long

ga inst
range fight for the election of a pro-
gressive majority, including Com-
munists, on the basis of an anti-
monopoly program.”

With recent polls showing a sharp
decline in Socred support and a rise
in NDP votes, the Socreds are keep-
ing their options open on an elec-
tion date, said Rush. The polls also
show a rise in Tory support which
splits the right wing vote and poses
a serious threat for the Socreds, he

Socreds’

added, and premier Bennett is at-
tempting to reunite the right wing
by attacking labor and imposing
restraint policies on municipalities.
The government is also trying to
undermine NDP support by posing
as a ‘“‘populist’’ government, he
said, explaining the recent actions
of the government in preventing the
takeover of McMillan Bloedel and
selling shares of B.C. Resources In-
vestment Co.

New GAIN

rates give

30c per day for food

Increased GAIN rates announced
by Socred human resources minister

. Grace McCarthy amount to about

30 cents per day for recipients to

spend on food, transportation,

clothing and other necessities.
McCarthy announted the in-

crease’ Wednesday claiming that -

they represented a $31 million per
year increase in payments.

That is doubtful says Jean Swan-
son of the Downtown Eastside
Residents Association. The basic
GAIN rate for support, not .in-
cluding rent, has been raised only
$10 per person per month, she
pointed out, and that amounts to
only about $13 million per year.
There are larger increases for shelter
allowances (rent), but these are in
the main already being paid by the

human resources department in the
for of rent overages. ‘‘It’s just jug-
gling for P.R. purposes,’’ she said.

Basic rates for single men under
31 years of age have increased from
$100 per month, without rent, to
$110. ‘‘Not much,’’ Swanson com-
mented.

The increased shelter allowances
and the inclusion of utility bills as
part of rent are positive changes,
however, Swanson said, and have
been long sought after by DERA.

The increases that McCarthy is
taking credit for are illusory,
however, as most GAIN recipients
required rent overages to meet
rents. Now that rent overages have
been eliminated, the same amount
will have to be paid but in a dif-
ferent form.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 23, 1979—Page 3

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