British Columbia GP to run 12 B.C. election candidates Continued from page 1 The candidates will project a “new image” for the Communist Party, Hewison said. Zander, 29 and currently a CP regional organizer, said that young people have not been consulted on the free trade deal, which she called the “crucial” issue of the cam- paign. “Young people have to be repres- ented in this government,” she said. B.C. Peace Council member Ogden, 59, welfare director of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union and a member of the B.C. Federation of Labour’s health and safety committee, said workers in his community were tired of anti-labour strike- breaking legislation, and called for a labour bill of rights. Hewison, who said the party would spend more resources than previously on this election campaign, said only the Com- munist Party was unalterably opposed to the Meech Lake Accord. He called the accord, which cedes unprecedented control over social service funding and trade mat- ters to provincial governments, “a compan- ion piece to free trade.” The CP alternative to free trade with the USS. is an expansion of Canada’s trade to developing and socialist countries, and a new industrial strategy to build manufactur- ing and overcome regional disparities and joblessness, the CP leader said. Genuine tax reform to close loopholes granting corporations their huge tax breaks, and a new foreign policy that eschews mil- itary alliances such as NATO and NORAD and makes Canada an independent leader for world peace are part of the party pro- gram, Hewison stated. He said: “Communist spokesmen in the House of Commons will be champions for new way of life for working people.” Hewison said the climate is changing in public opinion, and more Canadians are inter- ested in what Communists have to offer. The Communist Party campaign will aid the creation of an “extra-parliamentary struggle” which is needed no matter which party wins the next election, he declared. se ee ee Vancouver East CP candidate Kim Zander, with daughter Kaylah. Greater Vancouver land valuable for farming, nature preserves and heritage Sites is rapidly disappearing due to profit- hungry developers, pro-developer.coun- cils and the Socred government’s tinkering with established land preserva- tion laws. That’s the picture that emerges follow- ing recent developments in Delta and Richmond, where municipal council voted narrowly last month to allow the rich farmland in Terra Nova to go under the bulldozer, over the objections of an angry citizenry. Ald. Harold Steves of the Richmond New Democrats says the Terra Nova decision follows a pattern whereby developer consortiums who bought vast delta during the early Seventies are now tripling and quadrupling the value of their investments. The losses will be felt most keenly in the area of farming and the environment. Both the Burns Bog area of Delta — where citizens were at least temporar- ily successful in forcing a pro-developer majority on council to quash an attemp- ted superport — and the Terra Nova lands adjacent to the Strait of Georgia are major flyways for dozens of species of migrating birds, and other animal life. Soil specialists have stated that the Terra Nova lands, which have lain fallow among the best farming lands in Canada. Local farmers point out the land is capa- ble of supporting up to three crops a year. Despite that evidence presented in brief after brief to municipal council hearings in May and June, the pro- developer Richmond Independent Voters Association (RIVA) used its one-vote majority, during a packed council meet- ing June 29, to rezone the land residen- tial. That paves the way for Progressive Construction to build a 1,500-unit hous- ing project on the site. Steves points out that the Agricultural Land Commission was established by the NDP government in 1973 in response to developers buying up huge tracts of RIVA ignores residents In Terra Nova decision tracts of farmland in the Fraser River for years under developer owners, are’ land in the southern Greater Vancouver municipalities: Approval to remove land from the Agricultural Land Reserve could only come from the commission. But changes to the act governing the: commission by the Socreds allowed | Richmond council to bypass the ALC and apply directly to the provincial cabinet to lift Terra Nova from the reserve, which was granted in 1986. “Effectively (the Socreds) have abol- ished the Agricultural Land Reserve. It isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” Steves says. : Developers buy farmland because it is cheap, Steves points out. In the case of Terra Nova, some 200 acres of the 300- acre parcel slated for development was worth about $2 million in the early Sev- enties. In 1986 it was assessed at $3 mil- lion, and after being released from the ALR was valued at some $30 million. The value of that land now that it has been rezoned as residential could be tri- ple that amount, Steves says. The road to realizing the riches in Terra Nova has been paved with irregu- larities. Olga Ilich, co-owner with brother-in-law Milan Ilich of 60 per cent of the consortium’s holdings, once chaired the Richmond Advisory Plan- ning Committee which examined the proposal. The consortium’s planners, rather than municipal staff, drew up the plans for the Terra Nova project. “ Plans initially shown to all residents were later modified, with only those who favoured the project shown the modifi- cations. Will Paulik of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation revealed at the hearings that municipal staff had withheld from council letters from pro- vincial and federal environmental auth- orities supporting preservation of Terra Nova. Steves says the irregularities would never be allowed at the provincial or federal levels. A group of Richmond residents are studying legal options to force a reversal of the Terra Nova decision. 2 ¢ Pacific Tribune, July 13, 1988 Rush calls for ouster _ of Vander Zalm, Socreds © The growing political crisis in the pro- vince was the topic Saturday as the B.C. provincial committee of the Communist Party met and unanimously called for all people’s movements to unite around the call: “Wander Zalm and the Socreds must go. Election now.” “The big-business community and the old guard in Social Credit are prepared to sacrifice Bill Vander Zalm as his increasing unpopularity threatens to bring down the government endangering their right-wing program,” Maurice Rush, B.C. leader of the Communist Party of Canada said in his keynote address. “Further moves from within Socred ranks must be expected as attempts are made by big business to reduce the danger to their agenda. But it must be understood that a change in leader would not bring about the changes that the people have demanded,” said Rush. Rush warned the members of the provin- cial committee not to overestimate divisions within Socred ranks. These divisions are not a struggle for new policies. “Certainly, we saw some division on the abortion issue, some disagreement on how the spoils of privatization would be divided,” he said. “But the Socreds are united on the main policies of the right-wing agenda” In outlining the main features of the cri- sis, Rush pointed to the growing opposition to the neo-conservative agenda as the “first and major cause of the sharpening political situation. There is increasing opposition to privatization, to the trade deal, to the attacks on social services, the labour movement and the rights of women,” he said. Rush cited a recent poll by United Com- munications Research Inc. which details a sharp drop in public support for the Social Credit government since its election in October 1986. The poll reveals support for Social Credit plummeting from 49 per cent on election night to 29 per cent today. The poll states: “Voters seem uneasy with their govern- ment’s agenda, and they clearly have focused their displeasure on the premier. If an election were held today ... British Columbians would vote overwhelmingly to elect a New Democratic Party govern- ment.” The growing opposition to Social Credit policies is also clear from the poll. Support for privatization now stands at 40 per cent, 26 per cent less than in May 1987. The moves taken by Premier Vander Zalm to “establish one-man domination... to centralize every lever of power in his office” are the sécond major cause for the present political crisis, said Rush. “While hiding behind the ‘strong gov- ernment’ slogan, Vander Zalm is attempt- ing to reorganize the whole political structure to achieve personal dictatorial powers. His recent cabinet shuffle is another move towards that goal,” he said, describ- ing the new cabinet as “lopsided” and “full of yes-man.” The fact that the city of Vancouver has no representation in the new rural-based cabinet, which is the largest in B.C. history, indicates the “deepening isolation of the B.C. government” from the majority of the people of the province, said Rush. “‘Vander Zalm with his ‘priorities committee’ has created an inner cabinet of four people who will be responsible for running the govern- ment. The elected MLAs and civic govern- ments will be left hanging in the breeze,” he said. The defence of democracy is the major issue facing the people of British Columbia today,” said Rush. “It is necessary for a people’s movement to now enter the strug- gle and put forward its own solution. We have to see that a major part of defeating the neo-conservative program in Canada is the defeat of Vander Zalm and the Socreds here in B.C.,” said Rush. The provincial committee, in accepting Wilson’s report, also unanimously endorsed a motion in “support of the B.C. Federation of Labour boycott of the Industrial Rela- tions Council.” CORRECTION In the June 29 issue the article, Delta Council Vote a Win for Opponents of Superport Plan, referred variously to the “Committee on Burns Bog” and the “Burns Bog committee.” The actual name of the organization cited is the Coalition on Burns Bog.