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By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

The occupation of the provin- cial government’s new day care information centre at 45 West Eighth Avenue has dramatized the urgent need for more day care centres for the children of working mothers.

While the attention given to it by the press is no doubt moti- vated by a desire to embarrass the NDP government, Rehabili- tation Minister Norm Levi's rather high-handed. method of handling the situation (by refusing to talk to the women until they abandon their sit-in) hasn’t helped.

The group of mothers occu- pying the government informa- tion centre are demanding com- munity control of centres, money for centres for children under three, and changes in licensing of personnel and premises. In doing so they are not asking for anything the NDP did not promise. The 1972 election platform of the provin- cial NDP stated:

‘‘More and more mothers of young children work outside the home for economic as well as personal reasons. The NDP be- lieves that the care of children is a community concern and that both parents and children will benefit from the estab- lishment of free, community controlled child care centres available 24 hours a day.”

The NDP government has been moving too slowly in im- plementing this promise.

Rehabilitation Minister Norm Levi has expressed con- cern that some mothers may use these centres as a ‘‘dumping ground’ for their children. Perhaps some will, but an abuse of a good thing by a fewis hardly grounds for refusing to provide a service needed by many.

Vancouver City Council also has a responsibility. It should move quickly to find and make available buildings suitable for day care centres. It should also take all necessary steps to expe- dite the carrying out of neces- sary inspections. and the issuing of licenses for such premises.

* * *

Hockey has really caught on among the youngsters of our city. It’s a good, healthy, vigorous sport. With such interest Canada will continue to produce more than its share of the finest hockey players in the world.

But our young’ hockey enthusiasts, and the parents backing them who are digging deep for equipment and spend- ing many hours helping out, have run into a roadblock. It’s the shortage of ice rinks and

Happy birthday, Tom

The editor and staff of the PT. on behalf of all our readers, take this opportunity to extend to Tom McEwen happy birthday greetings on the occasion of his 82nd birthday, February 11.

May you, Tom, have many more years of good health and may your valuable contribution to the cause of labor, democracy and socialism continue, and may your sharp pen continue for many years to strip away the hypocricy of our rulers and light the way to a better life.

Mothers protest dramatizes need for day care centres

time available on the ice. Here we have a city of about 430,000 people with hockey booming and we have less than half a dozen ice rinks — the Forum at the PNE, Grandview Community Centre, Killarney and Riley Park. In each there is only one sheet of ice.

I believe City Council should act without any further delay'to provide more ice rinks in our city. One of the immediate steps that could be taken is to expand existing facilities by construct- ing an additional sheet of ice in each of these rinks. That would double the capacity without too much strain on the services needed to keep a rink in condi- tion.

From a longer range point of view, the city should undertake

to build more community ice >

rinks. A planshould be drawn up that will guarantee a steady ex- pansion of ice rink facilities year by year. In summer these facilities could be used for la- crosse and other activities.

As for the financing of such projects, I believe that the city and the province should jointly share the construction costs. The amount of money required is small compared to what the city is annually contributing to developers by way of sub- sidies and concessions.

Among other things, the build- ing of more ice rinks for hockey would be a positive and signi- ficant factor in dealing with the problem of juvenile de- linquency. Parents know this— that is why they are supporting their children in becoming in- volved in sports. City Council should show the same interest and concern.

Additional ice rinks are a use- ful means of preventing de- linquency and in the long runa lot less expensive than the use of police, our Courts and social workers to deal with de- linquency after it becomes an accomplished fact.

YOUNGSTERS STORM CITY HALL DEMANDING HOCKEY TIME AT PNE

Close to 300 minor hockey players, their parents and coaches, stormed city council chambers Tuesday night to demand priority of ice time and parking facilities from the PNE.

The PNE minor hockey association, led by Tom Keyes and Jim Cork, president of the Hastings Community Assoc., presented a brief outlining ‘“‘PNE harassment’ of the Hockey Assoc., and annual

disturbances in their season due

a body began its ‘‘sittings”’.

quack remedy for social ills.

I our democratic or free-way-of-life as it is often

euphimistically referred to, whenever govern- ments, regardless of partisan labels get caught up ina big issue or crisis of their own making, resort to a ‘‘commission”’ to get themselves off the hook, kill time, and of course produce nothing that wasn’t already well and widely known before such

to events such as the boat show. Jim Cork called the problem a manifestation of a larger problem, of the over “all recreational needs of East Vancouver.’’ Cork called for civic control of the forum, in res- ponse to their ‘‘community be- damned attitude.”

The motion placed by Alder- man Rankin, calling onthe PNE to allot priority ice time to minor hockey, provide parking and re-locate the boat show, was passed unanimously.

6“

FRIDAY, FEB. 23

Vancouver high — school students will be out in force to

support the tag day for medical .

aid to Vietnam on Friday, Feb- ruary, 23. This was assured last week when Dr. Robert Sharp, superintendent of Schools in Vancouver, gave his approval of the tag day.

He informed the committee that high school students fifteen years and over wishing to

Ald. Harry Rankin shown with one of the taggers for Vietnam aidin June, 1967. The second tag day for Vietnam on Friday, Feb. 23 is expected to far exceed the results of the first tag day.

High school students) to tag for Vietnam

volunteer, and with pa approval, will be permil! be absent from school ! afternoon to work as taggel®: Ai The Tag Day for Medic@

3 ; a for Vietnam committee

oh nounced this week that supp

for the tag day is gaining 4 wide support and sponsol Last week the caucus ° 4? MLAs in Victoria vole

ren ‘ ted!)

—t & =~ 2 SS DD

support the tag day and wish? every success. on Davis M. Brousson, Litt MLA for North Vane Capilano has become av honorary sponsor. Reverel

Van Druten, chairman oi ’

B.C. Conference of the ; Church, has also become a sorer of the tag day.

the sponsoring comitteé

attention to the January

1973 New England Journ F Medicine, in which’a 8° i Boston’s most

funds to restore the 1!

Bach Mail Hospital in Han0” ii}

The trade union movemé ii

Vancouver is playing 4

part in mobilizing for the tee

with the labor council of fiche

represented on the orga, committee. Last wee el! UFAWU convention ad0P%)

resolution spelling out tot

support fishermen am al workers will give to the tae With only a week to g0! day committee issued an@ for volunteer taggers. Hundreds are still Tagging will be in two hour ® between 11 a.m. and

or 224-0203.

Thus since the turn of the century we have had oodles and oodles of ‘‘commissions’’, royal commissions, parlia- mentary commissions, senate commissions, public commis- sions, etc. and ad infinitum, ‘‘sitting’’ for months and years much like a broody hen on a nestful of glass eggs, producing nothing except a whopper of a big bill for that magnanimous source of all such extortionists, John Q. Public.

At the end of these commission “‘inquiries’’ comes a voluminous report— the longer the ‘sitting’ the more bulky the ‘‘report’’ which, nine times out of ten is filed away in government archives to gather dust. while the lad whose multiple tax dollars paid in full for the damn thing. isn’t even permitted to see or hear what's in it.

But the commission “report” has served its prime pur- pose. that of getting the ruling administration out of an embarrassing jam, of having “‘sat’’ on the issue so long that John Q. Public has forgotten what it was all about. and aside

_ from having to pay-the-shot probably couldn't care less. That inherent ‘‘forgetfulness” of John’s has been (to him) a mighty costly ailment since ‘commissions’ became governmental

Another thing about such “commissions” as the current oil and gas prices gouge points up. is that the big oil monopoly its subsidiaries and its political servitors in government have become so big. so powerful and so insolent of the public weal that a dozen commissions could *‘sit’’ for a like number of

years and not ‘‘discover’’ anything that is not already well dons i" mented, but never acted upon. ‘‘Commissions’’ have the! |

purposes warble the Trudeaus, Stanfields et al, but prim among these is “‘not to kill the goose that lays the golden epee

Back in 1937 Mr. Justice M.A. Macdonald, father of B.C. 5

present attorney-general Alex Macdonald, headed a royal CO™ |

mission to inquire into the ramifications of the oil octopl prices gouging of that period. That was 36-years ago and 8" | and oil prices have surely skyrocketed since those days. Eve

then the report of the Macdonald Commission showed a te? oy

eleven cents per gallonexcess charge on the public consume! |

and the oil and gas monopoly went right on with its pri

gouging.

In 1966 a second royal commission was again set up und

| | | The Pattullo Liberal government buried the Macdonald rep? ‘| | |

the chairmanship of Judge C.W. Morrow to‘‘inquire”’ into th

oil and gas robberies, which had in the interim become mu more powerful, more greedy, and better able to cover UP

price skinning of the public.

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But the Bennett Socreds, like the Pattullo Liberals bel, them, had no intention of “killing the goose that laid

|

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| goldeneggs’’ which, among other things helped winelection® | so the Morrow commission report, as with the Macdonal report before it, was duly interred with ‘‘no flowers y i request’. In observations and recommendations, | reports were Similar; a tighter rein on oil monopoly price’: sharp’ business practices, conspiracies in restraint t

pot!

trade, in fact a barefaced robbery of the unprotect®

consumer.

—

_ For both reports, neither of which caused the fainter, | ripple on Tory-Liberal-Socred administrations, and neithel | | which John Q. Public was permitted to see-or read, he ha

oy) the shot in higher taxes, while the old partisan towel bv of big monopoly romped home to new ‘‘victories”’ on t

" “golden eggs’ extracted by the oil and other kindred vultures: _Agovernment “take over” of the oiland gasindustry!? ' entirety is perhaps too much to hope for at this time, but? y least our incumbent attorney-general should have no illusio” , left about “royal” or less-royal commissions. Perhap® |. | Would serve the “public interest’ best at this time to disinlt

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ol

and publish the Macdonald-Morrow reports on oil monoP ne | price gouging. That would give John Q. some return ont | mint he has already spent — for nothing.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1973——PAGE 2

FAUATS

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