MARZARI (1), HARCOURT, RANKIN, BELL-IRVING...

— Fred Wilson photo

outline campaign for city ward system.

Retain Jericho site, urges COPE

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

“All five of the Jericho hangars
as well as the central open air
space defined by them, along with
the adjoining pier, should be de-
veloped into a multi-use, mass
participation civic centre.”

“This park of over 100 acres,
with thousands of square feet of
covered space belongs to the whole
city, not a select few. Jericho
should be developed in such a way
as to allow all of Vancouver to
make use of the site.”

This is the central theme of a
brief being presented by Shawn
Hatch, chairman of COPE’s Parks
Committee, to the joint meeting of
City Council and the Parks Board
scheduled for June 23, 1977.

During the past year many
submissions have been made by
concerned community groups over
possible future uses of the Jericho
site. COPE’s Parks Committee has
made a careful study of these
submissions with the aim of ex-
tracting common points from them
which could be the basis for a com-
prehensive plan for the utilization
of the site. It has concluded that
there is general agreement among

on the need to retain Jericho for the
cultural and performing arts and
for sports and recreation.

“Hangar No. 5,” the brief points
out, “with its heavy timber
bleachers, naturally lends itself to
the performing arts and public
meetings. Hangar 3 is well suited
for a cultural centre housing arts
and crafts activities, smaller
workshops for theatre, poetry, etc.,
and could accommodate public
performances as well. Hangars 7
and 8 offer Vancouver. much
needed indoor space for sports
activities.”

The Parks Board, the brief
charges, has consistently over-
estimated the cost of renovations
of the hangars and grounds. What
we’re looking at, it states, is about
$2 million, and the Parks Board
has spent twice that much on the
VanDusen Gardens and that
project is not even half completed.
It notes that federal and other
funding is available if the ap-
propriate Vancouver authorities
will only go after it.

The brief quotes an editorial in
the Vancouver Sun, April 25,
charging that the Parks Board is
determined to tear down every

building in Jericho in spite of what
the community wants.

‘, .. the Park Board has an over-
all plan, has had one all along, is
sticking with what it has,” the
editorial declared. “It wants to
tear down every building on the

former seaplane base and land-,

scape it into an empty slab of
grass. It wants to do this despite
the fact that meeting after
laborious meeting and delegation
after delegation should long ago
have convinced the commissioners
that this is not what the community
wants.”

The COPE brief affirms the
obvious fact that ‘‘there is a strong
need and demand for a large-scale,
covered, multi-use public cultural
and recreational centre at
Jericho.’’

On June 23 the citizens of Van-

couver will have an opportunity to—

again present their demands for
the retention and renovation of
Jericho. Then we’ll have a chance
to see if our elected representa-
tives are prepared to respond
positively to a community need or
if they are determined to make the
walls of Jericho come tumbling
down.

Launch campaign
for ward system

Three Vancouver city aldermen
this week announced the formation
of a citywide alliance to win public
support for a ward system in
Vancouver. :

Aldermen Mike Hareéourt,
Darlene Marzari and Harry
Rankin launched AREA, the Area
Representation Elector’s Alliance,
et apress conference last Friday at
city hall.

With the aldermen was Darg Bell
Irving, chairman of the Vancouver
Library Board and a prominent
member of TEAM. Bell Irving has
been appointed chairman of

‘‘We’re going torun an organized
campaign,” Ranki said. ‘‘We will
provide logical answers to the
many illogical questions raiSed
about the ward system.”

The three aldermen said they
expect wide support from com-
munity groups throughout the city.
An information kit has been
produced and a speakers bureau
established to meet with com-
munity organizations.

In spite of the equivocal position
of the mayor and other TEAM
aldermen on the ward system,
wide support could also be counted

‘on from TEAM members, Bell

Irving added.

AREA plans to spend the next six
to eight months popularizing the
concept of the ward system before
bringing the matter up in city
council. But sometime early in
1978, they said, the three aldermen
will sponsor a motion to have the
ward system put to a referendum
scheduled will require another
three aldermen to vote with
Rankin, Harcourt and Marzari.

Three proposals on ward
boundaries have been offered for
public discussion. The first would
divide Vancouver into seven areas
with two aldermen per area. Each
ward in this system would have

roughly 50,000 people. The second
proposal has 22 areas with one
alderman per area. In this scheme
each ward would have a rough
population of 20,000 people. The
final proposal is for a system of 18
wards, based on the already
existing community. resource
boards. The average population in
this proposal would be ‘about 30,000
people per ward.

Kits tenants
form group

Kitsilano eistrict in Vancouver
has a new tenant association after
a successful
meeting sponsored by the Van-
couver Tenant Council last week.

About 100 tenants turned out to
the founding meeting of the Kit-
silano Tenant Association at the
Kitsilano. Community Centre.
Tenant leader and COPE president
Bruce .Yorke and MLA Norman
Levi were guest speakers at the
meeting.

The new association signed up
more than 50 members at the
meeting and elected a temporary
executive.

Information about the Kitsilano
Tenant Association or help with
any tenant related problems is
available at the Vancouver
Tenants Council by phoning 872-
22.44.

Another community tenant
group, the Grandview Tenants
Association this week announced 4

general membership meeting 10
‘discuss pending changes in the

Landlordand Tenant Act. The GTA
meeting will take place July 12 in
room L-3 of the Britannia Centre at
7:30 p.m. Guest speaker will be
Bruce Eriksen. Transportation and
further information is available by
phoning the GTA at 253-3575.

organizational ©

most, if not all, concerned groups

Canada’s dream is still unfulfilled

By MAURICE RUSH

O Canada, O lovely land,

This is the dream our fathers planned,
And though the rich have ravished you,
We swear to make this dream come true.

These words were written by Canada’s working class
poet, the late Joe Wallace, to express his love of Canada,
his dream of a great land, his hatred for the rich who
despoiled that dream, and his pledge to fight to make that
dream come true.

It’s well to reflect on those words as we approach the
110th anniversary of Confederation, which came into
effect on July 1, 1867 as an act of a British parliament
bringing together in one state most of the colonies in
British North America.

Confederation was not a perfect marriage. It embodied
many inequalities between the rich and the poor, between
French- and English-speaking nations in Canada. In many
respects it had the earmarks of a shotgun wedding in
which a free choice was denied the people. No vote for

approval took lace, nor was it marked by any great public ~

demonstration of enthusiasm. It was a pact negotiated
from on top and it incorporated many privileges for the
rich while denying democratic rights for the many.
But Confederation was essentially a forward-looking,
patriotic act which had as its goal the creation of a great
national state stretching from Atlantic to Pacific. It was
carried through at a time when the new capitalist class in
Canada were still patriotic and had_a vision of a greater
Canada, united through nation-building projects such as
the railway, and the creation of a national state from east
to west which would prevent the gobbling up of parts of
Canada by the burgeoning colossus to the south. .
Interms ofhistory, Canada is a very young country. But
even in the span of just over 100 years the dream has gone
sour. The full potential of our “‘true north strong and free”’
has not materialized. The main change which took place
in Canada came among its ruling class who changed from
a patriotic class seeking to build the national life of

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JU

Canada, into one seeking to sell our land and its riches to
the highest foreign bidder for profits.

Instead of patriots, the rich who dominate the economic
and political life of Canada, have become paytriots. The
national dream has been replaced by the dreams of the
capitalists for bigger profits through selling our natural
wealth and resources to foreign multinational cor-
porations for a quick buck.

Instead of a vision of a greater Canada which would
open our wealth for the benefit of Canada, the successors
to the Fathers of Confederation. are busying themselves
today trying to convince Canadians that their ‘‘ex-
pectations are too high’’ and that they must settle for
lower living standards. They are falling over each other to

- see which of them can enter into arrangements with

foreign multinational corporations, mainly Americans, to
send our raw materials to other lands.

They are negotiating to build pipelines to draw off the
fabulous riches of Canada’s north to the U.S., instead of
using that wealth for the common good of our country.
They no longer have the vision of building Canada from
east to west. Now they have the vision of moving
everything that can be moved south to the U.S. for profits.
That’s the name of their game. The Canadian capitalist
class, who are now busy trying to organize an ‘‘ex-
travaganza’’ on July 1, have long ago ceased being
patriotic and have become anti-patriotic.

Pauline Johnson, one of Canada’s great poets and bard
of her people, the native Indians, also had a great dream
for Canada. In one of her poems she wrote:

Canada with might force sweeps on,

To gainin power and glory before the dawn,
Then meet we in one common brotherhood;
In peace and purpose understood.

She had the dream of a Canada in which its people would
livein acommon brotherhood, in peace and for a common

purpose. If she were still alive today she would un-’

doubtedly be a very disappointed person. No one wrote a
more powerful indictment of the treatment of her people
than she did in her poems, Cry of an Indian Wife, and The

Cattle Thief. The common brotherhood she cried for in her
poem has not been realized either for her people, the
people of French Canada, or new immigrants who are
constantly subjected to racist attitudes from government
and other high-placed officials.

The true Canadian patriots today are the working and
democratic people who fight to make the dream of a
greater Canada a reality; who fight to stop the sellout of
Canada to the U.S. and foreign multinational cor-
porations, and who want to see Canada’s wealth used to
build a fuller life for present and future generations of
Canadians. The true patriots are those who fight for
genuine Canadian democracy based on recognition of the
national rights of both French- and English-speaking
nations in a new pact to ensure Canadian unity, and who
defend the rights of our native peoples.

There, has never been a time in our history when
Canadian working people need to stand on: guard for
Canada more than today. If the working and-democratic
people don’t, who will? They are the true patriots and
inheritors of the Canadian dream which still has to be
realized and which will only be fully realized when the
power of the monopolies in Canada has been ended and a
socialist system established. Until that day true patriots
should take to heart the words of our national anthem:

We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee,
O, Canada we stand on guard for thee.

TRIBUNE

Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — FRED WILSON
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