= \ \ \ \E 7 ores {1113 s GENERATIONS on Poverty Treadmill. EDITORIAL Happy Birthday Canada onday of this week was Canada’s 101st birthday. Aside from too many people getting themselves maimed or killed on the highway, thereby living up to Highway Safety Council predictions, plus the usual spate of hackneyed birthday “greetings” from alleged statesmen, editors, etc. there was very little to mark Canada’s natal day from any other day. Birthdays as everyone knows and especially children, are or should be occasions for great joy and happiness. That should be doubly true on this Canada Day of 1968, marking the first milestone on the threshold of a great New Century, pregnant with change and revolutionary development, vastly different from the old. Yet it would seem from the bulk of the ‘greetings’ from Establishment pundits, editorial scribblers and kindred specie, that all we have to “‘herald’’ on this natal day (thanks to a political concoction known as Trudeaumania imported from the USA) is a ‘‘majority’’ Liberal government. Thus on this Canada Day we have a growing army of jobless workers, well over the half-million mark, and in addition two-hundred thousand or more high school and university students, for whom there is neither the prospect of a part-time job, and thereby for many an end to their possi- bility for continued studies. ; Then we have a burgeoning farm crisis which can bury a hungry Canada (and a world) in the midst of a bountiful food supply (wheat). To top that off we have a multiple housing, hospital and school construction roadblock, which deprives Canada’s youth of an education, and their parents of decent housing and health facilities. Added to that we still retain old policies, domestic and foreign, which makes Canada’s sovreign independence, her natural resources heritage, her industry and very existence, an open-season stamping ground for U.S. and foreign monopoly to ravish and rape at will. As if that weren’t enough to mar Canada’s. 101st birthday, we continue to collect bloodstained profits from the sale of arms and raw materials of war, to assist those U.S. monopoly freebooters who ravish us (as yet ‘peacefully’) to continue their war of genocide upon the people of Vietnam and/or other nations and peoples struggling for their. independence and freedom from imperialist exploitation. Canada deserves something better than a. Liberal “majority” government for a birthday ‘‘gift’” at the start of her Second Century. We have had these before, under both partisan labels, and both retrogressive and adamant to change and progress. Only the unshakable uni.y of organized labor, farmers,. student and disposed Youth, plus the unity of French and English speaking Canada, can restore Canada’s birthright and independence, and enable Canadians to step boldly onto the Stage of a New Century, unhampered by the old political baggage of monopoly which denies progress and change. Then Canada will truly have a Happy Birthday. erereren ele nere s, peleqeleteleatene ots" . epelefesetetetetele ole! PSS Sar beh Tribune ‘West Coast edition, Canadian Tribune So SR en oo Editor—TOM McEWEN Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288. Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months. North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00 one year. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash RSSSSSEEES em i rer oe a Who are the ‘public’? CEE ee Parking Commission to be a lopsided affair By ALD. HARRY RANKIN Establishment of an enlarged Vancouver Parking Commission with new responsibilities was a major item on the agenda of City Council on June 27. The purpose of the reconstituted Commission will be to oversee parking facilities in the downtown area and the acquisition of new parking sites, based on a City Engineer’s report that in the next 15 years Vancouver will need 5000 additional car spaces at an estimated cost of $12 million. The Commission will report directly to City Council. The new parking sites are needed to attract customers for downtown business interests, but they are to be paid for by the ‘public. To raise additional revenues to purchase new sites, the plan is to double meter rates to 20¢ an hour and’ to increase rates at DPC parking lots to 15¢, 20¢ and 30¢ for the first, second and each consecutive hour. The seven member Parking Commission is to be appointed by Council at the end of July. It is supposed to be a public ‘ ae a Commission, representative of the community. What bothers me Council’s idea of constitutes ‘‘the public’’. is City what It seems to me that a Commission of this kind should include a member of the Transit Union, whose bus drivers probably know as much about downtown traffic problems as anyone, and representatives of other community groups such as the Central Council of Ratepayers, school teachers, Parent-Teacher Associations. But that’s not the way City ‘Council or its Board of Admin- istration think. In their view. only business and professional groups should be represented. on the Commission. The pub- lic (which pays the bills) is to be excluded. The Board of Administration "proposed and City Council agreed that the new Commission should be composed of one each from the following seven groups: e Board of Trade © Downtown Business Association Bar Association e Professional Accountants © Professional Engineers Association e Architectural Institute of B.C. © Town Planning Commission I certainly can’t go along with ~ this proposal. It’s just too lopsided, too unrepresentative. Council continues to follow the policy of excluding the general public: from Council-appointed Boards, reserving their membership to one segment of the community’s interests. As far as I’m concerned I intend to keep on insisting that public groups like those I have mentioned be represented on any Boards appointed by Council. I also think the Parking’ Commission should expand its duties to include more than the downtown area. problems have also become acute in residential areas and community shopping areas. Why shouldn’t some new public parking lots be acquired in these areas too. Peace Council questions P.N.E. censorship move Strong protests against the refusal of the Pacific National Exhibition Board to rent space to them on the grounds that they are a ‘‘political organization’ and as such are not welcome are planned by the B.C. Peace Council. Members will be asked to send protests to the Directors of the P.N.E. and to Mayor Tom Campbell. The B.C. Peaeé- Council has rented a booth at the Exhibition for the past fifteen years and its right to do so has never before been questioned. Mr. Lod Gardner, executive - secretary of the B.C. Peace Council, says he considers the reasons given for the refusal to be completely groundless. “The aims of the B.C. Peace Council’, he said, ‘‘are peaceful coexistence between all nations _and general and total disarm- lament. Anyone who subscribes to these aims is welcome to join. “Moreover, the action of the P.N.E. Board is tantamount to censorship, inasmueh as _ it decrees what ticket buyers may see or hear. What it réally amounts to is that apparently any huckster is free to dispense — his propaganda for patent medicine or magic knife grinders, but those whose concern is the very continuation of life on this planet are to be silenced,’’ he charged. Kashtan condemns Indonesia terror National leader of the Communist Party of Canada William Kashtan forwarded the. following letter to President General Suharto of the Republic of Indonesia under date of June 28, protesting the police-state terror against the people of that country under the Suharto regime. “We have learned from the public press that thousands of Indonesian democrats, including a substantial number of leading personalities are being held without trial in prisons and concentration camps in Indo- nesia. : “It is charged that these imprisoned patriots are con- fined under subhuman condi- tions. They are denied proper medical care, kept on a starva- tion diet, and subjected to con- stant phychological and physi- cal torture. “Tt is further charged that untold numbers of prisoners die from starvation and _ torture. Many are murdered by prison camp ‘executioners’. “The Communist Party of Canada condemns this bestial and barbarous treatment of political prisoners. We call upon~ you, Mr. President, to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners detained illegally in your country. “Please be advised it is our intention to publicize this matter widely amongst our fellow Canadians.” 100 Million Guns There are an estimated 100 million firearms in the hands of U.S. citizens. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports that about 40-million Americans own guns of some sort. In 1966 firearms were used in more than 109,000 crimes of violence — 6.552 killings, 43,000 aggravated assaults and 59,680 robberies. (U.S. News & World Report). mete r * bee rr mE RE a ES ee EA EE NG EA A A OE TS ER INE SAE RE ELAM OAL AE Parking & bap Pe Wiad Pia