&

" % ANY
Even as B.C. Hydro began hittin
Progressive Electors pressed its petition campaign demanding that fares be held to the old rate of 25 cents.

g peop e for an

extra dime

More than 6,000 signatures have been obtained.

—Sean Griffin photo

Stakes high in Quebec

Two crucial questions are at
stake in the current Quebec
elections: How to get out of the
economic crisis, with its frightful
unemployment and inflation, in
which Quebec has been plunged by
the policies of the monopolies and
the Bourassa government; and
how to get out of the crisis of
Confederation, which is only an
expression of the growing division
between thetwo nations in Canada.

This is the assessment of Sam
Walsh, president of the Communist
Party of Quebec, on the provincial
elections being held November 15
in which the Quebec Communist
Party is contesting 14 seats.

Walsh: said the Bourassa
government has_ precipitated
Quebec into these elections two
years before the end of its mandate
above all because it fears that the
economic crisis will be even deeper
in 1977. From 9.7 per cent unem-
ployment prevailing in Quebec in
September it is now expected that
unemployment will reach all-time
record figures by spring.

While refusing to recognize that
Quebec is really in an economic
crisis, Bourassa throws the blame
for our. economic troubles on the
unions, said Walsh. Bourassa uses
every occasion to launch vicious
and lying attacks against the trade
union movement, proposing to

amend the Labor Code to authorize
the government to commandeer
strikers back to work in strikes
which in its opinion touch on the
public interest.

With this anti-labor program
Bourassa’s Liberals -hope to
neutralize the parties of the ex-
treme right and polarize the vote
between the Liberals and the Parti
Quebecois as he did last time
around.

On the crisis on Confederation,
which is a question of vital im-
portance for the future of Canada,
said Walsh, Bourassa is in for the
“patriation’”’ of the BNA Act with
amendments guaranteeing the
culture and language of French-
Canadians, and with an amending
formula according each province
the right to veto.

The PQ on the other hand doesn’t
want to discuss the “constitutional
question’’ in the election because
its separatist option is unac-
ceptable to the great majority of
Quebeckers.

Walsh pointed out that the
proposal of the Communist Party
is toscrap the BNA Act because it
is based on the non-recognition of
the French Canadian nation. In its

"place the CP proposes negotiation

by equal representatives of the two

nations in Canada: of a new Con-

stitution which will start from
ees

recognition of the fact that Canada
is inhabited by two nations who
must both enjoy the right to self
determination as well as economic,
political and social equality.

In the* course of the Quebec
election campaign the 14 Com-
munist candidates have advocated
a 13-point program covering the
main needs of the people of
Quebec. In a special message to
the Communist Party of Quebec,
the Central Executive Committee
of the Party has extended
assistance in the campaign by
undertaking to raise funds to cover
the costs of the deposits for all the
candidates. The Quebec election
“4s of exceptional importance” not
only to the people of Quebec. but to
all Canada, said the message.
2°. oo we sss -

SAM WALSH

Tenants

protest

saves city block

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The attempt by developers, in
collusion with some elements at
city hall, to-tear down the Hun-
tington (an apartment building)
and replace it with an expensive
high rise has been temporarily
halted due to citizen protest.

This building, at the corner of
Gilford and Pendrell in the English
Bay district, is some 35 years old.
It’s in perfectly good shape. Rents,
by today’s standards, are
reasonably moderate. Many of the
tenants have lived there for 10
years or more and some over 30
years.

The developer, Three Star In-
vestments Ltd., wants to demolish
this building and in its place erect
an expensive 19-storey concrete
structure (silo would be a better
term). Rents in the new structure
would be even higher than in the
nearby Huntington West, owned by
the same developer, where they
range from $350 to $800 a month.

The real issue involved is the
right of people to live in the beach
area of our city in moderately
priced accommodation. If the
developers and our TEAM-NPA
council have their way,
downtown area will be reserved
exclusively for the wealthy elite.
This is what Mayor Phillips, would-
be Mayor Volrich and TEAM call
an “‘executive city.” .

There is no factual basis for the
developer’s claim that the Hun-
tington apartment is “decrepit” or
unsafe. That is just their excuse to
go ahead with demolition.
Upgrading it to meet fire bylaws
can be done at reasonable cost.

The 500 people who gathered at
St. Paul’s Anglican church hall on
November 4 to save the Hun-
tingdon proved the power of public
opinion. The aldermen and can-
didates of both TEAM and the
NPA, who have proven time and
again by their actions that they are
developer-oriented, were forced to
bow to citizen protest and agree,
verbally at least,. that the Hun-
tington should be saved.

Personally I’m certainly not
prepared to accept to accept their
verbal assurances because I know
how they have carried on in
council.

I submitted an anti-demolition
bylaw to council. It would have
given council power to prevent
demolitions. It would further have
required developers, where
demolition is permitted, to provide

ee

the.

accommodation of equal quality
and at no higher rents to any
tenants who would be displaced by
the demolition. :

The TEAM-NPA majority of
council voted down that bylaw.

I helped prepare a Standards of
Maintenance bylaw which council
under public pressure passed. It
gives the city authority to repal!
and maintain in liveable condition
any accommodation that landlords
are allowing to deteriorate. The
costs would be charged to the
owner. Now that we have this
bylaw on the books, the TEAM:

COPE victory celebration will

be held after polls close Nov.

17 at the Carpenter’s Centre,

2806 Kingsway.

—

NPA majority on council refuses 1
enforce it!

That’s why I cannot accept thé .
verbal assurances of TEAM and
NPA’ aldermen and candidates
given to an angry crowd of voters
that they oppose the demolition of
Huntington. Their words simply
don’t coincide with their past
actions, if we can judge by past
performance.

Citizens should know, if they 4
not already know, that the final
decision on the Huntington will not
be made by council. It will be madé
by a Development Planning Com

See RANKIN, pg. 11

COPE appeal

The Committee of Progressive
Electorsis in urgent need of money
to carry through with its ambitious
election plans. The COPE finance
committee said that if they are
undertake everything that they
have planned, it will cost
somewhere in the neighborhood 0
$30,000.

“So far, we are still more tha?
$5,000 away from that figure, a?
unlike Jack Volrich and
Sweeney, we can’t count on any
huge sums from the developers ©
this city,” they said.

“For that reason we are ap
pealing to all people who want 1
see real change in the city %
Vancouver to donate generously 1
finance the remainder of ov!
campaign.’’

Contributions can be made at the
COPE election headquarters 4!
2245 Commercial Drive.

I; these latter days of multi-monopoly government,
whether Tory, Liberal, Socred, or any other right wing
mishmash, one must accept the inevitable: the day of
these political conglomerations is in the twilight and the
dawn of a new sunrise for all labor is already breaking!
That is the lesson of labor’s first all out political challenge
to the monopoly government.

The stout defences of ministers John Munro, Jean-
Jacques Blais, and company in the wake of labor’s Day of
Protest mean nothing; they are merely whistling in a
graveyard to bolster their courage. They are well aware
that their sham battle against inflation was begun on the
wrong road and stayed there, yet they have insisted on
approving drastic wage cuts while allowing monopoly
profits to soar ever upward to new astronomical heights.
In short, they have legalized the art of ‘robbing Peter to
pay the exorbitant profits demanded by a grasping Paul.”
And they have managed all this on the monstrous pretext
of combating inflation.

Unable to stick its head in the sand and remain ‘un-
concerned’ as October 14 came and went, the Trudeau
government has now unearthed some 70 monopoly
conglomerates who have been rolling up vast profits. But,
oh dear no, you mustn’t mention the names of these big

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 12, 1976—Page 2

time belly robbers. That wouldn’t be cricket. Just leave
them tous, and wemight, gently, slap them on the wrist if
they have misbehaved in this respect. Such magnamity
for an alleged gang of price racketeers and hoodlums.
Just keep their names and identity unknown, and we’ll do
the rest. Obviously in the opinion of such governments,
some criminals must be protected at all cost, not least the
food profiteers.

Except for penalizing the wage earner, re-collecting
hundreds of dollars which it alleges have been ‘‘over-
paid,” or applying new wage cuts to countless numbers of
workers, the AIB is a cruel hoax..Prices and profits have
found their own level according to what the traffic will
bear and more. And since profits are to remain a deep

dark secret, the chances of any improvement in this ©
regard are bleaker still, if not indeed hopeless. The.

secrecy wrappings must be removed from prices and
monopoly price gougers, and the whole sorry mess ex-
posed to the light of high noon, so that. the people can see
clearly who is robbing them. ;

The exit of Jean-Luc Pepin and his wage-fixers, will
neither entail a national catastrophe nor a public ripple.
People whose sole ability is to hoodwink the public are
rarely missed when the wrongs they have avidly spon-
sored are ultimately righted. So it will be with Jean. The
noise he will make at seeing his job go kaput will do little
more than disturb the rest of his parliamentary
cockroaches. Any objections raised would only be from
the voices of free enterprisers who have been milking
Canada dry at the expense of the working man, keeping
their identity secret and talking like statesmen while they
rob the public like so many Al Capones.

These are the characters Canada must summarily deal
with now, not in secrecy as the Trudeaus propose, but
openly with their identity widely known. These are the
profiteers the money changing riffraff with whom Canad4
must now come to grips. These are the inflationists to
wom Trudeau would toss a protective cover to hide the!
identity.

Lest anyone think that a Tory Joe Clark would be bette!
in this situation than a Liberal Pierre Elliott Trudeau, jus
let him remember that both are from the same rookery:
different in non-essentials, but exactly the same when it
comes down to exploiting the working man. a

And now, beset by problems of a decaying and decrepi!
capitalist system, Canadian big business, through eithe!
Trudeau, Clark and any other mouthpiece which migh
crawl forward, are seeking their own way out of thel!
dilemma by lining their pockets with astronomical profit®
while at the same time steadily depressing wage levels:
That, too, is in its twilight years.

“TRIBUNIE

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA

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